Sitting watching TV, the phone rang. Comcast showed a number someplace in Florida.

I answered the phone.  A new friend from Florida wanted to know whether I believe that we should have national prayer day. This friend told me that national prayer day was being threatened by militant atheists.

While I am an atheist, I believe strongly in prayer as long as people are free to pray to whoever or whatever they want. The idea of a day of national prayer seems a good thing. So I said okay I’d like to know more.  The friend told me that Gov. Huckabee was going to talk to me. So there was a tape from Huckabee, basically saying that our right to pray was being threatened. He was raising money for a movement to protect national prayer day.

After the talk my friend came back.  He had more to say telling me that this was an important thing to do for Jesus.  I said this kind of upset me since I wasn’t a Christian. Actually some members of my own family believe in Gods … we have orthodox Jews in the family and my sister, a reform Jew,  has very strong beliefs that Jews can not be atheists.  I also have friends who are Roman Catholic, Mormon and even Muslim.

The man was obviously dumbfounded. I asked him which God he wanted us to pray to?  He answered “The God.”  I asked if this included Allah and told him that Allah is not a name,  actually the same word Jews use .. “El” to describe the God with no name. He tried to tell me that this country had been founded by Christians and asked me what I thought George Washington would want. As a historian I was able to tell them that George Washington was amongst the most adamant atheists among the founding fathers.

Needless to say, after some lengthy time discussing these matters, we departed from each other amicably.

Praise God