Madalyn Murray O'Hair Quotations

I feel that everyone who wants to say anything, do anything, should be able to say anything or do anything, within the limits of not hurting another person.

An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that deed must be done instead of prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated.

Religion has caused more misery to all of mankind in every stage of human history than any other single idea.

No god ever gave any man anything, nor ever answered any prayer at any time - nor ever will.

I feel that everyone has a right to be insane.

I want three words: Woman, Atheist, Anarchist. That's me.

In an unconstitutional partnership with the state, the church can impose the most irresistible, if covert, controls conceivable.

The relationships that people have - that are sexual, psychological, emotional - these relationships are not open to supervision by parents, schools, churches, or government. Nobody has any right to intervene at all in any kind of relationship like that.

Religion is induced insanity.

Marx was wrong--religion is not the opiate of the masses, baseball is.

An Atheist loves himself and his fellow man instead of a god. An Atheist knows that heaven is something for which we should work now, here on earth, for all men together to enjoy.

Well, as a militant feminist, I believe in complete equality with men: intellectual, professional, economic, social and sexual; they're all equally essential, and they're all equally lacking in American society today.

But the most heinous crime of the Church has been perpetrated not against churchmen but against churchgoers. With its poisonous concepts of sin and divine punishment, it's warped and brainwashed countless millions. It would be impossible to calculate the psychic damage this has inflicted on generations of children who might have grown up into healthy, happy. productive, zestful human beings but for the burden of antisexual fear and guilt ingrained in them by the Church. This alone is enough to condemn religion.

Organizing atheists is like hurding cats

At no time have I ever said that people should be stripped of their right to the insanity of belief in God. If they want to practice this kind of irrationality, that's their business. It won't get them anywhere; it certainly won't make them happier or more compassionate human beings; but if they want to chew that particular cud. they're welcome to it.

If anybody wants to engage in any kind of sexual activity with any consenting partner, that is their business. Anybody can do anything they damn well please, as long as the relationship isn't exploitive. And I don't feel that legality should have anything to do with it. There are certain bodily functions of mine which I will not allow to be supervised.

Well, we are men. Let's start acting like it.

I don't care whether I succeed or whether I fail as long as I am trying. I hope that I succeed.

The relationships that people have - that are sexual, psychological, emotional - these relationships are not open to supervision by parents, schools, churches, or government. Nobody has any right to intervene at all in any kind of relationship like that.

The neighborhood children, of course, were forbidden by their parents to play with my little boy, Garth, so I finally got him a little kitten to play with. A couple of weeks later we found it on the porch with its neck wrung.

I picked up the Bible and read it from cover to cover one weekend - just as if it were a novel - very rapidly, and I've never gotten over the shock of it. The miracles, the inconsistencies, the improbabilities, the impossibilities, the wretched history, the sordid sex, the sadism in it - the whole thing shocked me profoundly.

Atheists have an excellent longevity record because we have no place to go after we die, so we take good care of ourselves and our world while we are here.

Ill tell you, Mr. Thomas, why some Christians are afraid of me. They're not sure that what they believe is really true. If they were sure, I wouldn't be a threat to them at all.

An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death.

The fear of hell is the basis for the Christian faith.

About six years ago, Life magazine ran an article on the historicity of Jesus and I was floored to find that they conceded the only evidence we have for his existence is in the Gospels. But don't take Life's word for it. In his book The Quest of the Historical Jesus, the most definitive study that's ever been done on the subject, Albert Schweitzer admitted that there isn't a shred of conclusive proof that Christ ever lived, let alone was the son of God. He concludes that one must therefore accept both on faith.

I told my kids I just want three words on my tombstone, if I have one. I'll probably be cremated. One is "woman." I'm very comfortable in that role. I've loved being a woman, I've loved being a mother, I've loved being a grandmother. I want three words: Woman, Atheist, Anarchist. That's me.

The atheist must abandon his defensive positions, take up the cudgels and go forward, rather than into the retreat of apathy.

You hate me because I am the embodiment of all your doubts.

One could call this a postnatal abortion on the part of a mother, I guess; I repudiate him entirely and completely for now and all times. . . . He is beyond human forgiveness.

We wish our Christian brothers would be honest and permit us our heroes. We do not deny them theirs.

... religion is a crutch, and only the crippled need crutches.

Atheism may be defined as the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason and aims at establishing a lifestyle and ethical outlook verifiable by experience and the scientific method, independent of all arbitrary assumptions of authority and creeds.

The atheist realizes that there must not only be an acceptance of his right to hold his opinion, but that ultimately his is the job to turn his culture from religion, to eliminate those irrational ideas which have held the human race in intellectual slavery.

Atheism is based upon a materialist philosophy, which holds that nothing exists but natural phenomena. There are no supernatural forces or entities, nor can there be any. Nature simply exists.

Atheism is a very positive affirmation of man's ability to think for himself, to do for himself, to find answers to his own problems.

The church doctrines of obedience to authority, repentance, fear of punishment, self-abnegation, acceptance of outer direction rather than inner assurance, elevation of faith over reason, and intolerance make institutionalized religion an ideal instrument of social constraint.

Actually, I don't like Atheists very much - at least most of them ~ because they are not motivated to move into the community and attempt to correct the injustices which are everywhere apparent against them.

Intolerance has always been one of the cornerstones of Christianity - the glorious heritage of the Inquisition.

There is no God. There's no heaven. There's no hell. There are no angels. When you die, you go in the ground, the worms eat you.

So my life and the life of my family has been completely disrupted in absolutely every way. But it's been worth it. It's uncovered a vast cesspool of illegitimate economic and political power in which the Church is immersed right up to its ears, and I intend to dive in headfirst and pull it out of there dripping wet for all the world to see -- no matter how long it takes, no matter whose feet get stepped on in the process, no matter how much it costs, no matter how great the personal sacrifice.

Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.

Religion has ever been anti-human, anti-woman, anti-life, anti-peace, anti-reason and anti-science. The god idea has been detrimental not only to humankind but to the earth. It is time now for reason, education and science to take over.