That one out of five Americans who identify themselves as atheists also say that they believe in God or a "universal spirit" and that one out of ten pray at least once a week can lead to only one conclusion. These people don't know that an atheist is, by definition, someone who does not believe in God or in the supernatural. To say that you're an atheist who believes in God and prays is the equivalent of saying that you're a vegetarian who loves to scarf down barbecued ribs and T-bone steak. Or a Christian who rejects the teachings of the New Testament. Or a religiously observant Jew who also believes that Jesus was the Messiah. Or a Muslim who believes that Jesus was God.

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There is absolutely no difference between supernatural beliefs in such ancient systems of junk thought as astrology and supernatural beliefs held by formal religions, which came later in human history. What unites all believers in all forms of the supernatural and the paranormal is that they either require no evidence or invent evidence to fit the faith they already hold. The belief that human fate is influenced by the "sign" of your birth date is no more and no less irrational than belief in the Virgin Birth, the divine parting of the Red Sea, the existence of a paradise in which virgins await Muslim martyrs, or the appearance of an angel named Moroni to hand down the Book of Mormon in a field in upstate New York.

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The whole controversy about the role of religion in the military is much more complicated than the spat over prayer at mandatory meals (although the ACLU is right and the practice should be ended). The real issue, and it is a real problem, is that right-wing Christian evangelicals, encouraged by the Bush administration and religious conservatives at the top level of the officer corps, have attempted to push their views on non-Christians (and liberal Christians) within the service academies as well and on military bases. Last fall, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org) filed a lawsuit against the Defense Department after a high-level officer disrupted a meeting of atheists and other non-Christian solders on an Army base in Iraq. It is disgusting that the base commander did not immediately discipline an officer who apparently does not believe in the Constitution he is sworn to uphold.

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That only 30 percent of Americans admit to harboring feelings of racial prejudice demonstrates a national capacity for self-delusion far more interesting than the question of how racial prejudice reflects upon religious faith. There isn't the slightest indication, in the past or the present, that belief in God correlates with greater empathy toward one's fellow human beings. People throughout recorded history have believed in gods who taught them to slaughter others. In the United States, some Christian believers opposed slavery while others, in a house just about equally divided, took up arms to preserve slavery. Until quite recently, churches were the most segregated institutions in America, and it is still exceedingly rare, outside of megachurches, to encounter a multiracial congregation.

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