Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - LatestIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
What is the next thing here? They all also believe in the resurrection
of the dead, and in their confession of faith hereto attached I find
they also believe in the resurrection of the body. Does anybody
believe that, that has ever thought? Here is a man, for instance, that
weighs 200 pounds, and gets sick and dies weighing 120; how much will
he weigh in the morning of the resurrection? Here is a cannibal, who
eats another man; and we know that the atoms that you eat go into your
body and become a part of you. After the cannibal has eaten the
missionary, and appropriated his atoms to himself, and then he dies,
who will the atoms belong to in the morning of the resurrection in an
action of replevin brought by the missionary against the cannibal? It
has been demonstrated again and again that there is no creation in
nature, and no destruction in nature. It has been demonstrated again
and again that the atoms that are in us have been in millions of other
beings; grown in the forest, in the grass, blossomed in the flowers,
been in the metals; in other words, there are atoms in each one of us
that have been in millions of others, and when we die these atoms
return to the earth, and again spring in vegetation, taken up in the
leaves of the trees, turned into wood. And yet we have a church, in
the nineteenth century, getting up this doctrine, presided over by
professors, by presidents of colleges, and by theologians, who tell us
that they believe in the resurrection of the body.
They know better. There is not one so ignorant but what knows better.
And what is the next thing? "And in a final judgment." It will be a
set day. All of us will be there, and the thousands, and millions, and
billions, and trillions, and quadrillions that have died will be there.
It will be the day of judgment, and the books will be opened and our
case will be called. Does anybody believe in that now that has got the
slightest sense?--one who knows enough to chew gum without a string?"
"The issues of which are everlasting punishment for the wicked and
everlasting life for the redeemed. "That is the doctrine today of the
Congregational church, and that is the doctrine that I oppose. That is
the doctrine that I defy and deny.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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