Monday, June 25, 2018

“If you must choose, take a good name rather than great riches; for to be held in loving esteem is better than silver and gold.”  Proverbs 22:1 (TLB).

Her name became a household word.  It was known, but not universally admired.  In 1963 she won the landmark lawsuit filed on behalf of her son, William, effectively banning prayer in public schools.  She expressed atheism in the following lofty terms,

“An atheist loves his fellow man instead of a God.  An atheist wants man to understand and love man: he wants an ethical way of life.”

I’m not sure what her definition of “ethical” was, but it proved to be different from my understanding of the word.

She tried to get her son to poison her father.  Just before he died of a heart attack, she screamed at him, “I hope you drop dead.”  Upon learning of his death, she told her son, “Bill, call up some undertaker and find the cheapest one.  Then have them pick up the stiff from Memorial (Hospital).”  So much for love.  I guess loving her fellow man did not include her father?

She had children out of wedlock, endorsed perverse sex, encouraged homosexual activity, and debated for atheism.   So was the life of Madalyn Murray O’Hare.  Apparently, her kind of ethics or morality was repugnant to her son William.  He decided Christianity was a better path to follow than the one taken by his mother.

It amazes me that someone who doesn’t believe in God spends a lot of time trying to convince himself that God doesn’t exist!  Not everyone who chooses an alternative life style denies God’s existence.  While living in Alabama, I picked up what was touted as “Satan’s Bible.”  The author claimed he was a disciple of Satan.  Satan was an angel created by God who decided he would depose his Creator.  He failed to influence Yahweh but was successful in deceiving man.  He had to settle with being “the god of this world” rather than the god of all creation (2 Corinthians 4:4).  Eve may have been deceived first, but Madalyn Murray O’Hare wasn’t the last!

The atheist and the secularist share a world view.  Each person can establish his own right and wrong code.  No absolutes.  No God.  No payday someday.  No judgment.  No hell.  No heaven unless you create it for yourself here on earth.  What is wrong for you may not be wrong for another.  What is right for another, may not be right for you.  Love everyone and peace will follow.  The only absolute is to silence those who have a moral code that limits one’s selfish desires.  Those who must be silenced are those who follow the Bible!

Without acknowledging it, both parties borrow from the Bible!  They establish their “absolutes” to protect themselves and their loved ones.  If the next-door neighbor wanted your wife for himself, or your husband for herself, an absolute is created that says, “No!”  The word “absolute” must be redefined to accommodate what is best for me and mine!    In such “free” societies the rule becomes “might makes right.”  The one with the most “might” will be the one who is always “right”!  Every dictatorship rests upon that foundation.  Evolution is also based upon the survival of the fittest!   What is yours is mine if I can take it from you.  In doing the taking, I am doing the loving thing for me and mine!

Madalyn Murray O’Hare was successful in turning our classrooms into secular, godless areas to reshape the thinking of our youth.  Her success is seen when a student, former student, or person with a killer’s desire, enters a school to create his own kind of love and ethics.  With each new decade, we are introduced more and more to “the World’s Ethics”!

History has a way of repeating itself.  Today’s world view is no different from that which was held by Israel 2,900 years ago when Isaiah said of his society,

“Doom to you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness in place of light and light in place of darkness, Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!  Doom to you who think you’re so smart, who hold such a high opinion of yourselves!” Isaiah 5:20-21 (MSG)