I recently was trying to remember where I first heard the idea "Praying is talking to yourself."

I recently was trying to remember where I first heard the idea "Praying is talking to yourself." Then I remembered it was somebody with the name "O'Hair" but I didn't know who how spell the name. Not a problem. I googled "atheist ohara" which was wrong but Google doesn't care. I love Google.

I never knew there were atheists or what an atheist is until one of my ugly nun teachers talked about them for almost 60 seconds.

I also didn't know my father was sort of an atheist. He never did believe in any of the Catholic bullshit but he went with our family to church every Sunday and he tolerated the moronic rule back then that said eating meat on Friday is a one-way ticket to hell. This was a big problem for us because my mother didn't know how to cook fish. When the pope decided to throw out this "mortal sin" fantasy I wondered why the fuck I had to go without meat all those years.

From Google: A mortal sin, in Catholic theology, is a gravely sinful act, which can lead to damnation if a person does not repent of the sin before death. A sin is considered to be "mortal" when its quality is such that it leads to a separation of that person from God's saving grace.

My father later told me when he was a student at a rural Minnesota school he noticed the science teacher would explain something that was completely opposite from what he learned in Sunday Bible School. Even though he was just a kid he decided to throw out the bible bullshit.

In those days he was more focused on not starving to death and fixing the family's Model T Ford. He caught fish in the lake on their farm so the family could eat during the Great Depression (from 1929 to 1939, it was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world according to Google). Sometimes dinner was popcorn and nothing else. He said my grandfather was not a very good farmer.

Who is Madalyn Murray O'Hair? I knew almost nothing about her so I decided to fix this problem and educate myself.

Wikipedia - Madalyn Murray O'Hair - April 13, 1919 – September 29, 1995

She was fantastic. Back when atheists were a very small minority in Idiot America she fought against the theocratic assholes who infested my country (these assholes for Jeebus are still a terrible problem).

Thanks to Ms. O'Hair, Christian assholes can no longer force students to pray to their dead Magic Jeebus Man. Also wasting class time with bible bullshit is not allowed.

My contempt for Christian scum grows every day.

"Madalyn Murray's lawsuit largely led to the removal of compulsory Bible reading from public schools in the United States, amongst other lasting and significant effects. Until the lawsuit, it was not uncommon for students to participate in a variety of religious activities while at school, such as Bible reading and prayer recitation, sometimes including religious instruction itself.[35] Nonreligious students were expected to participate in such activities, and were not consistently given an opportunity to opt out, as state-level policies varied.[36] While students may pray in public schools, even in organized groups, the lawsuit disallowed schools from including prayer as a compulsory activity."

O'Hair filed numerous lawsuits in which she argued the separation of church and state had been breached.

• Murray v. Curlett (1963) Challenged Bible reading and prayer recitation in Maryland public schools.
• Murray v. United States (1964) To force the Federal Communications Commission to extend the Fairness Doctrine so that Atheists could have equal time with religion on radio and television.
• Murray v. Nixon (1970) Challenged weekly religious services in the White House.
• O'Hair v. Paine (1971) Challenged open readings from the Bible by U.S. astronauts (who are Federal employees) during their spaceflights, spurred by a reading from the book of Genesis by the crew of Apollo 8.
• O'Hair v. Cooke (1977) Challenged the opening prayer at city council meetings in Austin, Texas.
• O'Hair v. Blumenthal (1978) Challenged the inclusion of the phrase "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency.
• O'Hair v. Hill (1978) To have removed from the Texas constitution a provision requiring a belief in God of persons holding offices of public trust.
• O'Hair v. Andrus (1979) Challenged the use of National Park facilities for the Pope to hold a Roman Catholic mass on the Mall in Washington, D.C.
• O'Hair v. Clements (1980) This case tried to remove the nativity scene displayed in the rotunda of the capitol building in Austin, Texas.
• Carter, et al. v Broadlawns Medical Center, et al. (1984-1987) ^[25][26] Challenged the full-time employment of an unordained chaplain at a tax-funded county hospital, Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines, Iowa.