Ruth Hurmence Green was a United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 atheist and author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

. According to Freedom From Religion Foundation

Freedom From Religion Foundation

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is an American freethought organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. Its purposes, as stated in its bylaws, are to promote the separation of church and state and to educate the public on matters relating to atheism, agnosticism and nontheism. The FFRF publishes...

's official site, she "debunked the Bible as no one has done since Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine

Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...

."

Green was born into a Methodist family in Iowa. In 1935 she graduated from Texas Tech University

Texas Tech University

Texas Tech University, often referred to as Texas Tech or TTU, is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas, United States. Established on February 10, 1923, and originally known as Texas Technological College, it is the leading institution of the Texas Tech University System and has the...

 in journalism. She married, had three children, and settled in Missouri.

In the early 1960s she was diagnosed with cancer. During her recovery, she decided to read the Bible cover to cover, a project that took two years and made her a confirmed atheist. “I think the shock I suffered was worse than the trauma caused by my illness. ...[it] left me stunned.”

Her Bible reading led to the book The Born Again Skeptic's Guide to the Bible, which the Freedom From Religion Foundation

Freedom From Religion Foundation

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is an American freethought organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. Its purposes, as stated in its bylaws, are to promote the separation of church and state and to educate the public on matters relating to atheism, agnosticism and nontheism. The FFRF publishes...

 reports has been its best seller since its publication in 1979. It is currently in the fourth edition.

When she was again stricken with cancer, this time terminal, she committed suicide in 1981.

Quotes

• “Today evolution of human intelligence has advanced us to the stage where most of us are too smart to invent new gods but are reluctant to give up the old ones.”

—Ruth Hurmence Green, "What I Found When I 'Searched the Scriptures,'" from The Book of Ruth (1982)

• “I am now convinced that children should not be subjected to the frightfulness of the Christian religion. ... If the concept of a father who plots to have his own son put to death is presented to children as beautiful and as worthy of society's admiration, what types of human behavior can be presented to them as reprehensible?”

—Ruth Hurmence Green, Preface to the Born Again Skeptic's Guide to the Bible

• “There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the Dark Ages.”

—Ruth Hurmence Green, quoted in Annie Laurie Gaylor

Annie Laurie Gaylor

Annie Laurie Gaylor is co-founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and, with her husband Dan Barker, is the current co-president. She is also editor of the organization's newspaper, Freethought Today, which is published ten times per year. She is a self-described feminist and liberal...

, ed., Women Without Superstition, p. 469

External links

• Brief biography