Twenty years ago today, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, 'dubbed 'the Atheist' and 'America's Most Hated Woman', was brutally murdered along with her son and granddaughter.
Posted Sep 29, 2015, 4:48 AM UTC
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In an interview with Playboy Magazine, she said she would like to be remembered with three words - atheist anarchist woman.
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I never knew of this awesome lady. Thanks so much for this post. I feel this sub should make her an honorary member or something and this video should be linked in the sidebar.
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Thanks. That's a reminder posts many of us have seen hundreds of times are still worth recycling.
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Same here,never knew who she is,gotta wiki her for some detail ?!
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Ehhhhhhhh
In my opinion she gave a pretty nasty, hateful face to atheism while she was alive. I'm not saying she was wrong. I'm not saying she wasn't right in her first few lawsuits. I'm saying that she was bad for public perception and one of the reasons "atheist" has such a negative connotation. The further we can get from O'Hair style militant atheism to common sense disbelief, the sooner people will leave their religions in droves.
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My favorite fact about O'Hair was that she tried to sue NASA because Apollo 8 quoted Genesis while they were orbiting the moon.
Anyway, the description on the YouTube video said that O'Hair's son became a born-again Christian. That's news to me.
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He did after attending AA meetings - he had a dream about hell-fire and damnation. He's quite a nasty bastard by all accounts.
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Well, at least O'Hair's son didn't end up like his birth father, who is Roman Catholic. However, I'm not sure if being Baptist is much of an improvement.
Too bad O'Hair didn't teach more about atheism to her son. It could have insulated him from religious beliefs.
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I have generally found catholics to be much more science friendly than baptists.
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When I was a kid my parents used to tell me how evil this woman was because she was an atheist and wanted to take prayer out of schools.
Going to a Catholic school I could not imagine kids going to school and not praying. It made me really sad...why would someone do such a thing?
Then I grew up, learned about the constitution, and realize what a badass she is.
Sorry mom and dad.
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She was a firecracker, and my first exposure to the concept of atheism - saw her on Phil Donahue's show in the 70s.
There used to be a hotline you could call at American Atheists in the late 80s and early 90s, which would play a new recording by Madalyn every week that gave news about church-state separation issues. I used to call it every week.
She could always be counted on to cut through bullshit.
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That very show - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XEnj-ZVltU
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I may be alone in this on this sub, but I felt that, from everything I've seen about her, she was a real bitch. As in, kind of the last person you would want to have advocating atheism to mainstream America at the time. She seemed aggressive enough to be the kind of atheist that would walk up t a grieving family at a funeral and call them a bunch of fucking retards for hoping their dead realitive got to play with other dead relatives in the land of the magic sky fairy.
It doesn't surprise me at all, just how hard her son turned 180 against her. As if he became a Christian both to spite her, and form an independent identity for himself. She absolutely earned the title of 'America's Most Hated Woman' because she was aiming for it, not just because Atheism was seen as a real negative. Her aggressiveness, desire for conflict, and the resulting attention she got, gave her money, support, and a platform. She may have been a strong advocate for Atheism, but I don't think this is a person I would want to be around, much less idolize.
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"I'll tell you what you did with Atheists for about 1500 years. You outlawed them from the universities or any teaching careers, besmirched their reputations, banned or burned their books or their writings of any kind, drove them into exile, humiliated them, seized their properties, arrested them for blasphemy. You dehumanised them with beatings and exquisite torture, gouged out their eyes, slit their tongues, stretched, crushed, or broke their limbs, tore off their breasts if they were women, crushed their scrotums if they were men, imprisoned them, stabbed them, disembowelled them, hanged them, burnt them alive.
And you have nerve enough to complain to me that I laugh at you."
Guess who said that....
edit: missed a sentence
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Yeah, I don't think that is an absolutely consistent experience for all atheists, across all places, for the past 1500 years.
If you want to be really silly, we could start replacing the word "Atheist" with "Jews" and other religions.
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I don't think it was meant to be a statement of universal experience for atheists so much as a commentary on longstanding christian institutional policies.
But more than either of those interpretations, it was a rebuttal to tone-trolling such as yours.
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Tone-trolling?
No, I'm saying she shouldn't act like an asshole. That makes her kind of a shitty person to be around, and it definitely hurts her message. If you're trying to craft a political message, you're gonna have problems if you're being an asshole at every turn, even if you're right.
