One Century After Her Birth, Mother Teresa is Still Inspiring…Vile Hatred

US Postal Service due to issue a stamp commemorating Mother Teresa, a proposal to which Freedom From Religion Foundation is objecting.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation was established in the USA which is a nation that was premised upon the concept of freedom of religious expression.
It seems that from about November to February they calculate their budget and go on a lawsuit filing frenzy so as to claim victim status and beg their adherents for money (much of which they waste on bus ads and billboards)—the are the underdog not under God (a little dyslexia humor).

I have detailed how the New Atheist sorts have, quite brilliantly, absconded from taking on the true dangers of “religious” extremism in the world and instead choose easy targets such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, the Pope, the Bishop and Canterbury and now—Mother Teresa. Of course, this is not the first time that she has been in the atheist’s cross hairs as, for example, Christopher Hitchens besmirched her previously.

This time, the issue is the proposed US Postal Service issuing of a stamp commemorating Mother Teresa who is:

Noted for her compassion toward the poor and suffering, Mother Teresa, a diminutive Roman Catholic nun and honorary U.S. citizen, served the sick and destitute of India and the world for nearly 50 years…
Her humility and compassion, as well as her respect for the innate worth and dignity of humankind, inspired people of all ages and backgrounds to work on behalf of the world’s poorest populations.[i]

Well respected worldwide, she successfully urged many of the world's business and political leaders to give their time and resources to help those in need. President Ronald Reagan presented Mother Teresa with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985, the same year she began work on behalf of AIDS sufferers in the U.S. and other countries. In 1997, Congress awarded Mother Teresa the Congressional Gold Medal for her “outstanding and enduring contributions through humanitarian and charitable activities.”[ii]

In 1979 AD, she also received the Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian work.
Born in 1910 AD, it was at the age of 18 that she, “realized my vocation was towards the poor…From then on, I have never had the least doubt of my decision.”[iii]
While not doubting her decision to do more good for the world in one day than the likes of the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) will do in a lifetime, she did experience bouts of doubts about God. She was a true and honest skeptic who wrestled with doubts about God even whilst helping those whom she believed God had created, those whom the Hindu cast system had cast off.

Note the specific reasons to which the US Postal Service (USPS) appealed in issuing the stamp. This comes into play when considering the utter illogicality behind the FFRF’s objections. FFRF co-founder Annie Laurie Gaylor stated the following about the USPS’s criterions for considering the issuance of stamps as she notes that criterion No. 6 should have been a stumbling block:

…Stamps or stationery items shall not be issued to honor fraternal, political, sectarian, or service/charitable organizations…The organization she ran and was inextricably identified with, Missionaries of Charity, was both sectarian (Roman Catholic) and a service/charitable organization.[iv]

I love how they hide their prejudice behind concerns for the integrity of USPS regulations.
Let us attempt to follow the bounding ball of logic:
1) Criterion No. 6 states that stamps shall not be issued to various organizations.
2) But the organization Mother Teresa ran and was inextricably identified with Roman Catholicism, etc.
3) Therefore, her organization is not being honored on the stamp: Mother Teresa is being honored.
It is really as simple as that: her organization cannot be honored and it is not, she is being honored and thus, the FFRF’s objections are discredited, null and void.

USPS spokesman Roy Betts:

expressed surprise at the protest, given the long list of previous honorees with strong religious backgrounds, including Malcolm X, the former chief spokesman for the Nation of Islam, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
“In fact we honored Father Flanagan in 1986 for his humanitarian work. This has nothing to do with religion or faith”…

Mother Teresa is not being honored because of her religion, she's being honored for her work with the poor and her acts of humanitarian relief…Her contribution to the world as a humanitarian speaks for itself and is unprecedented… He said the Mother Teresa stamp, like other stamp subjects, will “stand the test of time, reflect the cultural diversity of our nation and have broad national appeal.”[v]

Now, what does the FFRF do when refuted by troublesome things such logic and facts? They merely tread on:

Gaylor said the atheist group opposed Father Flanagan's stamp but not those for King and Malcolm X, because she said they were known for their civil rights activities, not for their religion.
Martin Luther King “just happened to be a minister,” and “Malcolm X was not principally known for being a religious figure,” she said.
“And he's not called Father Malcolm X like Mother Teresa. I mean, even her name is a Roman Catholic honorific…she was doing was to promote religion, and what she wanted to do was baptize people before they die”
Gaylor said the foundation's only concern is the “other things that deserve to be commemorated but are not because the people behind it didn't have the power of the Catholic church.”
“It's enormously difficult to get them…and people have huge campaigns, and to me this speaks of the power of the Roman Catholic Church in hierarchy. They want to make her a saint and this is part of the PR machine.[vi]

Martin Luther King “just happened to be a minister” in the same way that Richard Dawkins just happens to be an atheist. “Malcolm X was not “called Father Malcolm X” because he was not a Roman Catholic priest but the one time chief spokesman for the Nation of Islam who later embraced non-Nation of Islam Islam (and who was also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz).
It is all a vast Roman Catholic conspiracy to do what exactly? The Roman Catholic Church put its power behind honoring a Baptist and Muslim?—rage against the PR machine, fight the power and so on. No, no, just this one nun—apparently, they do not wield much power.

