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This file, its printout, or copies of either
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are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.
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Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
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THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
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(The Ingersoll -- Black Debate)
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Part one by
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Robert G. Ingersoll
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1881
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I
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In the presence of eternity the mountains are as
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transient as the clouds.
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_______
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A profound change has taken place in the world of thought. The
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pews are trying to set themselves somewhat above the pulpit, The
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layman discusses theology with the minister, and smiles. Christians
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excuse themselves for belonging to the church, by denying a part of
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the creed. The idea is abroad that they who know the most of nature
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believe the least about theology. The sciences are regarded as
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infidels, and facts as scoffers. Thousands of most excellent people
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avoid churches, and, with few exceptions, only those attend prayer-
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meetings who wish to be alone. The pulpit is losing because the
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people are growing.
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Of course it is still claimed that we are a Christian people,
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indebted to something called Christianity for all the progress we
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have made. There is still a vast difference of opinion as to what
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Christianity really is, although many warring sects have been
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discussing that question, with fire and sword, through centuries of
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creed and crime. Every new sect has been denounced at its birth as
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illegitimate, as a something born out of orthodox wedlock, and that
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should have been allowed to perish on the steps where it was found.
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Of the relative merits of the various denominations, it is
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sufficient to say that each claims to be right. Among the
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evangelical churches there is a substantial agreement upon what
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they consider the fundamental truths of the gospel. These
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fundamental truths, as I understand them, are:
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That there is a personal God, the creator of the material
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universe; that he made man of the dust, and woman from part of the
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man; that the man and woman were tempted by the devil; that they
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were turned out of the Garden of Eden; that, about fifteen hundred
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years afterward, God's patience having been exhausted by the
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wickedness of mankind, he drowned his children with the exception
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of eight persons; that afterward he selected from their descendants
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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1
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THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - I
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Robert G. Ingersoll
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Abraham, and through him the Jewish people; that he gave laws to
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these people, and tried to govern them in all things; that he made
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known his will in many ways that he wrought a vast number of
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miracles; that he inspired men to write the Bible; that, in the
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fullness of time, it having been found impossible to reform
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mankind, this God came upon earth as a child born of the Virgin
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Mary; that he lived in Palestine; that he preached for about three
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years, going from place to place, occasionally raising the dead,
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curing the blind and the halt; that he was crucified for the crime
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of blasphemy, as the Jews supposed, but that, as a matter of fact,
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he was offered as a sacrifice for the sins of all who might have
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faith in him; that he was raised from the dead and ascended into
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heaven, where he now is, making intercession for his followers that
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he will forgive the sins of all who believe on him, and that those
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who do not believe will be consigned to the dungeons of eternal
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pain. These it may be with the addition of the sacraments of
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Baptism and the Last Supper constitute what is generally known as
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the Christian religion.
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It is most cheerfully admitted that a vast number of people
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not only believe these things, but hold them in exceeding
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reverence, and imagine them to be of the utmost importance to
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mankind. They regard the Bible as the only light that God has given
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for the guidance of his children; that it is the one star in
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nature's sky the foundation of all morality, of all law, of all
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order, and of all individual and national progress. They regard it
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as the only means we have for ascertaining the will of God, the
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origin of man, and the destiny of the soul.
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It is needless to inquire into the causes that have led so
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many people to believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures. In my
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opinion, they were and are mistaken, and the mistake has hindered,
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in countless ways, the civilization of man. The Bible has been the
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fortress and defence of nearly every crime. No civilized country
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could re-enact its laws, and in many respects its moral code is
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abhorrent to every good and tender man. It is admitted that many of
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its precepts are pure, that many of its laws are wise and just, and
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that many of its statements are absolutely true.
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Without desiring to hurt the feelings of anybody, I propose to
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give a few reasons for thinking that a few passages, at least, in
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the Old Testament are the product of a barbarous people.
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In all civilized countries it is not only admitted, but it is
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passionately asserted, that slavery is and always was a hideous
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crime; that a war of conquest is simply murder; that polygamy is
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the enslavement of woman, the degradation of man, and the
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destruction of home; that nothing is more infamous than the
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slaughter of decrepit men, of helpless women, and of prattling
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babes; that captured maidens should not be given to soldiers; that
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wives should not be stoned to death on account of their religious
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opinions, and that the death penalty ought not to be inflicted for
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a violation of the Sabbath. We know that there was a time, in the
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history of almost every nation, when slavery, polygamy, and wars of
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extermination were regarded as divine institutions; when women were
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looked upon as beasts of burden, and when, among some people, it
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was considered the duty of the husband to murder the wife for
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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2
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THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - I
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Robert G. Ingersoll
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differing with him on the subject of religion. Nations that
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entertain these views to-day are regarded as savage, and, probably,
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with the exception of the South Sea Islanders, the Feejees, some
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citizens of Delaware, and a few tribes in Central Africa, no human
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beings can be found degraded enough to agree upon these subjects
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with the Jehovah of the ancient Jews. The only evidence we have, or
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can have, that a nation has ceased to be savage is the fact that it
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has abandoned these doctrines. To every one, except the theologian,
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it is perfectly easy to account for the mistakes, atrocities, and
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crimes of the past, by saying that civilization is a slow and
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painful growth; that the moral perceptions are cultivated through
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ages of tyranny, of want, of crime, and of heroism; that it
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requires centuries for man to put out the eyes of self and hold in
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lofty and in equal poise the scales of justice; that conscience is
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born of suffering; that mercy is the child of the imagination of
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the power to put oneself in the suffer's place, and that man
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advances only as he becomes acquainted with his surroundings, with
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the mutual obligations of life, and learns to take advantage of the
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forces of nature.
