THC: Well, I try not to drink it too often.

KV: I have another question for you. Have you read Shakespeare's Winter's Tale? Is it worth the time?

THC: Yes, I highly recommend it. It is one of his best and most realistic comedies, but there are some interesting tragic elements. Do you have any summer reading selections for me?

KV: Yes, you must read Candide by Voltaire. Voltaire was a freethinker like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and others, although they did not go by that name. Today freethinkers like myself and my family go by the name humanists. I'll tell you an interesting story about Voltaire. He was a landowner who had many employees, almost all Roman Catholics. Despite the fact that his humanism was skeptical of the existence of God, he never said anything to his workers to make them skeptical. Voltaire knew, respected, and valued how comforting religion was for them. He kept his humanist conversation within small circles of intellectuals.

THC: Have you been a humanist all of your life? Does humanism preclude the possibility that there is a God?

KV: I'll say this line slowly so you can get it down word for word: Only a person of deep faith can afford the luxury of skepticism. Pretty good one, huh? Some people are just not willing to accept whatever evangelists say to be truth. My family came to America after the Civil War as freethinkers from Germany. They were speculators too, and wanted to get rich. But they also wanted to have their state defined by the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. The concept of freethinker was so specifically German, and thus it became unpopular after the Anti-German backlashes during and after WWI and WWII, when all German enthusiasms became unpopular. To survive, free thinkers became Unitarians-and then humanists. God has not made himself known to us, and thus we expect no rewards and punishments in an afterlife. In our lives, we do our best to serve our community well, behave decently, and treat people well. The biggest advantages of Christianity are the congregations, which can serve as expanded families and close-knit communities.

THC: You returned to Dresden recently in October of 1998, where you narrowly survived a firebombing that killed hundreds of thousands. The location was also central to Slaughterhouse Five. How do humanists look at such events?

KV: If I were a religious person, my first question would be "Where the hell is God?" But I never expected him to be on the job.

THC: If you were to find God in the afterlife, what question would you ask?

KV: Well, if I really do take a railroad train to the afterlife, I would have no idea how to speak directly to him. It would be like talking to Shakespeare. How could I compete with God or him? I guess I would turn to Ben Franklin and ask him "How do you fucking talk to God?" [Laughs]