This is so close to exactly where I am, right now, in my own putatively "spiritual" journey.
"...if you read the chapter on atheism, I call it ironic atheism. I think the Buddha was not a devout atheist. The Buddha simply did not have any time for the very concept or the language of God, and he dismissed it, really, as just yet another example of how human beings can dream up of all sorts of things, and he put it to one side. So Buddhism is atheistic in the sense that it simply it doesn’t have recourse to God language, but it’s not atheistic in the sense that it has as a central doctrine the denial of God." - Stephen Batchelor, a Buddhist scholar being interviewed for a website called buddhistgeeks.
I know atheism makes most people very uncomfortable. Unless asked directly, I don't bring it up. I have no interest whatsoever in confronting other people's faiths. It serves no purpose at all. But my "faith-based" atheism is pretty strong - it's taken shape and survived for 10 years. I do believe strongly that it is by our acts that we define our moral character, and not by what we believe or fail to believe.
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