I didn't call Henley an atheist. The atheist believes there is no higher power, period. I think he has said he sees God in nature or something like that fairly recently, so unless he has changed his views, he is not an atheist. I'm afraid I cannot cite the quote where he states that he sees God in nature, but he has stated it more than once, so it probably could be found with little effort by someone who was interested.

But the song is not vaguely religious. It's Christian. (See story of the song)

I think it is safe to say that when this song was recorded in 1982, he was not a Christian. Can I give you a direct quote from a 1982 interview that states that? No. If I am mistaken, I apologize.... but I think few would argue he was.

I do remember that in 1979, in the Rolling Stone interview, you can find Don's beliefs at that time period vaguely stated in there. I don't have time to look up the particular page, but I remember he said something about it in that article.

You can also do a search using the DHO search engine for words like "God", "religion", etc. I don't know what you'll find there - maybe nothing of consequence - but if you really want to know, it's worth a shot.

I wish I could claim the encyclopedic knowledge that you have attributed to me, but sometimes, all you remember is that you read something somewhere. To find the specific citation, you gotta look it up... myself included.

If anything I've said is inaccurate or a misrepresentation, I am happy to be corrected by someone who knows better.