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But the believer in the inspiration of the Bible is compelled
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to declare that there was a time when slavery was right when men
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could buy, and women could sell, their babes. He is compelled to
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insist that there was a time when polygamy was the highest form of
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virtue; when wars of extermination were waged with the sword of
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mercy; when religious toleration was a crime, and when death was
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the just penalty for having expressed an honest thought. He must
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maintain that Jehovah is just as bad now as he was four thousand
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years ago, or that he was just as good then as he is now, but that
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human conditions have so changed that slavery, polygamy, religious
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persecutions, and wars of conquest are now perfectly devilish. Once
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they were right once they were commanded by God himself; now, they
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are prohibited. There has been such a change in the conditions of
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man that, at the present time, the devil is in favor of slavery,
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polygamy, religious persecution, and wars of conquest. That is to
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say, the devil entertains the same opinion to-day that Jehovah held
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four thousand years ago, but in the meantime Jehovah has remained
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exactly the same, changeless and incapable of change.
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We find that other nations beside the Jews had similar laws
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and ideas; that they believed in and practiced slavery and
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polygamy, murdered women and children, and exterminated their
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neighbors to the extent of their power. It is not claimed that they
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received a revelation. It is admitted that they had no knowledge of
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the true God. And yet, by a strange coincidence, they practiced the
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same crimes, of their own motion, that the Jews did by the command
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of Jehovah. From this it would seem that man can do wrong without
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a special revelation.
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It will hardly be claimed, at this day, that the passages in
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the Bible upholding slavery, polygamy, war and religious
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persecution are evidences of the inspiration of that book. Suppose
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that there had been nothing in the Old Testament upholding these
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crimes, would any modern Christian suspect that it was not
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inspired, on account of the omission? Suppose that there had been
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nothing in the Old Testament but laws in favor of these crimes,
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would any intelligent Christian now contend that it was the work of
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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3
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THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - I
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Robert G. Ingersoll
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the true God? If the devil had inspired a book, will some believer
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in the doctrine of inspiration tell us in what respect, on the
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subjects of slavery, polygamy, war, and liberty, it would have
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differed from some parts of the Old Testament? Suppose that we
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should now discover a Hindu book of equal antiquity with the Old
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Testament, containing a defence of slavery, polygamy, wars of
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extermination, and religious persecution, would we regard it as
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evidence that the writers were inspired by an infinitely wise and
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merciful God? As most other nations at that time practiced these
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crimes, and as the Jews would have practiced them all, even if left
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to themselves, one can hardly see the necessity of any inspired
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commands upon these subjects. Is there a believer in the Bible who
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does not wish that God, amid the thunders and lightnings of Sinai,
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had distinctly said to Moses that man should not own his fellow-
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man; that women should not sell their babes; that men should be
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allowed to think and investigate for themselves, and that the sword
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should never be unsheathed to shed the blood of honest men? Is
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there a believer in the world, who would not be delighted to find
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that every one of these infamous passages are interpolations, and
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that the skirts of God were never reddened by the blood of maiden,
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wife, or babe? Is there a believer who does not regret that God
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commanded a husband to stone his wife to death for suggesting the
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worship of the sun or moon? Surely, the light of experience is
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enough to tell us that slavery is wrong, that polygamy is infamous,
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and that murder is not a virtue. No one will now contend that it
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was worth God's while to impart the information to Moses, or to
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Joshua, or to anybody else, that the Jewish people might purchase
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slaves of the heathen, or that it was their duty to exterminate the
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natives of the Holy Land. The Deists have contended that the Old
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Testament is too cruel and barbarous to be the work of a wise and
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loving God. To this, the theologians have replied, that nature is
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just as cruel; that the earthquake, the volcano, the pestilence and
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storm, are just as savage as the Jewish God; and to my mind this is
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a perfect answer.
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Suppose that we knew that after "inspired" men had finished
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the Bible, the devil got possession of it, and wrote a few
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passages; what part of the sacred Scriptures would Christians now
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pick out as being probably his work? Which of the following
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passages would naturally be selected as having been written by the
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devil "Love thy neighbor as thyself," or "Kill all the males among
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the little ones, and kill every woman; but all the women children
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keep alive for yourselves"?
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It may be that the best way to illustrate what I have said of
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the Old Testament is to compare some of the supposed teachings of
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Jehovah with those of persons who never read an "inspired" line,
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and who lived and died without having received the light of
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revelation. Nothing can be more suggestive than a comparison of the
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ideas of Jehovah the inspired words of the one claimed to be the
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infinite God, as recorded in the Bible with those that have been
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expressed by men who, all admit, received no help from heaven. In
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all ages of which any record has been preserved, there have been
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those who gave their ideas of justice, charity, liberty, love and
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law. Now, if the Bible is really the work of God, it should contain
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the grandest and sublimest truths. It should, in all respects,
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excel the works of man. Within that book should be found the best
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Bank of Wisdom
|
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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4
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THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - I
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Robert G. Ingersoll
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and loftiest definitions of justice; the truest conceptions of
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human liberty; the clearest outlines of duty; the tenderest, the
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highest, and the noblest thoughts, not that the human mind has
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produced, but that the human mind is capable of receiving. Upon
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every page should be found the luminous evidence of its divine
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origin. Unless it contains grander and more wonderful things than
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man has written, we are not only justified in saying, but we are
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compelled to say, that it was written by no being superior to man.
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It may be said that it is unfair to call attention to certain bad
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things in the Bible, while the good are not so much as mentioned.
