We long-suffering few ... atheists, I mean. In an article in saturday's New York Times, Ellen Johnson, the president of American Atheists, was interviewed on what it's like to be an atheist in today's America. She made it sound like we are the last minority that it's okay to hate!

There's no doubt that atheists are a very small minority in this country. I remember when I had my final citizenship interview just two or three years ago. The old INS officer who interviewed me seemed to have become numbed by the process of screening wave after wave of anxious prospective immigrants, yet when I told him that I couldn't say the Pledge of Allegiance exactly as written because I couldn't truthfully state "so help me God", his distant, preoccupied eyes suddenly focussed sharply on me with a look of grave distrust. Curtly, he asked me the astoundingly difficult question: "if England went to war against America, which side would you fight for?" I gave him the correct answer of course (duh!), but I could tell that he wasn't sure that I was the right kind of guy to become a fully-fledged 'Merican.

I admit, though, that if I stop to truly, deeply think about my beliefs, I come to the stark truth that we're just here for our life on earth; when we die, it's all completely over - absolute nothingness. Kind of a black picture really - if you carry it around with you day-to-day. But I don't think about it - just like, I suspect, most Christians don't spend their day in a kind of blissful anticipation of Heaven.

Just about the only "faith" I carry is that of science. All the other stuff: astrology, crystals, ghosts, ESP - I just can't accept. The same goes for extra-terrestrial life and even the Loch Ness Monster. Sure, it would be great fun to be proven wrong - but in the absence of evidence, it's impossible for me to side with any of those beliefs.

But ... and it's a big "but", I have zero compulsion to push my beliefs on others, and, frankly, I don't like those who do. That's why that article on atheism in the New York Times riled me so much. Way back in my early twenties, when I had an 18-month fling with evangelical Christianity, I was out there on the sidewalk, pushing tracts on people. And much worse - I converted two of my best friends! In fact, at one point I almost quit my degree program to become a missionary - I'm not kidding! I took it very seriously, and felt that if I said I believed something, I should behave as if I believed it. But looking back, I now think that when I took on the duty of evangelism, I did it more to reassure myself of my own beliefs. Similarly, I'd guess Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, does it because she maybe secretly believes there's the slimmest chance of hell's existence; and she wants to convert others to give herself more assurance that her own beliefs are correct.Either that or she wants to make sure she's not alone in hell!

In the article, Johnson's main point was that she hated having other people's faith thrust upon her through living in a religious society. She's also worried about Joseph Lieberman's efforts to bring faith back into public life. I say more power to Lieberman! While I don't want to sound holier than thou, I do believe that the general level of moral behavior in society is deteriorating, and I, for one, believe that a large part of it is that too few people receive a thorough grounding in morality. You can get that grounding from many sources other than religion - school, parents, the political "bully pulpit", the media: that's one of the reason I like "The Waltons" so much - it shows me an ideal of how to treat others - it doesn't bother me in the least that their behavior is grounded in the beliefs of the Baptist Church.

Oh Lord, I'm sounding more and more like my mother! But she did have a few good ideas, you know!

There's only one area I agreed with in the New York Times article; that it's possible to assert your morality without requiring religion. Now, I can't honestly claim that I'm the the World's foremost example of gentlemanly behavior. I tend to be selfish at times, and I'm not always the most warm-hearted of men. But I think I try more often than not to do what is "right" and "good" - to make a net positive contribution to society. Why? If I think it's all over for my soul when I pop off? It's pretty simple really: I think you can make a strong intellectual case for moral behavior without religion. Now, these are just my own homespun philosophical musings - just lifetime beliefs that I've built up through way too much time spent thinking. And my beliefs are not so much a conscious way of living, but more an attempt to explain how you can live the way you do without having a real explanation for the meaning of life. But my beliefs boil down to this simple and obvious statement: if you treat people well, they'll treat you well in return. And we'll all live happily ever after. :)

You all breathe a sigh of relief as I announce a change of subject :) I had a great weekend - spent most of it with Jed. I'd forgotten the joy of just hanging out with someone you care about - doing nothing in particular, just mosying around town. On Saturday, we ... what did we do? Oh yeah, we ... well, skip that part :) Then we rented an old black & white movie with Bogey and Bacall, "Dark Passage". I didn't know much about it - it's only prior reccommendation was that I'd read in a San Francisco guide book that Bacall lived in one of my favorite San Francisco houses - a gleaming Art Deco masterpiece on upper Montgomery Street (I have a photo of it in my May 23rd journal). I think we went to bed by eleven p.m. - an old married couple already? :)

Sunday turned out to be extremely hot, so after a late brunch at Baghdad Cafe, we just took some long, very slow walks in Russian Hill, then down by the Marina. It's truly hard for me to believe this: but, after a lot of talk, we acknowledged to each other that we're "boyfriends". Who expected this? Certainly not me. Yet all of a sudden, out of the blue, I'm hooked. And I couldn't be happier about it.

We're pretty much wiped out by the heat at this point. Amazingly, as we sat at this cafe on Chestnut Street, my friend Hunter and his entourage pulled into the parking spot right in front of us. Oh, if you're wondering who the guy on the right of the photo is - I haven't any idea!

It was too hot to take many photos. But I took this one of the Palace of Fine Arts, a spectacular structure left over from San Francisco's great Expo of 1915.