That is not atheism then, it's called Agnosticism.

Atheism is the rejection of the existence of deities. So yes it is a belief because it is a statement of belief.

Jay explained this earlier. He said that those who reject the existence of deities are a subset of all atheists, and in that subset he agrees with you.

@OP. In a culture of rejection of  faith, I believe religion would struggle to survive. However, those who would be religious would be that much better, because persecution generally leads to meakness. However sometimes it leads to paranoia so I'm not sure anymore.

Religion as we know it won't always exist, by and large. Humanity's past is littered with extinct religions as people converted and moved on to other religions that were able to sell themselves to the masses. As such, it's only a matter of time until most religions are themselves replaced by more agnostic faiths and a belief in reason, reality and science. Polls show people are losing faith in parts of the world. Christianity and other such religions are becoming less relevant as more and more people begin to discover that they can understand the world and accept death without believing in things like the Garden of Eden and heaven.

If this were not the case, why else would some religious institutions go so far as to fight the onslaught of science? To try to put scientifically baseless things on the same level as genuine scientific theories like evolution and gravity? It's because these institutions see science as the reason why people are losing faith, as the reason why they are losing power. At least, that's how I see it. Maybe I'm wrong. I know that there are people who work at the Vatican who will openly embrace evolution, so don't think I'm painting every religious institution with the same brush. Just the ones trying to do things like the above.

Of course, some religions will be resilient enough to survive. Buddhism is the perfect example of a religion that can easily co-exist in a world dominated by scientific though and reason.