Customer Reviews

The Atheist: Madalyn Murray O'Hair

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This biography is informative and I found the Introduction and first two chapters to be particularly well done. However, the author's writing fairly quickly becomes tedious. His style is flat, unengaging and repetitive. Once he has covered the initial case that brought notoriety to Murray O'Hair, the rest is just slogging through a sad and difficult life. For example, the time when Murray O'Hair was debating the evangelist Bob Harrington in the 70s should have made for fascinating reading, but the narrative here is disappointingly superficial.
The tragic end to Madalyn Murray O'Hair's life is reported. There are lots of details, but that's it. It is tedious and Le Beau's sometimes excellent insights are overshadowed by uninspired prose.

Whether you're an ardent fan or a bitter foe of world-renowned atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair, once widely known as "the most hated woman in America," you've probably read most of what Bryan Le Beau's biography has to tell you already, whether it's in O'Hair's own books, such as "All the Questions You Ever Wanted to Ask American Atheists -- With All the Answers," in her elder son William J. Murray's critical autobiography "My Life Without God," or in other third-person accounts of her life's work such as Lawrence Wright's "Saints & Sinners." I credit the author with bringing together a comprehensive compilation of facts, figures, observations, and quotations, but unfortunately not with presenting a unified portrait of a major figure of late 20th-century American free thought.

Le Beau's exposé begins promisingly enough as we're treated to invaluable excerpts from O'Hair's diary entries covering the early days of her adult life, when she was still wrestling with many of the iconoclastic ideas that would later make her famous, and which are more a part of our present worldview than most people probably want to admit. She left her first husband for another man during the conformist McCarthy era, for instance, nearly twenty years before such behavior became socially acceptable, and refused to marry the father of her second son because she considered him her intellectual inferior. The book shows us the genesis of her mission against the influence of organized religion in the lives of unbelievers as well as her family's exodus from persecution and hostility. All too quickly, however, we move into the realm of religious polemics and lose sight of the colorful personality behind the Murray (and later O'Hair) family's struggle to protect what Madalyn regarded as her First Amendment right to freedom not only of but also from religion. She had only begun her fight when she won her 1963 landmark victory in the Supreme Court to have mandatory prayer and Bible reading removed from America's public schools, and wasn't about to stop there. By the book's midpoint, quotes from O'Hair's radio and television broadcasts are presented out of chronological sequence without a unifying theme that might show us more of the real motivation behind the message. In William Murray's autobiography, which for the most part depicts O'Hair as a heartless villainess, she at least emerges as a three-dimensional flesh-and-blood human being who for better or worse held sway over a coterie of non-conformists and freethinkers who, apparently like her son, began to resent and ultimately to rebel against the extent of her influence. He honestly exposes his own flaws as well, at least up to a point, explaining how he virtually abandoned his daughter to his mother's care as he struggled with drugs and alcohol. For him, religion was the cure-all. For Madalyn O'Hair, we learn, it was just another soporific intoxicant best avoided by responsible individuals. Le Beau's analysis presents Madalyn O'Hair more as the often cold, analytical brain behind the operation than its warm, pulsing heart, even though it offers us random detailed glimpses of her emotional vicissitudes -- courage, bitterness, determination, panic -- and while it is more impartial than Murray's book, it never takes us very far beneath the surface. We learn little about O'Hair's second marriage, which lasted more than a decade, or her relationship with her family after her notoriety began to wane in the 1980s, when her son William became a Christian and when she began to alienate many of her former supporters with her increasingly outrageous behavior. Even most of those who stood by her to the end are only mentioned in passing.

For nearly eighty pages (and through more than the usual number of typographical errors), Le Beau's O'Hair remains only a figurehead to us, even as he discusses her mysterious disappearance in 1995 and her eventual murder, which even those who had long hated her found inexplicably brutal. Even though we may admire O'Hair as an indefatigable pioneer of secularism (or hate her as a foul-mouthed exponent of irreligion), we only occasionally feel we really know her as the driven human being she unquestionably was. While the astute reader can discover how O'Hair managed to distill the ideas of other freethinkers from Socrates to Carl Sagan into a refreshing elixir of liberating unbelief, the book remains more journalism than true biography. If you like cold facts, though, presented dispassionately, this is the book for you.

and then there is the truth. Bryan Le Beau gets to the truth beautifully in this informative and interesting book.