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To this it may be replied that a divine being would not put bad
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things in a book. Certainly a being of infinite intelligence,
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power, and goodness could never fall below the ideal of "depraved
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and barbarous" man. It will not do, after we find that the Bible
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upholds what we now call crimes, to say that it is not verbally
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inspired. If the words are not inspired, what is? It may be said
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that the thoughts are inspired. But this would include only the
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thoughts expressed without words. If ideas are inspired, they must
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be contained in and expressed only by inspired words; that is to
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say, the arrangement of the words, with relation to each other,
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must have been inspired. For the purpose of this perfect
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arrangement, the writers, according to the Christian world, were
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inspired. Were some sculptor inspired of God to make a statue
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perfect in its every part, we would not say that the marble was
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inspired, but the statue the relation of part to part, the married
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harmony of form and function. The language, the words, take the
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place of the marble, and it is the arrangement of these words that
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Christians claim to be inspired. If there is one uninspired word,
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that is, one word in the wrong place, or a word that ought not to
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be there, to that extent the Bible is an uninspired book. The
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moment it is admitted that some words are not, in their arrangement
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as to other words, inspired, then, unless with absolute certainty
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these words can be pointed out, a doubt is cast on all the words
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the book contains. If it was worth God's while to make a revelation
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to man at all, it was certainly worth his while to see that it was
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correctly made. He would not have allowed the ideas and mistakes of
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pretended prophets and designing priests to become so mingled with
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the original text that it is impossible to tell where he ceased and
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where the priests and prophets began. Neither will it do to say
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that God adapted his revelation to the prejudices of mankind. Of
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course it was necessary for an infinite being to adapt his
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revelation to the intellectual capacity of man; but why should God
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confirm a barbarian in his prejudices? Why should he fortify a
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heathen in his crimes? If a revelation is of any importance
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whatever, it is to eradicate prejudices from the human mind. It
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should be a lever with which to raise the human race. Theologians
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have exhausted their ingenuity in finding excuses for God. It seems
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to me that they would be better employed in finding excuses for
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men. They tell us that the Jews were so cruel and ignorant that God
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was compelled to justify, or nearly to justify, many of their
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crimes, in order to have any influence with them whatever. They
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tell us that if he had declared slavery and polygamy to be
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criminal, the Jews would have refused to receive the Ten
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Commandments. They insist that, under the circumstances, God did
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the best he could; that his real intention was to lead them along
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slowly, step by step, so that, in a few hundred years, they would
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be induced to admit that it was hardly fair to steal a babe from
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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5
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THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - I
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Robert G. Ingersoll
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its mother's breast. It has always seemed reasonable that an
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infinite God ought to have been able to make man grand enough to
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know, even without a special revelation, that it is not altogether
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right to steal the labor, or the wife, or the child, of another.
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When the whole question is thoroughly examined, the world will find
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that Jehovah had the prejudices, the hatreds, and superstitions of
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his day.
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If there is anything of value, it is liberty. Liberty is the
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air of the soul, the sunshine of life. Without it the world is a
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prison and the universe an infinite dungeon.
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If the Bible is really inspired, Jehovah commanded the Jewish
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people to buy the children of the stranger that sojourned among
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them, and ordered that the children thus bought should be an
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inheritance for the children of the Jews, and that they should be
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bondmen and bondwomen forever. Yet Epictetas, a man to whom no
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||
revelation was made, a man whose soul followed only the light of
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nature, and who had never heard of the Jewish God, was great enough
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||
to say: "Will you not remember that your servants are by nature
|
||
your brothers, the children of God? In saying that you have bought
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them, you look down on the earth, and into the pit, on the wretched
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law of men long since dead, but you see not the laws of the gods."
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||
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We find that Jehovah, speaking to his chosen people, assured
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||
them that their bondmen and their bondmaids must be "of the heathen
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||
that were round about them." "Of them," said Jehovah, "shall ye buy
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||
bondmen and bondmaids." And yet Cicero, a pagan, Cicero, who had
|
||
never been enlightened by reading the Old Testament, had the moral
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grandeur to declare "They who say that we should love our fellow-
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citizens, but not foreigners, destroy the universal brotherhood of
|
||
mankind, without which benevolence and justice would perish
|
||
forever."
|
||
|
||
If the Bible is inspired, Jehovah, God of all worlds, actually
|
||
said: "And if a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and
|
||
he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished;
|
||
notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be
|
||
punished, for he is his money." And yet Zeno, founder of the
|
||
Stoics, centuries before Christ was born, insisted that no man
|
||
could be the owner of another, and that the title was bad, whether
|
||
the slave had become so by conquest, or by purchase. Jehovah
|
||
ordered a Jewish general to make war, and gave, among others, this
|
||
command: "When the Lord thy God shall drive them before thee, thou
|
||
shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no
|
||
covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them." And yet Epictetus,
|
||
whom we have already quoted, gave this marvelous rule for the
|
||
guidance of human conduct: "Live with thy inferiors as thou
|
||
would'st have thy superiors live with thee."
|
||
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||
Is it possible, after all, that a being of infinite goodness
|
||
and wisdom said: "I will heap mischief upon them: I will spend mine
|
||
arrows upon them. They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured
|
||
with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send
|
||
the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the
|
||
dust. The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the
|
||
young man and the virgin, the suckling also, with the man of gray
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
6
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THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - I
|
||
Robert G. Ingersoll
|
||
|
||
hairs"; while Seneca, an uninspired Roman, said: "The wise man will
|
||
not pardon any crime that ought to be punished, but he will
|
||
accomplish, in a nobler way, all that is sought in pardoning. He
|
||
will spare some and watch over some, because of their youth, and
|
||
others on account of their ignorance. His clemency will not fall
|
||
short of justice, but will fulfill it perfectly."
