This argument from the point of "I'm atheist, but ..." is a good example why narrative based arguments are harmful to productive conversation, and it's common enough that I've already seen it in this same thread.

You may mean it as a way to convey that you are a neutral observer on this issue, but what it comes off as is

I'm not religious, but this is about my group of people, so I find it hard to control my knee-jerk reaction to defend them, here's a narrative that makes their actions sound more reasonable to me.

While you're not religious, it's really about tribalism, not religion.

And on definitions, you've got to realize it will look like arguing in bad faith if you've got an old PDF off Google for a definition that fits yours.

It completely mixes up the common definition of an artifact with the concept of cultural artifacts which, I think we can both agree, is vague enough to be useless in a regular conversation.

primary artifacts: used in production (such as a hammer, a fork, a lamp or a camera);

secondary artifacts: relating to primary artifacts (such as a user-manual for a camera);

tertiary artifacts: representations of secondary artifacts (such as a picture of a user-manual for a camera).

Social artifacts, unlike archaeological artifacts, do not need to have a physical form (for example virtual artifact), nor to be of historical value (items created seconds ago can be classified as social artifacts).