How many on R & S know or remember who Madalyn Murray O'Hair was?

I'm 30 and without looking anything up, just know that she was the one who lobbied to get prayer taken out of schools and later founded an Atheist group in the US. If I'm not mistaken, her son, after he grew up, was mad at her for dragging him through her battle.

I remember who she was.

She had a very negative image. She was someone who could be very angry at times, and unfortunately people only tend to know about that side of her. I was always under the impression that she was a hostile, nasty person. But I've read quite a lot about her since then, and there was really so much more to her than what was portrayed in the press. She was actually a very smart and funny woman. Did you know that one of her closest, closest friends was a fundamentalist Christian woman who she met during a court case? The woman was on the opposing side, and the two went out to lunch together during the course of the trial, and wound up being friends right up until O'Hair's murder. Now how bad could Madalyn be if this woman thought so highly of her?

Yes, she was a woman who did have a lot of anger at times. But she was also a good person.

Jeff,

I am in my early 50s so I remember her very well. She was the one who's court case had prayer banned in the public school system. I remember seeing and hearing her speak a couple of timkes and stories about her. She had two sides to her story and it was portrayed negatively by one side and positively by the other. It really mattered what side of the religious left or right that you came from. Have a great week.

Thanks,

Eds

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She was a famous atheists who was behind a court case to take prayer out of schools in the 60s

Ironically her son, which the child the suit to remove prayer revolved around, became an evangelist and wrote a book called My Life Without God - A quite good book which I have read.

more ironically, or perhaps more sadly, Madalyne who was said to frequently get mad and attempted to stab people was herself murdered some years back. One wonders how her views played into this

( 52 years old - dealing with a full deck )

I know who she was without looking anything up.

I think - She was the atheist-activist lady who fought to have prayer taken out of schools in the USA?

Didn't she disappear without anyone's knowledge of what happened to her?

Also isn't her son some kind of Christian minister/preacher or speaker?

In our Christian community (where I grew up) she had a bad image of course. But for me, I always admired her secretly.

Now that I'm an agnostic - I admire her even more.

I may go look up more information on her now actually! Thanks for reminding me.

She was the atheist that lobbied to have prayer taken out of school.

She was later murdered under suspicious circumstances. In fact, it was some time (years, I think) before her body (along with her son's and granddaughter's) was found.

Very negative as she took religion back out of the schools after the fruitcakes had put it in . It is widely believed she either ran away from christian death squads or was murdered by them .

Her death was never confirmed to my knowledge and many stories were in circulation . It is public knowledge that she received thousands of documented death threats and authorities repeatedly refused to do anything about them .

Vocal atheist who disappeared a number of years ago. Her last name is spelled O'Hare. She was influential in removing prayer from our schools, I remember nothing positive about her.

I looked up nothing. I'm an oldie and know about her from historical references to her. I'm in my 50's now.

She was a person who had stood up and demanded her constitutional rights and was murdered for it by those who claim to love freedom.

Her murder is just one in a long list of crimes by people attempting to impose their will on a minority. Her death like that of Matthew Shepard's will stand to show the world everything that is wrong with fundamentalist religion.

She had a negative effect on this country. She was an atheist who fought to have prayer removed from school. Somebody shot her in the head when she started going after taking In God We Trust off money. She went missing for several yrs,and nobody seemed to care what happened to her.They found her body she had been shot along with her daughter-in law.I remember her even as a child I'm 29 now I knew she had no morals and what she was doing was wrong.