About The Holy Bible: A LectureIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
About The Holy Bible: A Lecture
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Bible -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
At that time it was believed that palsy, epilepsy, deafness, insanity
and many other diseases were caused by devils; that devils took
possession of and lived in the bodies of men and women. Christ believed
this, taught this belief to others, and pretended to cure diseases
by casting devils out of the sick and insane. We know now, if we know
anything, that diseases are not caused by the presence of devils. We
know, if we know anything, that devils do not reside in the bodies of
men.
If Christ said and did what the writers of the three gospels say he said
and did, then Christ was mistaken. If he was mistaken, certainly he was
not God. And, if he was mistaken, certainly he was not inspired.
Is it a fact that the Devil tried to bribe Christ?
Is it a fact that the Devil carried Christ to the top of the temple and
tried to induce him to leap to the ground?
How can these miracles be established?
The principals have written nothing, Christ has written nothing, and the
Devil has remained silent.
How can we know that the Devil tried to bribe Christ? Who wrote the
account? We do not know. How did the writer get his information? We do
not know.
Somebody, some seventeen hundred years ago, said that the Devil tried to
bribe God; that the Devil carried God to the top of the temple and tried
to induce him to leap to the earth and that God was intellectually too
keen for the Devil.
This is all the evidence we have.
Is there anything in the literature of the world more perfectly idiotic?
Intelligent people no longer believe in witches, wizards, spooks and
devils, and they are perfectly satisfied that every word in the New
Testament about casting out devils is utterly false.
Can we believe that Christ raised the dead?
A widow living in Nain is following the body of her son to the tomb.
Christ halts the funeral procession and raises the young man from the
dead and gives him back to the arms of his mother.
This young man disappears. He is never heard of again. No one takes the
slightest interest in the man who returned from the realm of death. Luke
is the only one who tells the story. Maybe Matthew, Mark and John never
heard of it, or did not believe it and so failed to record it.
John says that Lazarus was raised from the dead; Matthew, Mark and Luke
say nothing about it.
It was more wonderful than the raising of the widow's son. He had not
been laid in the tomb for days. He was only on his way to the grave, but
Lazarus was actually dead. He had begun to decay.
Lazarus did not excite the least interest. No one asked him about the
other world. No one inquired of him about their dead friends.
When he died the second time no one said: "He is not afraid. He has
traveled that road twice and knows just where he is going."
We do not believe in the miracles of Mohammed, and yet they are as well
attested as this. We have no confidence in the miracles performed by
Joseph Smith, and yet the evidence is far greater, far better.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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