My Inner Atheist

For several years now I’ve become more and more acquainted with the atheist that lives inside of me. I’m not saying this as a gimmick. I mean it. It is a very unique atheist that lives within me. He is an unusual blend of my own history, experiences, explorations, thoughts and feelings. The interesting thing is that this inner atheist is actually the shadow of the inner believer that lives within me. So these aren’t evil thoughts that sometimes overpower my religious ones. Rather, these thoughts are part and parcel of my religious thoughts also. The light and the shadow actually have a unified presence in my life. This is a simple list of 10 markers that could identify this inner atheist of mine:

1. the existence of God can’t be proven
2. fundamentalism, in any form, annoys me
3. although I appreciate my Christian heritage, once I got to a certain point in my development, I found it more difficult to find support within it. So I understand why some leave the church and even the faith.
4. I have received the cruelest treatment at the hands of church leaders, so I am very suspicious of religious authorities
5. although the church can be good, too many Christians are blind to the difference between the community and the corruption and corruptive power of the institution
6. I appreciate and am interested in the sciences, and believe that their findings shouldn’t upset the truly religious mind
7. I think all religions are an apparent local and temporal manifestation of a deeper unifying reality
8. that some people are discriminated against based on their sexual orientation, beliefs, race, gender, etc., is unethical, especially within religious groups
9. even if I did believe that there might be a God, though unprovable, a mysterious divine power or what have you, and someone asked me if I believed in God, I would probably say no because I wouldn’t want them to assume I was ascribing to their beliefs
10. I look forward to the day when I will dialog with a wide variety of people with vastly differing beliefs and non-beliefs (not just online like this blog, but face to face), believing that dialog contributes to a richer and better humanity