|
||
|
||
Can we believe that God ever said of any one: "Let his
|
||
children be fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be
|
||
continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out
|
||
of their desolate places; let the extortioner catch all that he
|
||
hath and let the stranger spoil his labor; let there be none to
|
||
extend mercy unto him, neither let there be any to favor his
|
||
fatherless children." If he ever said these words, surely he had
|
||
never heard this line, this strain of music, from the Hindu: "Sweet
|
||
is the lute to those who have not heard the prattle of their own
|
||
children."
|
||
|
||
Jehovah, "from the clouds and darkness of Sinai," said to the
|
||
Jews: "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.... Thou shalt not
|
||
bow down thyself to them nor serve them; for I, the Lord thy God,
|
||
am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the
|
||
children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate
|
||
me." Contrast this with the words put by the Hindu into the mouth
|
||
of Brahma: "I am the same to all mankind. They who honestly serve
|
||
other gods, involuntarily worship me. I am he who partaketh of all
|
||
worship, and I am the reward of all worshipers."
|
||
|
||
Compare these passages. The first, a dungeon where crawl the
|
||
things begot of jealous slime; the other, great as the domed
|
||
firmament inlaid with suns.
|
||
|
||
II
|
||
|
||
Waiving the contradictory statements in the various books of
|
||
the New Testament; leaving out of the question the history of the
|
||
manuscripts: saying nothing about the errors in translation and the
|
||
interpolations made by the fathers; and admitting, for the time
|
||
being, that the books were all written at the times claimed, and by
|
||
the persons whose names they bear, the questions of inspiration,
|
||
probability, and absurdity still remain.
|
||
|
||
As a rule, where several persons testify to the same
|
||
transaction, while agreeing in the main points, they will disagree
|
||
upon many minor things, and such disagreement upon minor matters is
|
||
generally considered as evidence that the witnesses have not agreed
|
||
among themselves upon the story they should tell. These differences
|
||
in statement we account for from the facts that all did not see
|
||
alike, that all did not have the same opportunity for seeing, and
|
||
that all had not equally good memories. But when we claim that the
|
||
witnesses were inspired, we must admit that he who inspired them
|
||
did know exactly what occurred, and consequently there should be no
|
||
contradiction, even in the minutest detail. The accounts should be
|
||
not only substantially, but they should be actually, the same. It
|
||
is impossible to account for any differences, or any
|
||
contradictions, except from the weaknesses of human nature, and
|
||
these weaknesses cannot be predicated of divine wisdom. Why should
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
7
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - I
|
||
Robert G. Ingersoll
|
||
|
||
there be more than one correct account of anything? Why were four
|
||
gospels necessary? One inspired record of all that happened ought
|
||
to be enough. One great objection to the Old Testament is the
|
||
cruelty said to have been commanded by God, but all the cruelties
|
||
recounted in the Old Testament ceased with death. The vengeance of
|
||
Jehovah stopped at the portal of the tomb. He never threatened to
|
||
avenge himself upon the dead; and not one word, from the first
|
||
mistake in Genesis to the last curse of Malachi, contains the
|
||
slightest intimation that God will punish in another world. It was
|
||
reserved for the New Testament to make known the frightful doctrine
|
||
of eternal pain. It was the teacher of universal benevolence who
|
||
rent the veil between time and eternity, and fixed the horrified
|
||
gaze of man on the lurid gulfs of hell. Within the breast of non-
|
||
resistance was coiled the worm that never dies.
|
||
|
||
One great objection to the New Testament is that it bases
|
||
salvation upon belief. This, at least, is true of the Gospel
|
||
according to John, and of many of the Episodes. I admit that
|
||
Matthew never heard of the atonement, and died utterly ignorant of
|
||
the scheme of salvation. I also admit that Mark never dreamed that
|
||
it was necessary for a man to be born again; that he knew nothing
|
||
of the mysterious doctrine of regeneration, and that he never even
|
||
suspected that it was necessary to believe anything. In the
|
||
sixteenth chapter of Mark, we are told that "He that believeth and
|
||
is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be
|
||
damned"; but this passage has been shown to be an interpolation,
|
||
and, consequently, not a solitary word is found in the Gospel
|
||
according to Mark upon the subject of salvation by faith. The same
|
||
is also true of the Gospel of Luke. It says not one word as to the
|
||
necessity of believing on Jesus Christ, not one word as to the
|
||
atonement, not one word upon the scheme of salvation, and not the
|
||
slightest hint that it is necessary to believe anything here in
|
||
order to be happy hereafter.
|
||
|
||
And I here take occasion to say, that with most of the
|
||
teachings of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke I most heartily
|
||
agree. The miraculous parts must, of course, be thrown aside. I
|
||
admit that the necessity of belief, the atonement, and the scheme
|
||
of salvation are all set forth in the Gospel of John, a gospel, in
|
||
my opinion, not written until long after the others.
|
||
|
||
According to the prevailing Christian belief, the Christian
|
||
religion rests upon the doctrine of the atonement. If this doctrine
|
||
is without foundation, if it is repugnant to justice and mercy, the
|
||
fabric falls. We are told that the first man committed a crime for
|
||
which all his posterity are responsible, in other words, that we
|
||
are accountable, and can be justly punished for a sin we never in
|
||
fact committed. This absurdity was the father of another, namely,
|
||
that a man can be rewarded for a good action done by another. God,
|
||
according to the modern theologians, made a law, with the penalty
|
||
of eternal death for its infraction. All men, they say, have broken
|
||
that law. In the economy of heaven, this law had to be vindicated.
