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ethical code of the school, the subject was fair game. But a negative reaction he had all the same. Whereas everyone else was in hysterics, Nathan groused and frowned and moped. Without thinking, he muttered, “I’m an agnostic.”
    Ellen Nordberg spit out her raspberry seltzer. She thought it was part of the joke.
    Joe Kafka hit him on the back and said, “That’s a good one, Nate.”
    But Nathan said, “No, I’m serious,” with a look that showed he really was. “I’m an agnostic,” he repeated.
    The room rapidly deflated. Nathan Townsend was both lucky and unlucky in this moment. At another school, they would not have cared that he was an agnostic. So that was unlucky. But at another school where agnostics were scorned, they might have openly derided him. On this count Nate was fortunate. In the rigorously precise ethic of the Feuerbach School, it was decidedly unacceptable to mock someone to his face, no matter what the offense. Thus no one dared ridicule Nathan openly.
    But leprosy would have been a more popular admission. At the Feuerbach School, it went without saying that everyone was expected to be an atheist, or more precisely a secular humanist. Secular humanism is a value system that embraces reason and justice and rejects religion as a basis for moral decision making. This repudiation of dogma was utterly essential to the culture of the school. The following quotation was emblazoned above the main door, through which each student and faculty member walked every day:
    R ELIGION IS ALL BUNK.
    —T HOMAS A LVA E DISON
    So fervently committed to this outlook on life was the leadership of the Feuerbach School that it had been trying for years to have the American government recognize secular humanism as a religion. To the indoctrinated observer, this might appear to be a contradiction, but to the Feuerbach School it was a matter of high principle. Also, the designation carried with it certain tax advantages. Inevitably, the debate had devolved into litigation, which was not going well for the school. The trial judge, and the members of a unanimous appellatecourt panel, had all attached great weight to the Edison quote. In the view of the school’s attorneys, this was too literal a reading of the quote above the door. For example, the following colloquy occurred during the argument before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals sitting en banc:
    Judge Hiram Fernandez: Counsel, how can you argue that the Feuerbach School has a religious mission, and hence is entitled to IRS Code Section 501(c)(3) status, when the sign above your door says “Religion is all bunk?”
    William Daley, Esq. (of Daley, Daley, Daley & Dealey): Your Honor, with all due respect, I submit you are reading the inscription too literally.
    Judge Hiram Fernandez: Oh? How should I read it?
    William Daley, Esq.: The critical point is that my clients are zealously dedicated to their absence of faith-based conviction. One might reasonably say that they are . . . religious about it.
    Judge Hiram Fernandez: I see. Very clever.
    In truth, Hiram Fernandez was not impressed at all and, as every lawyer knows, as goes Hiram Fernandez, so goes the Second Circuit. The school lost the appeal 9–0. Bill Daley blustered to the press about an appeal to the Supreme Court, but no one at Feuerbach held out much hope, and the case was something of a sore spot at the school.
    “Don’t you believe in the scientific method?” Joe Kafka asked incredulously.
    “I certainly believe in the fact of it,” Nathan said. “And I believe it has produced many socially useful results.”
    “Then why are you willing to make a leap of faith and saythat God may exist?”
    “Let me ask you this,” Nathan replied. “Applying scientific evidence, what evidence is there that God does not exist?”
    “Only my experience,” Joe said.
    “Is it not then a leap of faith to say that he does not exist?”
    Joe Kafka had no answer. Silently he took a step away from Nathan. So did