Posted on 12/13/2016 6:39:53 AM PST by KeyLargo
Atheist activist, Green candidate Rob Sherman dies in plane crash
Rob Sherman, who died over the weekend in a crash of his small plane in Marengo, operated a business helping people build aircraft from kits.
But the 63-year-old was better known as a colorful political activist and Green Party candidate — some might say gadfly — who called journalists and introduced himself as “Rob Sherman, your favorite atheist.”
At one time, he had license plates that spelled out ATHEIST.
Though he came in for derision as a self-promoter, he challenged the use of government-sponsored Christmas creches and displays and anything he perceived as a co-mingling of church and state.
Early Saturday, fire crews responded after his single-engine plane was spotted in an area off Meyer Road, just north of Pleasant Grove Road, according to Marengo firefighter Joe Taylor.
A Monday autopsy found Mr. Sherman, of Poplar Grove, died of multiple injuries from the mishap, which is being investigated by the FAA and NTSB.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Mr. Sherman was constantly in the headlines for atheism activism.
As Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper put it in 1998, “He has battled towns from South Holland to Deerfield to Zion to Palatine to Highland, Ind., and Wauwatosa, Wis., over public displays of religious symbols on water towers, on government property and on official village seals.”
Mr. Sherman also filed suit against the Boy Scouts after he and his son, Richard, were denied membership because they refused to recognize a “duty to God.”
The relationship between Mr. Sherman and his son made headlines in 1998 for personal rather political reasons. He was convicted of domestic battery after he struck his then-16-year-old son, and later spent a brief time in jail.
“I wanted to put the fear of God in him,”
(Excerpt) Read more at chicago.suntimes.com ...
+1, a thousand times.
Anyone with even the remotest concept of what an eternity separated from God, His grace, His mercy, and His willingness to hear our prayers, would be like, can only be sobered by the thought that someone may have—and likely did—squander their last chance to avoid such a fate.
I agree. The only positive note from his demise is that he will no longer be able infect others with atheism.
>>He was convicted of domestic battery after he struck his then-16-year-old son, and later spent a brief time in jail.
“I wanted to put the fear of God in him,” Mr. Sherman told police.<<
Interesting turn of phrase from an Atheist. No?
It is impossible for me to feel any Christian compassion for this man or make any prayerful supplication to The Almighty for mercy on his behalf. This man caused an untold amount of suffering for others and an enormous waste of taxpayer money in his quest to sterilize U.S. culture of any evidence of a religious foundation. It was all done to stroke his own ego. He was a power-hungry megalomaniac who simply deserves an eternity in Hell. Thanks be to God.
Sounds almost Old Testament in nature.
Romans 12:14
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.
“I never knew you.”
Not what you want to hear from the Prosecution.
AVIATION PING
updated: 12/12/2016 7:30 PM
Atheist, activist and aviator: remembering Rob Sherman
Meyers speculates Sherman could have been flying from Poplar Grove to Schaumburg Airport, where the Experimental Aircraft Association was having its Christmas party Friday evening. Sherman’s wife was at the party, Meyers said.
“I didn’t see him there, and it was unusual for her to be there by herself,” he said. “I assumed he was going to meet her.”
In a 1995 Daily Herald interview, Sherman called life after death “a fantasy.”
“People want to believe there is a life after death,” he said. “They don’t want to believe that when you die, it’s over. One of the more unfortunate aspects about religion is they teach people the party begins after you die. Atheists know that the party is now, and after you die, it’s over. A lot of people waste their life waiting for the party to begin.”
Sherman burst onto the public scene on April 1, 1986, when he challenged Zion’s right to display a Christian cross on a public water tower paid for by tax dollars. A life of activism followed.
His brash style often irritated critics and even supporters. Sherman sometimes referred to Christians as “Constitution-hating Christers,” made jokes about God, used a coin with his likeness and the words “In Rob We Trust,” and sported a “God is make-believe” bumper sticker.
Wauconda, facing Sherman’s threat to sue, removed holiday season lighted crosses from its water towers in 1989, prompting many residents to put lighted crosses on their own property. Palatine and Rolling Meadows removed crosses from their municipal seals. Kane County covered up crosses when it bought a former seminary building.
Sherman sued and lost over an Illinois law that required a moment of silence at the beginning of the school day.
Sherman, who compared himself to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. and once referred to himself as “the Jesse Jackson of atheists,” occasionally enlisted his son and daughter in his battles against religious programs in schools and Scouts.
Excerpted:
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20161212/news/161219711/
This is a sad thing. I hope, for the sake of his eternal soul, that he prayed the sinner’s prayer. If not, then he is an atheist no more. He KNOWS there is a G*d, and Mr. Sherman is not it.
My sympathy to whomever had the task of separating the pilot from the plane.
He sounds like he was a hateful person while alive, but that said, I don’t find any joy in his demise.
I just find it sad. How sad to live your life the way he did.
I will strive to do better than his example, that is for sure.
Paying up on Pascal’s wager?
Cullin’ the herd?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.