|
||
This could be done by damning the whole human race. Through what is
|
||
known as the atonement, the salvation of a few was made possible.
|
||
They insist that the law whatever that is demanded the extreme
|
||
penalty, that justice called for its victims, and that even mercy
|
||
ceased to plead. Under these circumstances, God, by allowing the
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
8
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - I
|
||
Robert G. Ingersoll
|
||
|
||
innocent to suffer, satisfactorily settled with the law, and
|
||
allowed a few of the guilty to escape. The law was satisfied with
|
||
this arrangement. To carry out this scheme, God was born as a babe
|
||
into this world. "He grew in stature and increased in knowledge."
|
||
At the age of thirty-three, after having lived a life filled with
|
||
kindness, charity and nobility, after having practiced every virtue
|
||
he was sacrificed as an atonement for man. It is claimed that he
|
||
actually took our place, and bore our sins and our guilt; that in
|
||
this way the justice of God was satisfied, and that the blood of
|
||
Christ was an atonement, an expiation, for the sins of all who
|
||
might believe on him.
|
||
|
||
Under the Mosaic dispensation, there was no remission of sin
|
||
except through the shedding of blood. If a man committed certain
|
||
sins, he must bring to the priest a lamb, a bullock, a goat, or a
|
||
pair of turtle-doves. The priest would lay his hands upon the
|
||
animal, and the sin of the man would be transferred. Then the
|
||
animal would be killed in the place of the real sinner, and the
|
||
blood thus shed and sprinkled upon the altar would be an atonement.
|
||
In this way Jehovah was satisfied. The greater the crime, the
|
||
greater the sacrifice the more blood, the greater the atonement.
|
||
There was always a certain ratio between the value of the animal
|
||
and the enormity of the sin. The most minute directions were given
|
||
about the killing of these animals, and about the sprinkling of
|
||
their blood. Every priest became a butcher, and every sanctuary a
|
||
slaughter-house. Nothing could be more utterly shocking to a
|
||
refined and loving soul. Nothing could have been better calculated
|
||
to harden the heart than this continual shedding of innocent blood.
|
||
This terrible system is supposed to have culminated in the
|
||
sacrifice of Christ. His blood took the place of all other. It is
|
||
necessary to shed no more. The law at last is satisfied, satiated,
|
||
surfeited. The idea that God wants blood is at the bottom of the
|
||
atonement, and rests upon the most fearful savagery. How can sin be
|
||
transferred from men to animals, and how can the shedding of the
|
||
blood of animals atone for the sins of men?
|
||
|
||
The church says that the sinner is in debt to God, and that
|
||
the obligation is discharged by the Savior. The best that can
|
||
possibly be said of such a transaction is, that the debt is
|
||
transferred, not paid. The truth is, that a sinner is in debt to
|
||
the person he has injured. If a man injures his neighbor, it is not
|
||
enough for him to get the forgiveness of God, but he must have the
|
||
forgiveness of his neighbor. If a man puts his hand in the fire and
|
||
God forgives him, his hand will smart exactly the same. You must,
|
||
after all, reap what you sow. No god can give you wheat when you
|
||
sow tares, and no devil can give you tares when you sow wheat.
|
||
|
||
There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments there are
|
||
consequences. The life of Christ is worth its example, its moral
|
||
force, its heroism of benevolence.
|
||
|
||
To make innocence suffer is the greatest sin; how then is it
|
||
possible to make the suffering of the innocent a justification for
|
||
the criminal? Why should a man be willing to let the innocent
|
||
suffer for him? Does not the willingness show that he is utterly
|
||
unworthy of the sacrifice? Certainly, no man would be fit for
|
||
heaven who would consent that an innocent person should suffer for
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
9
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - I
|
||
Robert G. Ingersoll
|
||
|
||
his sin. What would we think of a man who would allow another to
|
||
die for a crime that he himself had committed? What would we think
|
||
of a law that allowed the innocent to take the place of the guilty?
|
||
Is it possible to vindicate a just law by inflicting punishment on
|
||
the innocent? Would not that be a second violation instead of a
|
||
vindication?
|
||
|
||
If there was no general atonement until the crucifixion of
|
||
Christ, what became of the countless millions who died before that
|
||
time? And it must be remembered that the blood shed by the Jews was
|
||
not for other nations. Jehovah hated foreigners. The Gentiles were
|
||
left without forgiveness. What has become of the millions who have
|
||
died since, without having heard of the atonement? What becomes of
|
||
those who have heard but have not believed? It seems to me that the
|
||
doctrine of the atonement is absurd, unjust, and immoral. Can a law
|
||
be satisfied by the execution of the wrong person? When a man
|
||
commits a crime, the law demands his punishment, not that of a
|
||
substitute; and there can he no law, human or divine, that can be
|
||
satisfied by the punishment of a substitute. Can there be a law
|
||
that demands that the guilty be rewarded? And yet, to reward the
|
||
guilty is far nearer justice than to punish the innocent.
|
||
|
||
According to the orthodox theology, there would have been no
|
||
heaven had no atonement been made. All the children of men would
|
||
have been cast into hell forever. The old men bowed with grief, the
|
||
smiling mothers, the sweet babes, the loving maidens, the brave,
|
||
the tender, and the just, would have been given over to eternal
|
||
pain. Man, it is claimed, can make no atonement for himself. If he
|
||
commits one sin, and with that exception lives a life of perfect
|
||
virtue, still that one sin would remain unexpiated, unatoned, and
|
||
for that one sin he would be forever lost. To be saved by the
|
||
goodness of another, to be a redeemed debtor forever, has in it
|
||
something repugnant to manhood.
