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
Even the advanced religionist, although disbelieving in any great
amount of interference by the gods in this age of the world, still
thinks that in the beginning some god made the laws governing the
universe. He believes that in consequence of these laws a man can lift
a greater weight with than without a lever; that this god so made
matter, and so established the order of things, that--two bodies cannot
occupy the same space at the same time; so that a body once put in
motion will keep moving until it is stopped; so that it is a greater
distance around than across a circle; so that a perfect square has four
equal sides, instead of five or seven. He insists that it took a direct
interposition of providence to make the whole greater than a part, and
that had it not been for this power superior to nature, twice one might
have been more than twice two, and sticks and strings might have had
only one end apiece. Like the old Scotch divine, he thanks God that
Sunday comes at the end instead of in the middle of the week, and that
death comes at the close instead of at the commencement of life,
thereby giving us time to prepare for that holy day and that most
solemn event. These religious people see nothing but design everywhere,
and personal, intelligent interference in everything. They insist that
the universe has been created, and that the adaptation of means to ends
is perfectly apparent. They point us to the sunshine, to the flowers,
to the April rain, and to all there is of beauty and of use in the
world. Did it ever occur to them that a cancer is as beautiful in its
development as is the reddest rose? That what they are pleased to call
the adaptation of means to ends, is as apparent in the cancer as in the
April rain? How beautiful the process of digestion! By what ingenious
methods the blood is poisoned so that the cancer shall have food! By
what wonderful contrivances the entire system of man is made to pay
tribute to this divine and charming cancer! See by what admirable
instrumentalities it feeds itself from the surrounding, quivering,
dainty flesh! See how it gradually but surely expands and grows! By
what marvelous mechanism it is supplied with long and slender roots
that reach out to the most secret nerves of pain for sustenance and
life! What beautiful colors it presents! Seen through the microscope
it is a miracle of order and beauty. All the ingenuity of man cannot
stop its growth. Think of the amount of thought it must have required
to invent a way by which the life of one man might be given to produce
one cancer? Is it possible to look upon it and doubt that there is
design in the universe, and that the inventor of this wonderful cancer
must be infinitely powerful, ingenious and good?
We are told that the universe was designed and created, and that it is
absurd to suppose that matter has existed from eternity, but that it is
perfectly self-evident that a god has.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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