Individuality: From 'The Gods and Other Lectures'Ingersoll, Robert Green
Religion
Individuality: From 'The Gods and Other Lectures'
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought; Individuality
At present, owing to the inroads that have been made by liberals and
infidels, most of the churches pretend to be in favor of religious
liberty. Of these churches, we will ask this question: How can a man,
who conscientiously believes in religious liberty, worship a God who
does not? They say to us: "We will not imprison you on account of your
belief, but our God will." "We will not burn you because you throw away
the sacred scriptures, but their author will." "We think it an infamous
crime to persecute our brethren for opinion's sake,--but the God,
whom we ignorantly worship, will on that account, damn his own children
forever."
Why is it that these Christians not only detest the infidels, but
cordially despise each other? Why do they refuse to worship in the
temples of each other? Why do they care so little for the damnation of
men, and so much for the baptism of children? Why will they adorn their
churches with the money of thieves and flatter vice for the sake of
subscriptions? Why will they attempt to bribe Science to certify to
the writings of God? Why do they torture the words of the great into an
acknowledgment of the truth of Christianity? Why do they stand with hat
in hand before presidents, kings, emperors, and scientists, begging,
like Lazarus, for a few crumbs, of religious comfort? Why are they so
delighted to find an allusion to Providence in the message of Lincoln?
Why are they so afraid that some one will find out that Paley wrote an
essay in favor of the Epicurean philosophy, and that Sir Isaac Newton
was once an infidel? Why are they so anxious to show that Voltaire
recanted; that Paine died palsied with fear; that the Emperor Julian
cried out "Galilean, thou hast conquered"; that Gibbon died a Catholic;
that Agassiz had a little confidence in Moses; that the old Napoleon
was once complimentary enough to say that he thought Christ greater
than himself or Caesar; that Washington was caught on his knees at Valley
Forge; that blunt old Ethan Allen told his child to believe the religion
of her mother; that Franklin said, "Don't unchain the tiger," and that
Volney got frightened in a storm at sea?
Is it because the foundation of their temple is crumbling, because the
walls are cracked, the pillars leaning, the great dome swaying to its
fall, and because Science has written over the high altar its mene,
mene, tekel, upharsin--the old words, destined to be the epitaph of
all religions?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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