Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - LatestIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
rascals are having a good time, they will catch it in the other world.
But, according to their account, ninety-nine out of a hundred will be
damned, and I think it will be a close call for the hundredth. Like
that dear old Scotch woman, when she was talking about the Presbyterian
faith, some one said to her: "My dear woman, if your doctrine is true,
nobody but you and your husband will be saved." "Ah," said she, "I'm
na' sae sure about John." About one in a hundred will be saved, and
the other ninety-nine will be in misery. So that on the average there
will not be half as much happiness in the next world as in this. So,
instead of God's plan getting better, it gets worse; and throughout all
the ages of eternity there will be less happiness than in this world.
This world is a school; this world is where we develop moral muscle.
It may be that we are here simply because men cannot advance only
through agony and pain. If it is necessary to have pain and agony to
advance morally, then nobody can advance in heaven. Hell will be the
only place offering opportunities to any gentleman who wishes to
increase his moral muscle.
A gentleman once asked me if I could suggest any improvement on the
present order of things, if I had the power. Well, said I, in the
first place, I would make good health catching instead of disease.
There will be no humanity until we get the orthodox God out of our
religion. I want to do what little I can to put another one in God's
name, so that we will worship a supreme human god, so that we will
worship mercy, justice, love and truth, and not have the idea that we
must sacrifice our brother upon the altar of fear to please some
imaginary phantom. See what Christianity has done for the world! It
has reduced Spain to a guitar, Italy to a hand organ and Ireland to
exile. That is what religion has done. Take every country in the
whole world, and the country that has got the least religion is the
most prosperous, and the country that has got the most religion is in
the worst condition.
In the vast cemetery, called the past, are most of the religions of men
and there, too, are nearly all their gods.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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