Robert Green Ingersoll

“ Talmage
knew that every "unconverted" soldier killed, went
down to eternal fire. Does Mr. Talmage believe that
it is the duty of a man to fight for a government in
which he has no rights? Is the man who shoulders
his musket in the defence of human freedom good
enough to cast a ballot? There is in the heart of this
priest the safne hatred of real liberty that drew the
sword of persecution, that built dungeons, that forged
chains and made instruments of torture.
Nobody, with the exception of priests, would be
willing to trust the liberties of this country in the
hands of any church. ”

“ The only possible evidence
of "inspiration" would be perfection—a perfection ex-
celling anything that man unaided had ever attained.
An "inspired" book should excel all other books; an
inspired statue should be the best in this world; an in-
spired painting should be beyond all others. If the Bible
has been improved in any particular, it was not, in that
particular, ''inspired." If slavery is wrong, the Bible is
not inspired. If polygamy is vile and loathsome, the
Bible is not inspired. If wars of extermination are cruel
and heartless, the Bible is not "inspired." ”

“ Can it be that to give an
honest opinion causes one to die in terror and de-
spair? Have you in your writings been actuated by
the fear of such a consequence? Why should it be
taken for granted that Thomas Paine, who devoted
his life to the sacred cause of freedom, should have
been hissed at in the hour of death by the snakes of
conscience, while editors of Presbyterian papers who
defended slavery as a divine institution, and cheer-
fully justified the stealing of babes from the breasts of
mothers, are supposed to have passed smilingly from
earth to the embraces of angels? ”

“ The Bible has made men cruel. It is a cruel book.
And yet, amidst its thorns, amidst its thistles, amidst
its nettles and its swords and pikes, there are some
flowers, and these I wish, in common with all good
men, to save.
I do not believe that men have ever been made
merciful in war by reading the Old Testament. I do
not believe that men have ever been prompted to
break the chain of a slave by reading the Pentateuch. ”

“ We should be merciful whether
the flood was general, or local. We should be kind
and obliging whether Jonah was swallowed by a fish
or not. The miraculous has nothing to do with the
moral. Intelligence is of more value than inspiration.
Brain is better than Bible. Reason is above all
religion. I do not believe that any civilized human
being clings to the Bible on account of its barbaric
passages. I am candid enough to believe that every
Christian in the world would think more of the Bible,
if it had not upheld slavery, if it had denounced ”

“ States was a Christian country. When we believed
in slavery, and when we deliberately stole the labor
of four millions of people; when we sold women
and babes, and when the people of the North
enacted a law by virtue of which every Northern
man was bound to turn hound and pursue a human
being who was endeavoring to regain his liberty, I
admit that the United States was a Christian nation. ”

“ Men have stopped reading the Old Testament long
enough to drive a stake into the ground and collect a
few fagots and burn an honest man. Even ministers
have denied themselves the privilege of reading the
sacred book long enough to tell falsehoods about
their fellow-men. There is no crime that Bible
readers and Bible believers and Bible worshipers and
Bible defenders have not committed. There is no
meanness of which some Bible reader, believer, and
defender, has not been guilty. Bible believers and
Bible defenders have filled the world with calumnies
and slanders. ”

“ Why does he with-
hold light from the eyes of the blind? And why
does one who had the power miraculously to feed
thousands, allow millions to die for want of food?
Did Christ only have pity when he was part human?
Are we indebted for his kindness to the flesh that
clothed his spirit? Where is he now? Where has he
been through all the centuries of slavery and crime? ”

“ In all really
civilized countries, that doctrine has been abandoned.
The source of political power is here, not in heaven.
We are willing that those in heaven should control
affairs there; we are willing that the angels should
have a government to suit themselves; but while we
live here, and while our interests are upon this earth,
we propose to make and execute our own laws.
If the doctrine of Mr. Talmage is the true doctrine,
if no man should be voted for unless he is a Christian,
then no man should vote unless he is a Christian. ”

“ I also find that
just in the proportion that he has lost confidence in the
polygamy of Jehovah and in the advice and philosophy
of Saint Paul, he believes in the rights and liberties of
woman. As a matter of fact, men have risen from a
perusal of the Bible, and murdered their wives. They
have risen from reading its pages, and inflicted cruel
and even mortal blows upon their children. Men
have risen from reading the Bible and torn the flesh
of others with red-hot pincers. They have laid
down the sacred volume long enough to pour molten
lead into the ears of others. ”

“ Your witnesses are merely the repeaters of the false-
hoods of James Cheetham, the convicted libeler.
After all, drinking is not as bad as lying. An
honest drunkard is better than a calumniator of the
dead. "A remnant of old mortality, drunk, bloated
and half asleep" is better than a perfectly sober
defender of human slavery.
To become drunk is a virtue compared with steal-
ing a babe from the breast of its mother. ”

“ During all the years in
which woman has struggled for equal liberty with
man, she has been met with the Bible doctrine that
she is the inferior of the man; that Adam was made
first, and Eve afterwards; that man was not made for
woman, but that woman was made for man.
I find that in this day and generation, the meanest
men have the lowest estimate of woman; that the
greater the man is, the grander he is, the more he
thinks of mother, wife and daughter. ”

“ Suppose that we should become convinced that
the writers of the New Testament were mistaken as
to the eternity of punishment, or that all the passages
now relied upon to prove the existence of perdition
were shown to be interpolations, and were thereupon
expunged, would not the book be dearer still to
every human being with a heart? I would like to
see every good passage in the Bible preserved. ”

“ Infidelity has no bible to be blasphemed. It does
not cringe before an angry God.
Infidelity says to every man: Investigate for
yourself. There is no punishment for unbelief.
Infidelity asks no protection from legislatures. ”

