Error Message accessing configuration file

Hello,

I get the following message in the "pgstartup.log":
postmaster cannot access the server configuration file
"/database/postgresql.conf": Permission denied


I have:
1) read the file doing the following:
    a) su posgres
    b) less postgresql.conf
2) made sure each directory to file is readable by "postgres"
3) made the postgresql.conf and each directory readable by
    everyone.
4) verify the owner and group are postgres.
5) ran initdb as postgres

Any ideas as to what could be the problem?

Brian Erickson