65 Madalyn Murray O’Hair Quotes On Success In Life

Madalyn Murray O’Hair was an American activist, supporting atheism and separation of church and state. In 1963 she founded American Atheists and served as its president until 1986, after which her son Jon Garth Murray succeeded her. She created the first issues of American Atheist Magazine. These Madalyn Murray O’Hair quotes will inspire you.

Best Madalyn Murray O’Hair Quotes

1. “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 a reason, education and science to take over.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
2. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
3. “Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

4. “Religion has caused more misery to all of mankind in every stage of human history than any other single idea.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

5. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
6. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
7. “Church wealth are moving into everything-gas stations, banks, television stations, supermarket chains, hotels, steel mills, resort areas, farms, wine factories, warehouses, bottling works, printing plants, schools, theaters-everything you could conceivably think of that has nothing to do with religion, they are moving into big. They’re even coming in as stockholders in the big oil companies, and the Bank of America is almost entirely owned by the Catholic Church.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
8. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

9. “… religion is a crutch, and only the crippled need crutches.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

10. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
11. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
12. “This crusade to separate church and state is only one expression of my raison d’être. I’m an atheist, but I’m also an anarchist, and a feminist, and an integrationist.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
13. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair quotes
14. “Long ago, when I was a very young girl, I said that I wanted to go everywhere, see everything, taste everything. hear everything, touch everything, try everything before I died. There isn’t anything you can name that a woman can do that I haven’t done. I don’t intend to stand by and be a spectator. I want to be right in there in the midst of it, right up to my nose – totally involved in the community, in the world, in the stream of history, in the human image.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

15. “The fear of hell is the basis for the Christian faith.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

16. “I went off to college, a good, middle-class, very proper college, a Brethren institution, where two years of Bible study are required for graduation. It was a good, sound, thorough, but completely biased evaluation of the Bible, and I was delighted with it, because it helped to document my doubts; it gave me a framework within which I could be critical.My independent study continued for 20 years after this. So I do know the Bible very well from a Protestant point of view.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
17. “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 reject both for the same reason.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
18. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

19. “Do you know anybody who’s come back with a firsthand report on heaven? If you do, let me know. Until then, you’ll pardon me if I don’t buy it.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

20. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
21. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
22. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
23. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
24. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

25. “You hate me because I am the embodiment of all your doubts.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

26. “Intolerance has always been one of the cornerstones of Christianity – the glorious heritage of the Inquisition.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
27. “No god ever gave any man anything, nor ever answered any prayer at any time – nor ever will.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
28. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
29. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

30. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

31. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
32. “When I started going to church, my first memories are of the minister getting up and accusing us of being full of sin, though he didn’t say why; then they would pass the collection plate, and I got it in my mind that this had to do with purification of the soul, that we were being invited to buy expiation from our sins. So I gave it all up. It was too nonsensical.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
33. “By the time it’s considered socially acceptable to start screwing, most of us are sexually constipated, and this is often an incurable condition. I think young people should be able to have their first sexual love affair whenever they feel like it. In the case of most girls, this would be around 13 or 14; with most boys, around 15 or 16.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
34. “I want to drink life to the dregs, to enlarge myself to the absolute limits of my being – and to strive for a society in which everyone -regardless of race, creed, color and especially religious conviction – has the same exhilarating raison d’être, and the same opportunity to fulfill it.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

35. “I’m saying that there’s absolutely no conclusive evidence that Jesus ever really existed, even as a mortal. I don’t believe he was a historical figure at all.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

36. “I was about 12 or 13 years old. 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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
37. “The history of the Church has been a history of divisiveness, repression and reaction. For almost 2000 years, Christianity has held mankind back in politics, in economics, in industry, in science, in philosophy, in culture.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
38. “I just can’t see either a man or a woman in a dependency position, because from this sort of relationship flows a feeling of superiority on one side and inferiority on the other, and that’s a form of slow poison. As I see it, men wouldn’t want somebody inferior to them unless they felt inadequate themselves. They’re intimidated by a mature woman.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

