I'm sure some are as shallow thinking as that but it doesn't seem John Gray is among them given he goes on to elucidate the differences among the types of atheists.
“Modern atheists are constantly trying to find surrogates for the god they reject—science for example, political surrogates, belief in human progress, or whatever. I think to be a true atheist, you would dispense with those, and live in a world that was truly godless.”
Given the liberal (classical to modern) need to undermine tradition especially faith, liberals then need to fill that void. Humanism and Statism seem to have sufficed.