It's a fast way to lose legitimacy and wider support. She wasn't looking for wider support, which is why she said what she said, and did what she did. She was looking to agitate. However, my problem is that agitation alone is not a good way to humanize an out-group. Thus, from my perspective, she's ineffective, unhelpful, and possibly damaging to the effort to legitimize atheism in America.
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Talk shows were different then. She appeared on them when the atheist viewpoint was needed. She acquitted herself very well. She was on Cavett, Tonight show and Donahue, among others.
Who idolized her?
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Talk shows were definitely different then. She came about in a time where shock television and radio talk shows were absolutely huge. She was perfect for that environment, and she thrived in it. However, that doesn't make her shtick more palatable to larger society.
I've seen some atheists treat her as a heroic figure to be admired and looked up to. I think that's a little too much praise.
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Not shock talk at all. Talk shows actually tried to inform people and broaden their horizons. Even Sunday morning political shows were different. They actually asked serious questions and put politicians on the spot.
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Talk shows actually tried to inform people and broaden their horizons.
I disagree completely. They don't even do that right now. Back then it was the era of "Trash TV" for a reason. If you want intelligent talk shows, you have to look for individual ones. Like Charlie Rose or something.
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Nope. Not enough. Back then it was dangerous to be an open atheist. It still is, but not as bad.
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It must have been hard work keeping up the persona of America's Most Hated Woman. She drew massive audiences and had much to be bolshie about back in the 60s
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I'm sorry but you're title triggered my inner Beatlemaniac. "Twenty years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play." I do love that woman though, it's a tragedy she was killed in that matter
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*manner
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*your
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Oops sorry about that, I didn't notice I did that
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That's quite all right. Sorry for being such a serial antagonist.
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She was extremely bright and gave well thought out defenses of atheism before it was slightly acceptable to be one. She was castigated and shunned. She showed guts and intelligence .
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I remember on some interview she was like hold up and farted really loudly. She was wacky as shit and funny.
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Great video, I love the hair at 20:30.
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Was she not murdered by an atheist? Weird thing
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I watched a Forensic Files episode on this. I thought she was murdered due to some radical Christian or whatever being angry at her atheism. But she was just an asshole and called someone out that worked with her company for stealing funds and he killed her. That was a plot twist if I ever saw one lol. Especially since the show emphasized her atheism so much.
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wait...why was she an asshole? because a con artist and murderer stole money from her organization, and then she publically embarassed him?
that doesnt make someone an asshole, not by a long shot.
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It came out wrong. I meant to say other people interpreted her as an asshole. I don't think she was an asshole for calling him out and obviously she did not deserve to die over it.
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It does if you're also an atheist though.
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What a stupid thing to say.
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I took their post as sarcasm, but it's the internet and I've been burned before.
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Reporting theft = being asshole
I'd hate to see what your morals are like...
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I'm sorry, it came out wrong. I meant to say other people interpreted her as an asshole. I don't think she was an asshole for calling him out and obviously she did not deserve to die over it.
I have very good morals though, I promise.
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The 'Oxford asshole comma' : "But she was just an asshole***,*** and called someone out that worked with her company for stealing funds and killed her."
Pretty sure they meant that as consecutive but separate statements.
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So it's merely a poorly punctuated non-sequiter.
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Hoping. Otherwise OP was probably a collaborator...
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Correctly punctuated - Oxford commas always look wrong.
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There are only two items in that list, so the Oxford comma doesn't even come into it.
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I worded it wrong =( I meant to say other people interpreted her as an asshole. I don't think she was an asshole for calling him out and obviously she did not deserve to die over it.
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Lol, yeah. It almost sounds like you were in on the misappropriation when you say it like that!
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To keep this fair, she wasn't murdered because of her atheism - she was murdered by a fellow coworker in her atheist organization who was stealing funds. The crime had nothing to do with religion.
Yes 100% true. However there is some evidence to support that the investigation into the crimes against her and her family were taken less seriously because of her unpopularity.
This is why unpopular people deserve protection under the law as much as popular people do, despite what we may think of their beliefs.
That woman could not have been atheist as an atheist does not do this. No true atheist.
/s
We are still human.
Damn, I tried to make it humanly obvious. Better luck next time I guess.
Calm down guys, he was being sarcastic.
Poe's Law has kicked in; too late.