Never heard of him but it sounds like he was a real pain in the ass prior to augering in.
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/