Labels are cumbersome. To self-identify as an atheist, or a Jew, or a Hindu, or a Muslim, and so on, requires that you accept ownership of all that is attached to that label. It is wholly irrelevant whether or not you personally accept the burden of your label, it has been hoisted upon you and strapped down with steel chains by those around you. At least it feels this way sometimes, doesn’t it?

I hesitate every time I tell someone I am an atheist. The moment it comes out of my mouth, my tongue remains poised to follow up with, “well, but…” But, I’m not hostile toward religion. But, I wouldn’t say I’m a secularist. But, I’m not non-religious. That last one is the kicker. The first two qualifications result in friendly nods and accepting smiles that seem to say, “so there’s hope for you yet.” The moment I qualify my label by saying that I don’t think being an atheist means being non-religious I am met with confused stares, glazed looks, and sometimes, genuine intrigue.

Hoping that you who read this are in that final category, I want to tell you why am a religious atheist.

I am not an agnostic. I am not a Humanist. I am not a Christian. I am not a Jew. I am not a Muslim. I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point. To self-identify as an atheist allows me to talk about all the things that I am not. It does little, however, to explain who I am. I am a believer whose creed has not yet been written. I am a member of a congregation that has not yet formed. I am an atheist waiting for a religion that does not yet exist.

I am sure many of my fellow atheists will cringe at my confession. I am not a closet theist, nor do I think that I am somehow missing out on religion and simply waiting patiently for a new prophet. Rather, I see religion as a type of language that allows us to speak about our world in a specific way. It provides humanity an invaluable lexicon for which science is not a substitute. This language has nothing to do with empiricism, but is like poetic language; non-sensical utterances that are emotionally and experientially meaningful.

In the history of all languages there are speakers who at some point feel unsatisfied with the existing lexicon. Some experience or thought that simply cannot be articulated by the extant vocabulary. So they invent new ones – new words, novel ways of using existing words, and wholly original utterances. I am such a speaker, wholly unsatisfied with the existing lexicon.

Just like some schools of linguistics have proposed that human beings cannot operate without language and that the brain is somehow structurally linguistic – I am thinking of Noam Chomsky specifically – I am suggesting that being religious is an integral part of the human story. As a self-proclaimed atheist I would like to propose that we stop thinking of religion as something we choose to be a part of, or to disconnect from, and think of it as a language in which there are ranges of fluency. In my case, there is not a religion that allows me to articulate myself.

Imagine for a moment how clumsy it would read if I, a native English speaker, attempted to write Arabic poetry. Or how it would feel if you tried to express yourself in French when the entire world spoke dialects of Chinese. For those who experience conversion, imagine being trapped in English when you truly express yourself in German – so you adopt a new lexicon, a new language, that allows you to articulate your inner self to the world. After all, so much of what it means to be religious has to do with how humans negotiate their relationships to one another and to some reality beyond the tangible – how we articulate ourselves in the world.

So, I am a stranded poet. I am bursting with lyrical expressions and have absolutely no way to articulate them. I don’t think it’s possible for atheism to be the cornerstone of identity. We can’t identify with a negative. It would be like saying, “I am not Hispanic…” or, “I don’t like cheese…” Refutation is not informative. Saying that I am not Hispanic does not mean that I am Native American, it simply says that I am not Hispanic. Being an atheist, for me, does not mean that I am not religious, it simply means that I am not a theist.

I am, convinced that I am part of a growing number of stranded poets, speaking in languages that don’t allow them to be fully expressive. I am, sure that religion has already begun to evolve and that new utterances are beginning to emerge. Most of all, I am sure that I belong in this conversation. Having no religion does not make me non-religious; and if the Sikh, or Pagan, or Mormon, or Jewish, or Muslim way of being religious is a valid one, then so is mine.

Mine is a religion in formation and this is my exhortation that the inter-religious conversation not remain solely in the realm of established discourse. That we allow novel utterances to shape our dialogue and do not fall back on traditional modes of speaking.