Trying to understand Madalyn Murray O'Hair was always difficult. Her message was sometimes lost in the chaos of her showmanship. Le Beau presents quotes and arguments in a cohesive form that help the reader understand her point of view in a way that eliminates all the emotional button pushing that O'Hair needed to do in order to get the attention of the press. Without O'Hair's personality interfering with her message it becomes infinitely easier to understand what the message actually was and how the prevailing mores of the time affected the various media, and even personal, events in O'Hair's life.

I found the examination of O'Hair's controlling personality and it's effects on her life and her cause particularly interesting and it was presented in an unbiased way - something that is rare when reading and trying to understand about O'Hare and her views. The historical overviews of Madalyn Murray O'Hair's lifetime were nicely written and ultimately necessary to fully understand what it was that was propelling O'Hair through her life.

After reading "An Atheist Epic" by Madalyn Murray O'Hair and "My Life Without God" by William J. Murray it was difficult for me to really understand where the truth lies. I was pleased to find it in "The Atheist: Madalyn Murray O'Hair".

"The Atheist"? The title implies that there is (or was) only one.

For a college professor, this isn't badly written, but the book is incomplete, and little new is revealed. LeBeau relies heavily on published articles and other books. Save for a peek at the Nassour collection, his sources could have been found almost exclusively online.

According to Peggy Hopkins Joyce, "There is not a woman living who is physically or mentally capable of telling the true story of her life." LeBeau admits that O'Hair's various autobiographies were often contradictory. So why does he depend on them so much? Throughout this book, he cites O'Hair's version of events as his only source, not bothering to investigate whether her claims had any veracity.

The book at least exposes some of the typically vicious Christians who plague this country. While there's no excuse for vandalism, perhaps an argument can be made that O'Hair brought the hate mail on herself, but if Robert S. Alley's book Without a Prayer is any indication, anyone who challenges religious encroachment experiences similar harassment.

LeBeau's recognition that O'Hair filed lawsuits mostly for publicity is one more item to file under This Is Not News. He could have used it as another piece of evidence that she was little more than a fifth-rate media celebrity and professional mendicant, but he just let it drop. He did note that, by establishing precedent, her losses strengthened the religious opposition.

Far too many errors mar this book. At least two dozen mistakes falsified facts, and some questionable assertions were made, as were several more typos. LeBeau is a history professor -- would this many errors prevent a student of his from receiving a passing grade? I wonder about the accuracy of the history he teaches.

This book does little more than perpetuate O'Hair's version of O'Hair's legend.

Madalyn Murray O'Hair did more than just advocate Civil Rights and have a few sit-ins as her enemies trivially describe. Madalyn Murray O'Hair was definitely a researcher in every way possible. In order for Madalyn Murray O'Hair to accomplish her goals she had to research who, what, where, when, why, and how to proceed in engaging Atheist and non-Atheist audiences.

Madalyn Murray O'Hair lives in all of us Atheist and I'm honored to carry her fight into the light of day. Unlike Jesus Christ who willingly sacrificed himself upon the cross to committ martyr suicide Madalyn Murray O'Hair was literally "murdered" for what she didn't believe and the religious population of America constantly sent her death threats and even terrorized her children.

Madalyn Murray O'Hair knew that someday she was going to die and I respect her for this because she never asked for it; yet, after reading the two biographies of Madalyn Murray O'Hair by Anne Rowe Seamen and Ted Dracos I have a strong belief that Madalyn's last husband Richard O'Hair (i.e. who was a paid FBI/CIA informant) and her eldest son William Murray had something to do with her death. Isn't it odd that William Murray is now all-of-a-sudden friends with George W. Bush (i.e. Illuminati brotherhood member)? Even David Waters admitted to Danny Frys' brother Bob Fry that he was sent by people "worse than the Mafia" [End Quote]. Who could be more worse than the Mafia except the Catholic Vatican Church, or the CIA?