|
||
|
||
We must also remember that Jehovah took special charge of the
|
||
Jewish people; and we have always been taught that he did so for
|
||
the purpose of civilizing them. If he had succeeded in civilizing
|
||
the Jews, he would have made the damnation of the entire human race
|
||
a certainty; because, if the Jews had been a civilized people when
|
||
Christ appeared, people whose hearts had not been hardened by the
|
||
laws and teachings of Jehovah, they would not have crucified him,
|
||
and, as a consequence, the world would have been lost. If the Jews
|
||
had believed in religious freedom, in the right of thought and
|
||
speech, not a human soul could ever have been saved. If, when
|
||
Christ was on his way to Calvary, some brave, heroic soul had
|
||
rescued him from the holy mob, he would not only have been
|
||
eternally damned for his pains, but would have rendered impossible
|
||
the salvation of any human being, and, except for the crucifixion
|
||
of her son, the Virgin Mary, if the church is right, would be
|
||
to-day among the lost.
|
||
|
||
In countless ways the Christian world has endeavored, for
|
||
nearly two thousand years, to explain the atonement, and every
|
||
effort has ended in an admission that it cannot be understood, and
|
||
a declaration that it must be believed. Is it not immoral to teach
|
||
that man can sin, that he can harden his heart and pollute his
|
||
soul, and that, by repenting and believing something that he does
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
10
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - I
|
||
Robert G. Ingersoll
|
||
|
||
not comprehend, he can avoid the consequences of his crimes? Has
|
||
the promise and hope of forgiveness ever prevented the commission
|
||
of a sin? Should men be taught that sin gives happiness here; that
|
||
they ought to bear the evils of a virtuous life in this world for
|
||
the sake of joy in the next; that they can repent between the last
|
||
sin and the last breath; that after repentance every stain of the
|
||
soul is washed away by the innocent blood of another; that the
|
||
serpent of regret will not hiss in the ear of memory; that the
|
||
saved will not even pity the victims of their own crimes; that the
|
||
goodness of another can be transferred to them: and that sins
|
||
forgiven cease to affect the unhappy wretches sinned against?
|
||
|
||
Another objection is that a certain belief is necessary to
|
||
save the soul. It is often asserted that to believe is the only
|
||
safe way. If you wish to be safe, be honest. Nothing can be safer
|
||
than that. No matter what his belief may be, no man, even in the
|
||
hour of death, can regret having been honest. It never can be
|
||
necessary to throw away your reason to save your soul. A soul
|
||
without reason is scarcely worth saving. There is no more degrading
|
||
doctrine than that of mental non-resistance. The soul has a right
|
||
to defend its castle the brain, and he who waives that right
|
||
becomes a serf and slave. Neither can I admit that a man, by doing
|
||
me an injury, can place me under obligation to do him a service. To
|
||
render benefits for injuries is to ignore all distinctions between
|
||
actions. He who treats his friends and enemies alike has neither
|
||
love nor justice. The idea of non-resistance never occurred to a
|
||
man with power to protect himself. This doctrine was the child of
|
||
weakness, born when resistance was impossible. To allow a crime to
|
||
be committed when you can prevent it, is next to committing the
|
||
crime yourself. And yet, under the banner of non-resistance, the
|
||
church has shed the blood of millions, and in the folds of her
|
||
sacred vestments have gleamed the daggers of assassination. With
|
||
her cunning hands she wove the purple for hypocrisy, and placed the
|
||
crown upon the brow of crime. For a thousand years larceny held the
|
||
scales of justice, while beggars scorned the princely sons of toil,
|
||
and ignorant fear denounced the liberty of thought.
|
||
|
||
If Christ was in fact God, he knew all the future. Before him,
|
||
like a panorama, moved the history yet to be. He knew exactly how
|
||
his words would he interpreted. He knew what crimes, what horrors,
|
||
what infamies, would be committed in his name. He knew that the
|
||
fires of persecution would climb around the limbs of countless
|
||
martyrs. He knew that brave men would languish in dungeons, in
|
||
darkness, filled with pain; that the church would use instruments
|
||
of torture, that his followers would appeal to whip and chain. He
|
||
must have seen the horizon of the future red with the flames of the
|
||
auto da fe He knew all the creeds that would spring like poison
|
||
fungi from every text. He saw the sects waging war against each
|
||
other. He saw thousands of men, under the orders of priests,
|
||
building dungeons for their fellow-men. He saw them using
|
||
instruments of pain. He heard the groans, saw the faces white with
|
||
agony, the tears, the blood, heard the shrieks and sob of all the
|
||
moaning, martyred multitudes. He knew that commentaries would be
|
||
written on his words with swords, to be read by the light of
|
||
fagots. He knew that the Inquisition would be born of teachings
|
||
attributed to him. He saw all the interpolations and falsehoods
|
||
that hypocrisy would write and tell. He knew that above these
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
11
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - I
|
||
Robert G. Ingersoll
|
||
|
||
fields of death, these dungeons, these burnings, for a thousand
|
||
years would float the dripping banner of the cross. He knew that in
|
||
his name his followers would trade in human flesh, that cradles
|
||
would be robbed, and women's breasts unbabed for gold, and yet he
|
||
died with voiceless lips. Why did he fail to speak? Why did he not
|
||
tell his disciples, and through them the world, that man should not
|
||
persecute, for opinion's sake, his fellow-man? Why did he not cry,
|
||
You shall not persecute in my name; you shall not burn and torment
|
||
those who differ from you in creed? Why did he not plainly say, I
|
||
am the Son of God? Why did he not explain the doctrine of the
|
||
Trinity? Why did he not tell the manner of baptism that was
|
||
pleasing to him? Why did he not say something positive, definite,
|
||
and satisfactory about another world? Why did he not turn the
|
||
tear-stained hope of heaven to the glad knowledge of another life?
