[photon]

No, atheist thought doesn't exist in a vacuum. Most people get their belief system from society around them and label it either by their religion, or some kind of fuzzy "be good" if not religious.

But among atheists that have thought about it, they'll put the normal labels to their moral framework.. secular humanist, libertarian, cultural Christian, pantheist, lots of words to describe the different parts of any given individual's belief system.

Maybe atheists are responsible for some generalization, but maybe it's just because that's a common banner that some people can gather under for a specific view that tends to get ignored in public thought and discussion.

I don't know if it's entirely atheists fault though, I don't know how many times I read about someone saying something negative about a religious position and they're automatically called an atheist.