Remember! The Secret Government has sponsored hit squads in the past. This isn't a new theory that I've created; yet, it's based off the testimony of David Waters. Arnold Via, an Atheist and close friend of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, remarked:

"My theory is, they were kidnapped and are being held prisoner somewhere in this country . Off the wall, I claim the Vatican did it...the Vatican or the CIA. Someone with enough clout to cover it up." [Via, Arnold. "The Case of the Headless, Handless Corpse". Dallas Observer News, February 18th 1999]

Why didn't David Waters when apprehended by law enforcement officials implicate his associates (i.e. The Vatican/FBI)? Well, I don't know! I haven't read any court trial transcripts to know what David Waters said. Nevertheless, David Waters could have been "bluffing" to Bob Fry about him being sent by people "worse than the Mafia" [End Quote]. In order to strike "fear" into the heart of Bob Fry David Waters could have easily preyed upon his emotional state. Lona Manning, freelance writer and researcher, remarks that:

"There were whispers that perhaps the Christian and government persecutions that O'Hair had complained of for years had turned out to be more sinister than anyone imagined. "If you think we are being paranoid," opined a Canadian atheist newsletter, "the religious and government harassment suffered personally by this founding family of American Atheism is well recorded, along with FBI and CIA infiltration of their organizations." O'Hair herself told Life magazine back in 1963 that it would only take one crazy person to end her life: "These death threats are no picnic...I think sooner or later some night some nut is going to get a message from Jesus Christ and I'm going to have had it. But as long as I'm still round I'm going to keep on being a squeaking wheel." When the Murray-O'Hairs disappeared, they left several projects hanging. They had planned to picket the Pope when he visited New York City. They had just ordered a new printing press. Was this proof that they had been abducted, or was it all part of an elaborate scheme to distract their board and employees while they disappeared? Were they just pretending to carry on with business as usual while spiriting money out of the country and quietly packing away their chief asset, a large library of atheist literature? As a bewildered Ellen Johnson put it: "the Murray-O'Hairs left behind the entire contents of the office building, one car, all their personal belongings, their pets, their own bank accounts (i.e. which they have not touched) and the remainder of the office bank accounts and trust fund moneys. This is hard to reconcile with the idea that they were robbing the till so they could escape to Shangri-La." [Manning, Lona. "The Murder of Madalyn Murray O'Hair: America's Most Hated Woman". [...], Crime Magazine; September 23 2003]

Paul Williams in his book The Vatican Exposed documents the history of the Vatican church...how they are engaged in criminal enterprises with government organizations and criminal organizations such as the Mafia. They hire their own financiers, accountants, and control their own money supply. This is what Madalyn Murray O'Hair publicly tried to expose. Madalyn Murray O'Hair was murdered by the Secret Government who used certain individuals (i.e. Richard O'Hair, David Waters, or maybe her eldest son William Murray).

Richard O'Hair was married to Madalyn Murray O'Hair and he admitted to being formerly employed by the FBI/CIA to work as an informant. David Waters wasn't an orthodox believer in any sense; yet, he was a believer. Killing for revenge is a common theme in the Bible. There was even a law that allowed for a relative to go out and kill someone who accidentally killed their relative. They were even given the noble title "Revenger of Blood." (i.e. Numbers 35:19, Deuteronomy 19:6, Joshua 20:3-9).

It's clear that David Waters had a religious mindset because the reason he murdered Madalyn Murray O'Hair was out of "revenge". Madalyn Murray O'Hair wrote an article about David Waters criminal past (i.e. which was true by the way); so, his ego got upset and decided to take out Madalyn Murray O'Hair. David Waters girlfriend, Patti Joe Stevens, acknowledges how David Waters wanted to "pull off her toe nails with pliers" [End Quote]. Where do we find the concept of "revenge"? In the Bible!

Madalyn Murray O'Hair was an Atheist in the worst time of America that one could express themselves. She was a woman loved by few and hated by many; yet, there will always be a place in my heart, mind, and body for Madalyn Murrary O'Hair. Madalyn Murray O'Hair is like a godmother to me! It pisses me off when theists make offensive remarks attacking her when they wouldn't careless to acquaint themselves with her Atheist journey and the many accomplishments she sought to plan for Atheist (i.e. The O'Haire Plan).