Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I: Including His Answers to the Clergy, His Oration at His Brother's Grave, Etc., Etc.Ingersoll, Robert Green
Religion
Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I: Including His Answers to the Clergy, His Oration at His Brother's Grave, Etc., Etc.
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
When he got the animals in the ark, God shut the door and Noah pulled
down the window. And then it began to rain, and it kept on raining
until the water went twenty nine feet over the highest mountain.
Chimborazo, then as now, lifted its head above the clouds, and then as
now, there sat the condor. And yet the waters rose and rose over every
mountain in the world--twenty-nine feet above the highest peaks,
covered with snow and ice. How deep were these waters? About five and
a half miles. How long did it rain? Forty days. How much did it have
to rain a day? About eight hundred feet. How is that for dampness?
No wonder they said the windows of the heavens were open. If I had been
there I would have said the whole side of the house was out. How long
were they in this ark? A year and ten days, floating around with no
rudder, no sail, nobody on the outside at all. The window was shut, and
there was no door, except the one that shut on the outside. Who ran
this ark--who took care of it? Finally it came down on Mount Ararat, a
peak seventeen thousand feet above the level of the sea, with about
three thousand feet of snow, and it stopped there simply to give the
animals from the tropics a chance. Then Noah opened the window and got
a breath of fresh air, and let out all the animals; and then Noah took
a drink, and God made a bargain with him that He would not drown us any
more, and He put a rainbow in the clouds and said: "When I see that I
will recollect that I have promised not to drown you." Because if it
was not for that He is apt to drown us at any moment. Now can anybody
believe that that is the origin of the rainbow? Are you not all
familiar with the natural causes which bring those beautiful arches
before our eyes? Then the people started out again, and they were as
bad as before. Here let me ask why God did not make Noah in the first
place? He knew He would have to drown Adam and Eve and all his family.
Then another thing, why did He want to drown the animals? What had they
done? What crime had they committed? It is very hard to answer these
questions--that is, for a man who has only been born once. After a
while they tried to build a tower to get into heaven, and the gods
heard about it and said "Let's go down and see what man is up to."
They came, and found things a great deal worse than they thought, and
thereupon He confounded the language to prevent them succeeding, so
that the fellow up above could not shout down "mortar" or "brick" to
the one below, and they had to give it up. Is it possible that any one
believes that that is the reason why we have the variety of languages
in the world? Do you know that language is born of human experience,
and is a physical science? Do you know that every word has been
suggested in some way by the feelings or observations of man--that
there are words as tender as the dawn, as serene as the stars, and
others as wild as the beasts? Do you know that language is dying and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account