|
||
Why did he go dumbly to his death, leaving the world to misery and
|
||
to doubt?
|
||
|
||
He came, they tell us, to make a revelation, and what did he
|
||
reveal? "Love thy neighbor as thyself"? That was in the Old
|
||
Testament. "Love God with all thy heart"? That was in the Old
|
||
Testament. "Return good for evil"? That was said by Buddha seven
|
||
hundred years before he was born. "Do unto others as ye would that
|
||
they should do unto you"? This was the doctrine of Lao-tsze. Did he
|
||
come to give a rule of action? Zoroaster had done this long before:
|
||
"Whenever thou art in doubt as to whether an action is good or bad,
|
||
abstain from it." Did he come to teach us of another world? The
|
||
immortality of the soul had been taught by Hindus, Egyptians,
|
||
Greeks, and Romans hundreds of years before he was born. Long
|
||
before, the world had been told by Socrates that: "One who is
|
||
injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be
|
||
right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury,
|
||
or to do evil to any man, however much we may have suffered from
|
||
him." And Cicero had said: "Let us not listen to those who think
|
||
that we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to
|
||
be great and manly: nothing is more praiseworthy, nothing so
|
||
clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to
|
||
forgive."
|
||
|
||
Is there anything nearer perfect than this from Confucius:
|
||
"For benefits return benefits; for injuries return justice without
|
||
any admixture of revenge"?
|
||
|
||
The dogma of eternal punishment rests upon passages in the New
|
||
Testament. This infamous belief subverts every idea of justice.
|
||
Around the angel of immortality the church has coiled this serpent.
|
||
A finite being can neither commit an infinite sin, nor a sin
|
||
against the infinite. A being of infinite goodness and wisdom has
|
||
no right, according to the human standard of justice, to create any
|
||
being destined to suffer eternal pain. A being of infinite wisdom
|
||
would not create a failure, and surely a man destined to
|
||
everlasting agony is not a success.
|
||
|
||
How long, according to the universal benevolence of the New
|
||
Testament, can a man be reasonably punished in the next world for
|
||
failing to believe something unreasonable in this? Can it be
|
||
possible that any punishment can endure forever? Suppose that every
|
||
flake of snow that ever fell was a figure nine, and that the first
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
12
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - I
|
||
Robert G. Ingersoll
|
||
|
||
flake was multiplied by the second, and that product by the third,
|
||
and so on to the last flake. And then suppose that this total
|
||
should be multiplied by every drop of rain that ever fell calling
|
||
each drop a figure nine; and that total by each blade of grass that
|
||
ever helped to weave a carpet for the earth, calling each blade a
|
||
figure nine; and that again by every grain of sand on every shore,
|
||
so that the grand total would make a line of nines so long that it
|
||
would require millions upon millions of years for light, traveling
|
||
at the rate of one hundred and eighty-five thousand miles per
|
||
second, to reach the end. And suppose, further, that each unit in
|
||
this almost infinite total stood for billions of ages still that
|
||
vast and almost endless time, measured by all the years beyond, is
|
||
as one flake. one drop, one leaf, one blade, one grain, compared
|
||
with all the flakes and drops and leaves and blades and grains.
|
||
Upon love's breast the church has placed the eternal asp. And yet,
|
||
in the same book in which is taught this most infamous of
|
||
doctrines, we are assured that "The Lord is good to all, and his
|
||
tender mercies are over all his works."
|
||
|
||
III
|
||
|
||
So far as we know, man is the author of all books. If a book
|
||
had been found on the earth by the first man, he might have
|
||
regarded it as the work of God; but as men were here a good while
|
||
before any books were found, and as man has produced a great many
|
||
books, the probability is that the Bible is no exception.
|
||
|
||
Most nations, at the time the Old Testament was written,
|
||
believed in slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious
|
||
persecution; and it is not wonderful that the book contained
|
||
nothing contrary to such belief. The fact that it was in exact
|
||
accord with the morality of its time proves that it was not the
|
||
product of any being superior to man. "The inspired writers" upheld
|
||
or established slavery, countenanced polygamy, commanded wars of
|
||
extermination, and ordered the slaughter of women and babes. In
|
||
these respects they were precisely like the uninspired savages by
|
||
whom they were surrounded. They also taught and commanded religious
|
||
persecution as a duty, and visited the most trivial offenses with
|
||
the punishment of death. In these particulars they were in exact
|
||
accord with their barbarian neighbors. They were utterly ignorant
|
||
of geology and astronomy, and knew no more of what had happened
|
||
than of what would happen; and, so far as accuracy is concerned,
|
||
their history and prophecy were about equal; in other words, they
|
||
were just as ignorant as those who lived and died in nature's
|
||
night.
|
||
|
||
Does any Christian believe that if God were to write a book
|
||
now, he would uphold the crimes commanded in the Old Testament? Has
|
||
Jehovah improved? Has infinite mercy become more merciful? Has
|
||
infinite wisdom intellectually advanced? Will any one claim that
|
||
the passages upholding slavery have liberated mankind; that we are
|
||
indebted for our modern homes to the texts that made polygamy a
|
||
virtue; or that religious liberty found its soil, its light, and
|
||
rain in the infamous verse wherein the husband is commanded to
|
||
stone to death the wife for worshiping an unknown god?
|
||
|
||
The usual answer to these objections is that no country has
|
||
ever been civilized without the Bible.
