I went to a local Ethical Society meeting to hear a well known atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair. The Ethical Society is a kind of a high-brow group which has church services every Sunday just like other religions.
I found Madalyn to be a persuasive speaker and though she’s got degrees from Universities she talks plain and sometimes a bit earthy.
She said that she hates atheists. Though there are more atheists in this country than Catholics, she said they let the Catholics get away with a lot of stuff.
It’s a distinction to be an atheist, she said. History’s greatest people such as Einstein, Madame Curie, Clarence Darrow, Florence Nightingale, and Edison were all atheists. To this I could add Sigmund Freud.
She went on to say that the founding fathers of our country were a bunch who had no use for organized religion. Tax exemptions for religious bodies was not started until way after the Revolutionary War. And the motto, “In God We Trust” was not added to money until after the Civil War.
She said that the state of Virginia confiscated the properties of all religious bodies during the Revolutionary War and when some legislators wanted to return the properties President Madison vetoed that action.
Madalyn Murray was the woman who had prayers stopped in schools. She fought her case all the way to the Supreme Court and won her case. I could myself never figure out what was the purpose of praying in school. I just used to mumble like all the other kids at prayer time.
Right now Madalyn is on the warpath against NASA for using Bible quotes in space. She charges that it’s a conspiracy by NASA to get more money out of Congress.
Since NASA can’t appeal to unions or to blacks for support, it is appealing to religions for support.
And when Werner von Braun was asked what there is in moon exploration, he said they are searching for God.
She said that the pope had a medal of Pope John’s sent to NASA and had it on the space craft which landed on the moon. When the craft returned to Earth they had the medal flown back to the pope. Think of the cost of that kind of stuff, she asked.
Since she can’t win the fight to remove tax exemption from the churches, she has turned around and joined them. She said that tax exemptions exceed the cost of the Vietnam War by millions.
She has organized a religion which she has named Poor Richards Universal church. Its purpose will be to advance the cause of atheism and in it she has assumed the title of Cardinal. She now wants to be addressed as Madalyn Cardinal Murray. She is insisting on tax exemptions and all donations to be tax deductible.
I asked her if she was being tax exempt. She said that she was waiting for the ruling from the Internal Revenue people and they’ve been slow and if they don’t soon come up with what she wants she’s going to the courts.
As I see it the courts will have a hard time denying her these privileges because they will be stuck answering these disturbing questions on just what is God or religion.
To anyone in the know, atheism is just as much a religion as is Christianity, Buddhism, etc. They have all of their martyred saints. But, most of us are Buddhists, Catholics, Jews, Mohammadans, etc. because we were conditioned early in life and we never question it.
A simple person will say, “Why everybody knows about God.” But this is not so. In fact, if they went and asked other people what God is they’d get all kinds of conflicting and emotional answers.
Madalyn said that as soon as she gets a favorable ruling from the Internal Revenue people to get her new founded church tax exempt, she’s going to buy up businesses like other churches have been doing.
The practice is to buy the business and then lease it back to the original owners. This way the business becomes tax exempt and her church will get a profit. She has already 150 businesses who will sell to her and she is soliciting more.
I got a letter from John Beck Sr. of Monossen, Pa. who wrote that he agreed with me that the Joe McCarthy era was a tough one. He said even he was implicated in it somewhat over some petitions being circulated to get the Progressive Party on the ballot. He wrote that a couple of guys went to jail just for circulating the petition.