Note that the FFRF “is encouraging its supporters to purchase the new stamp honoring the late actress Katharine Hepburn, who was an atheist, instead.”[vii] Hepburn, “told the Ladies’ Home Journal in 1991, ‘I'm an atheist, and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for other people.’”[viii]
Of course, being kind to each other and doing what we can for other people is a non sequitur from presupposing atheism. But recall that Annie Laurie Gaylor’s objection was that—while Mother Teresa’s organization was not being honored—“The organization she ran and was inextricably identified with” Roman Catholicism, etc. Thus, the objection is that her humanitarian deeds were done though the premise of Roman Catholicism.
Moreover, Gaylor stated, “You can't really separate her being a nun and being a Roman Catholic from everything she did.”[ix] Let us grant this and logically follow it by stating that since Katharine Hepburn premised her humanitarian claims on atheism, you can't really separate her being a humanitarian and being an atheist from everything she did (which is what, exactly?).
Now, Mother Teresa conducted humanitarian work for some eight decades. But the FFRF support a stamp honoring an actress. Why the one over the other? Because Katharine Hepburn was an atheist and so is being supported due to her atheism.

But there is one more objection up the FFRF’s sleeves:

Gaylor said Mother Teresa infused Catholicism into her secular honors — including an “anti-abortion rant” during her Nobel Prize acceptance speech — and that even her humanitarian work was controversial.[x]

Indeed, the FFRF seek to, “use this opportunity to enlighten friends and colleagues about the darker side of Mother Teresa's religious activism” which includes the “a disturbing, befogged religious rant”[xi] against abortion which they reiterated thusly:

Here's another objection: Mother Teresa used almost every public occasion, including her acceptance speech for the Nobel prize, to promote Roman Catholic dogma, especially its antiabortion ideology…Even during her Nobel acceptance, the nun delivered a gratuitous tirade against abortion.[xii]

But why is this a problem? It is because the FFRF supports the brutal, dismembering murder of healthy, beautiful, innocent and defenseless human babies. FFRF co-founder Dan Barker stated that “abortion is a blessing” and generally has a very low view of human dignity and worth, particularly with regards to babies in the womb.

Other notables have made relevant comments such as the Pacific Justice Institute’s President Brad Dacus:

Just when you think the atheists and anti-religionists have run out of things to complain about, they attack Mother Teresa, one of the great role models of the last century. We are encouraging anyone who has been inspired by Mother Teresa to join us in writing letters of appreciation to the U.S. Postal Service to counter the ridiculous complaints they are receiving from the FFRF.[xiii]

Bruce Sheiman, an atheist and author who wrote An Atheist Defends Religion (imagine that; an atheist defends religion while Christians condemn it):

said the Freedom from Religion Foundation is being “hypocritical” and really “stepping over the line.”
“Clearly there are a number of things that you can point to and say it's religious and a number of things you can point to and say that it's areligious…So it really doesn't make sense to protest it.”
He said the Foundation's campaign stems from concern that the abundance of humanitarian work done by believers will overshadow that done by atheists.
“Like billboards and bus ads, this is just part of the whole campaign that they're doing to make non-belief more visible.”[xiv]

Lastly, note that “Hindu leaders have applauded the stamp decision. Rajan Zed, head of the Universal Society for Hinduism, called it an honor to all of India.”[xv]

Overall, the FFRF’s illogical objections are quite obviously a very thinly veiled excuse for expressing prejudice and attempting to gain support and funds.

[i] Diane Macedo, “Atheist Group Blasts Postal Service for Mother Teresa Stamp,” Fox News, January 28, 2010
[ii] Bob Unruh, “Atheists attack Mother Teresa Say she's not worthy of memorial stamp,” World Net Daily, January 25, 2010, © 2010 WorldNetDaily
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Macedo
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] Unruh
[ix] Macedo
[x] Ibid.
[xi] Unruh
[xii] Ibid.
[xiii] “Save Mother Teresa Postage Stamp Campaign begins - Atheist Group Assails Mother Teresa Postage Stamp,” Oregon Faith Report, January 28, 2010
[xiv]Macedo
[xv] Oregon Faith Report