|
||
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
13
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - I
|
||
Robert G. Ingersoll
|
||
|
||
The Jews were the only people to whom Jehovah made his will
|
||
directly known, the only people who had the Old Testament. Other
|
||
nations were utterly neglected by their Creator. Yet, such was the
|
||
effect of the Old Testament on the Jews, that they crucified a
|
||
kind, loving, and perfectly innocent man. They could not have done
|
||
much worse without a Bible. In the crucifixion of Christ, they
|
||
followed the teachings of his Father. If, as it is now alleged by
|
||
the theologians, no nation can be civilized without a Bible,
|
||
certainly God must have known the fact six thousand years ago, as
|
||
well as the theologians know it now. Why did he not furnish every
|
||
nation with a Bible?
|
||
|
||
As to the Old Testament, I insist that all the bad passages
|
||
were written by men; that those passages were not inspired. I
|
||
insist that a being of infinite goodness never commanded man to
|
||
enslave his fellow-man, never told a mother to sell her babe, never
|
||
established polygamy, never ordered one nation to exterminate
|
||
another, and never told a husband to kill his wife because she
|
||
suggested the worshiping of some other God.
|
||
|
||
I also insist that the Old Testament would be a much better
|
||
book with all of these passages left out; and, whatever may be said
|
||
of the rest, the passages to which attention has been drawn can
|
||
with vastly more propriety be attributed to a devil than to a god.
|
||
|
||
Take from the New Testament all passages upholding the idea
|
||
that belief is necessary to salvation; that Christ was offered as
|
||
an atonement for the sins of the world; that the punishment of the
|
||
human soul will go on forever; that heaven is the reward of faith,
|
||
and hell the penalty of honest investigation; take from it all
|
||
miraculous stories, and I admit that all the good passages are
|
||
true. If they are true, it makes no difference whether they are
|
||
inspired or not. Inspiration is only necessary to give authority to
|
||
that which is repugnant to human reason. Only that which never
|
||
happened needs to be substantiated by miracles. The universe is
|
||
natural.
|
||
|
||
The church must cease to insist that the passages upholding
|
||
the institutions of savage men were inspired of God. The dogma of
|
||
the atonement must be abandoned. Good deeds must take the place of
|
||
faith. The savagery of eternal punishment must be renounced.
|
||
Credulity is not a virtue, and investigation is not a crime.
|
||
Miracles are the children of mendacity, Nothing can be more
|
||
wonderful than the majestic, unbroken, sublime, and eternal
|
||
procession of causes and effects.
|
||
|
||
Reason must be the final arbiter. "Inspired" books attested by
|
||
miracles cannot stand against a demonstrated fact. A religion that
|
||
does not command the respect of the greatest minds will, in a
|
||
little while, excite the mockery of all. Every civilized man
|
||
believes in the liberty of thought. Is it possible that God is
|
||
intolerant? Is an act infamous in man one of the virtues of the
|
||
Deity? Could there be progress in heaven without intellectual
|
||
liberty? Is the freedom of the future to exist only in perdition?
|
||
Is it not, after all, barely possible that a man acting like Christ
|
||
can be saved? Is a man to be eternally rewarded for believing
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
14
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - I
|
||
Robert G. Ingersoll
|
||
|
||
according to evidence, without evidence, or against evidence? Are
|
||
we to be saved because we are good, or because another was
|
||
virtuous? Is credulity to be winged and crowned, while honest doubt
|
||
is chained and damned?
|
||
|
||
Do not misunderstand me. My position is that the cruel
|
||
passages in the Old Testament are not inspired; that slavery,
|
||
polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious persecution always
|
||
have been, are, and forever will be, abhorred and cursed by the
|
||
honest, the virtuous, and the loving; that the innocent cannot
|
||
justly suffer for the guilty, and that vicarious vice and vicarious
|
||
virtue are equally absurd; that eternal punishment is eternal
|
||
revenge; that only the natural can happen; that miracles prove the
|
||
dishonesty of the few and the credulity of the many; and that,
|
||
according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, salvation does not depend
|
||
upon belief, nor the atonement, nor a "second birth," but that
|
||
these gospels are in exact harmony with the declaration of the
|
||
great Persian: "Taking the first footstep with the good thought,
|
||
the second with the good word, and the third with the good deed, I
|
||
entered paradise."
|
||
|
||
The dogmas of the past no longer reach the level of the
|
||
highest thought, nor satisfy the hunger of the heart. While dusty
|
||
faiths, embalmed and sepulchered in ancient texts, remain the same,
|
||
the sympathies of men enlarge; the brain no longer kills its young;
|
||
the happy lips give liberty to honest thoughts; the mental
|
||
firmament expands and lifts; the broken clouds drift by; the
|
||
hideous dreams, the foul, misshapen children of the monstrous
|
||
night, dissolve and fade.
|
||
|
||
Robert G. Ingersoll.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
|
||
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
The Bank of Wisdom Inc. is a collection of the most thoughtful,
|
||
scholarly and factual books. These computer books are reprints of
|
||
suppressed books and will cover American and world history; the
|
||
Biographies and writings of famous persons, and especially of our
|
||
nations Founding Fathers. They will include philosophy and
|
||
religion. all these subjects, and more, will be made available to
|
||
the public in electronic form, easily copied and distributed, so
|
||
that America can again become what its Founders intended --
|
||
|
||
The Free Market-Place of Ideas.
|
||
|
||
The Bank of Wisdom is always looking for more of these old,
|
||
hidden, suppressed and forgotten books that contain needed facts
|
||
and information for today. If you have such books please contact
|
||
us, we need to give them back to America.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
15
|
||
|