You are not behind. You are not lagging. You are not supposed to be somewhere else. You are exactly where you should be. Embrace now and go from there. Don't think that you have to catch up to something.
The atheist realizes that there must not only be an acceptance of his right to hold his opinion, but that ultimately his is the job to turn his culture from religion, to eliminate those irrational ideas which have held the human race in intellectual slavery.