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IN MEMORIAM of the O'Hair Family |
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IN MEMORIAM of the O'Hair Family |
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How can one find words to express the enormity of the tragedy that has been
visited upon the Atheist community? How can insentient traces of ink on
paper bespeak the sharp-edged prick of pain, the throbbing ache of grief,
or the dull and numbing sense of emptiness felt by those of us who were
close comrades of Madalyn Murray 0’Hair, Jon Garth Murray, and Robin
Murray-O’Hair? It is now more than five years since the “First Family of
Atheism” disappeared from their home in Austin, Texas, and at least four
years since most of us drew the intellectual inference that some awful fate
had befallen them.
It is over a year since we learned with near certainty
that they had been kidnapped, extorted, probably tortured, brutally
murdered, dismembered, and buried ignominiously in a wild and windswept
grave on a ranch outside San Antonio. Even so, the passage of time has been
insufficient to strengthen us to withstand the emotional implosion
triggered by the recent discovery of their charred remains. None of the
intellectual analyses of the past year could steel our nerves to the
terrible reality that three brilliant minds have been extinguished forever;
three courageous hearts shall never beat again; and three comrades whom we
loved and admired shall never again visit our homes, offer us encouragement
at times of self-doubt, or stir us to action in imitation of their selfless
toil. Nor could the passage of time really prepare us for the emotional
reality that we now are on our own in the fight against superstition and
religious encroachment - both upon the governmental domain and upon the
private sphere of conscience. Never again shall we have their animating
leadership, their astute advice, or the example of their often valiant
deeds. We really are on our own now. It is up to us to continue the
struggle against the benighted forces that seek to enslave the American
mind, abolish the progress achieved by science, and return us to the Dark
Ages of Faith. Murders - especially the violent and brutal sort - are the
type of thing one sees in movies or on television, the kind of thing one
glances at on the teasing cover pages of supermarket tabloids. Murders do
not touch our lives. But to the contrary, murder has struck down three
human beings who for some of us were practically family. We yearn to know
what their last hours were like, yet dread to discover the truth. We
struggle to comprehend how lives so filled with promise and achievement
should be snuffed out like candles in a sudden draft, how persons who have
done so much to liberate the minds and elevate the aspirations of their
fellows should come so startlingly and senselessly to naught. The
incomprehensible injustice of these deaths shall haunt the innermost
reaches and recesses of our minds like a ghost no exorcist can expel.
Greater even than the dream of Martin Luther King were the dreams of the
Murray-O’Hairs. Their dreams incorporated all the laudable goals of Dr.
King, but amplified and extended them to all of humanity. Beyond that, they
had a dream that no individual life should ever again be placed in jeopardy
by the reality-testing failure known as religion, nor should the survival
of our species be endangered by deluded minds pursuing a cosmic
will-o’-the-wisp. No one ever again should be forced to surrender mentally
to the slavery of supernaturalism. No one ever again should be forced to
pay taxes to support an invisible kingdom known only by the say-so of its
parasitic ambassadors, the clergy. Never again should the world be thrust
into the Dark Ages. Never again should faith vanquish reason. They dreamed
that the divisiveness and hatred fomented by religions would be overcome by
rational minds no longer willing to do evil when given the command “Thus
saith the Lord.” They dreamed that all of humanity, if they could but shed
the darkling lenses and blinders of theology, would see more clearly the
path of enlightened self-interest and would realize that peaceful
cooperation is more desirable than warfare and strife. They held the hope
that humanity would realize before it was too late that they are one with
nature, brothers and sisters of the humblest animals, and fellow travelers
with them on this spaceship we call Earth. Such were the dreams of the
Murray-O’Hair family, and such are the dreams of those of us who honor them
by carrying on their work. The world is a measurably better place because
they lived, and America honors the First Amendment of its Constitution ever
so slightly more because they fought in its defense. The immortality of
Madalyn, Jon, and Robin is not that of liberated souls “that naked on the
Air of Heaven ride,” but rather that of perishable mortals who,
“departing, leave behind us / Footprints on the sands of time.” For more
than that they never hoped. For all of that we pay them tribute. For all of
that we honor their memory and resolve that the death of their bodies shall
not mark the death of their dreams. We who carry on shall dream the dreams
they can no longer dream.
Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 by American Atheists.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Formerly a professor of biology and geology, Frank R. Zindler is now a science writer. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, and the American Schools of Oriental Research. He is the director of the Central Ohio Chapter of American Atheists.
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