Being a convert myself from the Catholic religion to the Muslim religion since 4.5 years now I feel special. Firstly because I believe Islam is the right path. Secondly, in Islam it mentions that those who take Shahada, supposedly previous sins are forgotten.
Also as a muslim now I feel that I have been accepted very warmly and have been admired by many for taking what I thought was a small step, but what others from outside the muslim religion think of it as a huge step, risk, etc. (probably because of all the negative media attention). Thus I probably think that the reason they make a big deal about people like Cat Stevens is that I feel that especially celebrities and personalities come under more criticism and scrutiny then the average person when converting and it makes one think "hey if they can do it and then so can we. If you want you can consider them as "role models".
My 2cents worth:
Atheism in the revealed religions is denial of God. That is fairly simple and easy to understand. As I understand, in 'non-revealed' religions it gets tricky and not all that straight forward. One dissolves in a mist of semantic arguments and concepts appear hard to keep clear. The closest I have understood is that atheism is merely a mental state indicating lack of knowledge of 'reality'; has got nothing to do with a paternalistic figure head. Whether ethics need to be derived from morality is a serious question in the west, but I think it has little relevance in Islam. Anyway the question itself is not an absolute query about nature.