Catherine Fahringer
2025
Activist · Humanist · Leader
Catherine Fahringer, a full time activist and author, lived in San Antonio, Texas where she planned to raise her children in her Episcopalian faith. As a freethinker, she began to question religion after reading a book of Bible stories, realizing that the god she knew was not fit for children.
I said to my husband, “I can’t teach this stuff to my kids. I’m nicer than God.”
Catherine soon became an atheist, actively advocating for the separation of church and state. Her passion for truth drove her, not only to activism, but also to community leadership. In 1987, Catherine opened a chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) in San Antonio, calling it the “Freethought Forum.” This group allowed fellow freethinkers from the San Antonio area to meet and discuss science, politics, and democracy.
How religion got such a hammerlock on society is a mystery, for it would seem logical that scientific advancement would stretch minds, not shrink them.
Her life in Eatonville would change radically when, at 13, her mother passed and her father remarried shortly thereafter. Zora soon left Eatonville and worked, wandered, and struggled to finish school. She earned an associate's degree from Howard University and a bachelor's Catherine supported non-religious and freethinker communities throughout her life, organizing protests against religious influences in our government and promoting rallies, like the “Rally for Reason” in 1994. In an attempt to reach more people, Catherine produced and hosted a weekly public-access television program, which she also called “Freethought Forum,” using it as a platform to teach about atheism and the unconstitutional religious influence affecting our nation.
We would be 1,500 years ahead if it hadn't been for the church dragging science back by its coattails and burning our best minds at the stake.
Catherine was a driving force in the atheist community, protesting prayer breakfasts, religious symbols on public property, organized school prayer, prison ministries, courtroom oaths, and more. She believed that freethinkers should nurture the next generation and was unfairly labeled as a “militant atheist” for her efforts.
At some point in history, the adjective “militant” was attached to the noun “atheist,” very much as was the adjective “damn” attached to the noun “Yankee” during the Civil War. […] Propaganda dished out by our government reached fever-pitch in the ‘50s. Russians were the enemy; the enemy was communistic; communists were atheists. Ergo, every American atheist was bound to be a communist and therefore the enemy! The Russians were militaristic, so atheists were militaristic. Of course! To speak of God in this country is to win social acceptance. To speak of humanistic values and concerns is highly suspect. To plant religious symbols on public properties is considered an act of patriotism, providing those symbols are Christian ones. To object to them because they violate the First Amendment is considered an act of treason.
After many years serving locally, Catherine entered the national stage, serving as the secretary for FFRF. She also used her unique voice and wit to write for “Freethought Today,” a national publication. Her letters to the editor, op-eds, and letters to government officials helped to bring a much needed voice to the freethinker community. Catherine Fahringer died in 2008, continuing her work for freethought and reason by donating her body to science.