“ Talmage knows that philosophy is unsafe—
that the sciences are sirens luring souls to eternal
wreck. He knows that the deluded searchers after
X
facts are planting thorns in their own pillows—that
the geologists are digging pits for themselves, and
that the astronomers are robbing their souls of the
heaven they explore. He knows that thought, capa-
city, and intellectual courage are dangerous, and this
belief gives him a feeling of personal security.
The Bible is adapted to the world as it is. ”

“ There are millions of people in Turkey who would
peril their lives in defence of the Koran. A fact like
this does not prove the truth of the Koran; it simply
proves what Mohammedans think of that book, and
what they are willing to do for its preservation.
It can not be too often repeated, that martyrdom
does not prove the truth of the thing for which the
martyr dies; it only proves the sincerity of the martyr
and the cruelty of his murderers. No matter how
many people regard the Bible as inspired,—that fact
furnishes no evidence that it is inspired. ”

“ Why would a good God create a man that he
knew would be a sinner all his life, make hundreds
of thousands of his fellow-men unhappy, and who at
last would be doomed to an eternity of suffering?
Can such a God be good? How could a devil have
done worse?
Third. If God is infinitely good, is he not fully as
sympathetic as Christ? Do you have to employ
Christ to mollify a being of infinite mercy? ”

“ Here is a prophet of God cursing children in the
name of the Lord, and thereupon these children
are torn in fragments by wild beasts.
This is the mercy of Jehovah; and yet I am told
that the Bible has nothing cruel in it; that it preaches
only mercy, justice, charity, peace; that all hearts
are softened by reading it; that the savage nature of
man is melted into tenderness and pity by it, and that
only the totally depraved can find evil in it. ”

“ He knows
that inventors, discoverers, thinkers and investigators,
have no claim upon the mercy of Jehovah; that the
educated will envy the ignorant, and that the writers
and thinkers will curse their books.
He knows that man cannot be saved through
what he knows—but only by means of what he
IX
believes. Theology is not a science. If it were,
God would forgive his children for being mistaken
about it. If it could be proved like geology, or
astronomy, there would be no merit in believing it.
From a belief in the Bible, Mr. Talmage is not to be
driven by uninspired evidence. ”

“ The Bible furnished the fagots and
the martyrs. The Bible forged chains not only for the
hands, but for the brains of men. The Bible was at
the bottom of the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
Every man who has been persecuted for religion's
sake has been persecuted by the Bible. That sacred
book has been a beast of prey.
The truth is, Christians have been good in spite of
the Bible. The Bible has lived upon the reputations of
good men and good women,—men and women who
were good notwithstanding the brutality they found
189
upon the inspired page. ”

“ So it is unscientific to say that thorns and brambles
were produced by Adam's sin.
It is also unscientific to say that labor was pro-
nounced as a curse upon man. Labor is not a curse.
Labor is a blessing. Idleness is a curse.
It is unscientific to say that the sons of God,
living, we suppose, in heaven, fell in love with the
daughters of men, and that on account of this a
flood was sent upon the earth that covered the
highest mountains.
The whole story of the flood is unscientific, and no
scientific man worthy of the name, believes it. ”

“ The truth is, that the people in Russia, to-day, who
are in favor of human liberty, are not Christians.
The men willing to sacrifice their lives for the good
of others, are not believers in the Christian religion.
The men who wish to break chains are infidels;
the men who make chains are Christians. Every
good and sincere Catholic of the Greek Church
is a bad citizen, an enemy of progress, a foe of
325
human liberty. ”

“ Hundreds and thousands of Germans,
unable to find liberty at home, are coming to the
United States.
I admit that England is a Christian country. Any
doubts upon this point can be dispelled by reading
her history—her career in India, what she has done
in China, her treatment of Ireland, of the American
Colonies, her attitude during our Civil war; all these
things show conclusively that England is a Christian
nation.
Religion has filled Great Britain with war. ”

“ Infidelity relies simply upon evidence—not evi-
dence of the dead, but of the living.
Infidelity has no infallible pope. It relies only
upon infallible fact. It has no priest except the
interpreter of Nature. The universe is its church.
Its bible is everything that is true. It implores every
man to verify every word for himself, and it implores
him to say, if he does not believe it, that he does
not.
Infidelity does not fear contradiction. It is not
afraid of being laughed at. It invites the scrutiny
166
of all doubters, of all unbelievers. ”

“ What crime had Thomas Paine committed that he
should have feared to die? The only answer you
can give is, that he denied the inspiration of the
Scriptures. If this is a crime, the civilized world is
filled with criminals. The pioneers of human thought
—the intellectual leaders of the world—the foremost
men in every science—the kings of literature and
art—those who stand in the front rank of investiga-
tion—the men who are civilizing, elevating, instruct-
ing, and refining mankind, are to-day unbelievers in
the dogma of inspiration. ”

“ Is it scientific to say that Solomon exceeded all
the kings of the earth in glory, when his country
was barren, without roads, when his people were
few, without commerce, without the arts, without the
sciences, without education, without luxuries?
According to the Bible, as long as Jehovah attended
to the affairs of the Jews, they had nothing but war,
pestilence and famine; after Jehovah abandoned them,
and the Christians ceased, in a measure, to persecute
262
them, the Jews became the most prosperous of people. ”

“ Wherever I see Liberty in chains, wherever the
expression of opinion is a crime, I know that that
country is not infidel; I know that the people are not
ruled by reason. I also know that the greatest men
of Germany—her Freethinkers, her scientists, her
writers, her philosophers, are, for the most part, in-
fidel. Yet Germany is called a Christian nation, and
ought to be so called until her citizens are free.
331
France is also claimed as a Christian country. ”