39. “I’d describe myself as a sexual libertarian – but I’m not a libertine. “To each his own” is my motto.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

40. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
41. “I recall that I had a terrible struggle finding anything antireligious in the school libraries.But many years later my family moved into a house where a woman had left a box of books containing 20 volumes on the history of the Inquisition. I found out there was a word for people like me: “heretic.” I was kind of delighted to find I had an identity.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
42. “It would be impossible to calculate the psychic damage concepts of sin 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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

43. “The agnostic is gutless and prefers to keep one safe foot in the god camp.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

44. “Quite apart from the Church’s financial self-interest in getting me out of the way, Baltimore is an overwhelmingly Catholic city and like most good Christians, they felt we ought to be punished for our unorthodox views.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
45. “Late one night our house was attacked with stones and bricks by five or six young Christians, and my father got very upset and frightened. Well, the next day he dropped dead of a heart attack. The community knew very well that he had a heart condition, so I lay a murder to the city of Baltimore.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
46. “Let nature decide. When a cow is biologically ready to have sex relations, she mates with the nearest well-hung bull. When a flower is ready to scatter its seed, it pollinates. It’s the same way throughout nature – except with man, who tries to postpone consummation of his sex drive, unsuccessfully for the most part, for six or eight years after he reaches puberty.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
47. “I want a strong man, but a gentle one. And, most unlikely of all, but most essential, I want a man with a capacity for love – to give it generously and accept it joyously. I also want somebody who, when I say, “Let’s call it quits,” won’t hang on; who’ll say, “All right, it was fun while it lasted. So long and good luck.”” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
48. “Once involved in the school-prayer fight, I rapidly became aware of, and appalled by, the political and economic power of the Church in America -all based on the violation of one of our nation’s canon laws: the separation of church and state.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

49. “Religion is induced insanity.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

50. “I’ve found that most people who are bound together legally would be a damn sight happier together -or apart -if they were released from the contract. A man-woman relationship is physical and emotional, not legal.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
51. “I can’t pinpoint a period in history or a place in the universe where religion has actually helped the welfare of man.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
52. “Those so-called records in the Bible were written by devout ecclesiastics who wanted to believe and wanted others to believe, in the coming of a Messiah. Until someone proves otherwise, therefore, these stories must be considered nothing more than folk tales consisting in equal parts of legend and wish fulfillment.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
53. “I don’t feel that people should glom onto other people. I feel that relationships should be nice and easy and convenient and happy and not strictured with legality or jealousy.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
54. “On a nationwide basis, I would guess that the various churches would have to pay annually an amount at least equal to the national debt. But it’s impossible for me to make an exact estimate, because the churches hide their wealth in every way they can – deliberate falsification as to the value of property, registering it under phony names in order to obscure the fact that the Church owns the property.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

55. “An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

56. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
57. “I don’t care whether I succeed or whether I fail as long as I am trying. I hope that I succeed.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
58. “We wish our Christian brothers would be honest and permit us our heroes. We do not deny them theirs.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
59. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
60. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
61. “Intolerance has always been one of the cornerstones of Christianity – the glorious heritage of the Inquisition. It’s no coincidence that most of my abusive mail – sentencing me to exquisite Oriental tortures and relegating me to hell-fire and damnation -comes from self-admitted Catholics.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

62. “The atheist must abandon his defensive positions, take up the cudgels and go forward, rather than into the retreat of apathy.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

63. “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.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
64. “I’d make an educated guess that 20 to 25 percent of the taxable property in the U.S. is Church-owned.In a recent book, Church Wealth and Business Income, it was estimated that this property -all of it tax-exempt -is worth upwards of 80 billion dollars. I know that’s a fantastic, unbelievable figure, but there’s every reason to believe that it’s on the conservative side; and this amount is increasing yearly at a geometric rate.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
65. “Male say they’re looking for a girl just like the girl who married dear old dad, but what they really want, and usually get, is an empty-headed little chick who’s very young and very physical -and very submissive.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair

Comment Your Favourite Madalyn Murray O’Hair Quotes!