The Domesticated Primate

I finished this a few weeks ago. I never heard of the story of Madalyn Murray O'Hair. It talks about how she founded an atheist movement and tried to get prayer out of schools. Christians, with that Jesus love filling their hearts, then went on to make death threats, strangle her cat, ram a stick down her dog's throat, and generally make her life hell until she fled to Hawaii. The police were even in on the harassment. Amazing.

The book is full of RAW's usual meanderings and humor - it was worth the price for that story alone...I never made the connection with her disappearance to this stuff back in the sixties. The thing is that (some) Christians still just about hyperventilate about prayer in schools, so obviously many of them have not forgot. The email mentioned on the Wikipedia site shows that some are still mad as hell about it.

I think of this sort of thing when I hear Christian talking points about how the Muslims are rioting merely over a cartoon. Yeah, well, it's not all of them doing it, it's a certain crazy element doing it, to be sure. If 1.2 billion Muslims rioted, you'd sure as hell notice it and without having to see it on TV or read about it. Just like the people who practice the sort of Christ-insanity in the story of Madalyn Murray O'Hair don't represent all Christians, they certainly give one pause to think about why people let myth rule their thinking and actions.