Excellent point. I'll to it. To too many Christians, and atheist is anyone who is not a Christian. For many years I was an atheist. Then after the passing of my father, I started attending a baptist church, confessed, was baptized, yada yada. I eventually came to the conclusion that I thought I believed, because I was emotionally damaged. As that damage began to heal, I realized I could not really embrace the Christian faith.
However, I never went back to being an atheist. I'm still left with the belief that there is something bigger out there, I just don't believe it's Jesus. Still, that undefined belief would make me an atheist in many run of the mill Christian's lexicons.
Sounds like you are a “righteous gentile”, described in Judaism as Noahidism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noachide