Madelyn Murray O'Hair speaking at a convention of American Atheists in 1972.


I've posted this before in other threads, but never really seen any discussion or reaction to it.

I think it's well worth the listen.

Haven't come across her before. What a lovely, clear, penetrating speaker. Got to 12 minutes - will continue later. (Haven't got time at the moment).

Yes, and I enjoy her refreshing analysis of the situation for atheists - given that this is 40+ years old, it's worrying how little things have changed.

I dunno....we elected a gay living in sin women as premier of Ontario and that would not have occurred 40 years ago - and it had no play in the election.

Nor would the openly atheist Australian prime minister have gotten there

We've got a black man running the US, marijuana and gay marriage being legalized all over, secular enforcement over religious symbols and quite a few other aspects of society that would have been unimagineable in 1972.

Macdoc wrote:I dunno....we elected a gay living in sin women as premier of Ontario and that would not have occurred 40 years ago - and it had no play in the election.

Nor would the openly atheist Australian prime minister have gotten there

We've got a black man running the US, marijuana and gay marriage being legalized all over, secular enforcement over religious symbols and quite a few other aspects of society that would have been unimagineable in 1972.

Sorry my point wasn't clear - I wasn't talking about the situation of the world, but rather the situation of atheists and atheism, what that means, and what people wearing that label do or don't do. If you look at the latter half of the video, she criticizes the countless times that non-believers have stood by and let absurdities happen: things which should have been of importance to non-believers, should've motivated the group even for self-interest alone. Essentially, she's saying that it's no use just having the label as a negator of religiosity, but it's got to stand for something positive in society.

Not sure if I have managed to clarify anything - trying to explain things prior to coffee never seems to work well. I will give it another shot later, or just watch the end of the vid to hear it first hand!

Thommo wrote:I listened for ten minutes, I didn't find it inspirational, sorry.

You are excused!

Listen on, Thommo. There's a lot of stuff that's irrelevant, being aimed specifically at the US, but the end of the video becomes a criticism on what it means to identify as part of a group that doesn't do anything with that identity. It's not inspiring - it's thought-inducing, or at least, it was for me.

Macdoc wrote:I dunno....we elected a gay living in sin women as premier of Ontario and that would not have occurred 40 years ago - and it had no play in the election.

Nor would the openly atheist Australian prime minister have gotten there.

That last bit isn't strictly true - Australia has been electing non-religious Prime Ministers for over a century.

http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=24159