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
Why didn't He tell Matthew that? Why didn't He tell Luke that? Why
didn't He tell Mark that? They never heard of it, or forgot it, or
they didn't believe it.
"Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into
the Kingdom of God." Why?
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of
the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, 'ye must be
born again.' That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which
is born of the spirit is spirit,"--and He might have added that which
is born of water is water.
"Marvel not that I say unto thee, 'ye must be born again.'" And then
the reason is given, and I admit I did not understand it myself until I
read the reason, and will understand it as well as I do; and here it
is: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
thereof, and canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth." So
I find in the book of John the idea of the real presence.
So I find in the book of John, that in order to be saved we must eat of
the flesh and we must drink of the blood of Jesus Christ, and if that
gospel is true, the Catholic Church is right. But it is not true. I
cannot believe it, and yet for all that it may be true. But I don't
believe it. Neither do I believe there is any God in the universe who
will damn a man simply for expressing his belief.
"Why," they say to me, "suppose all this should turn out to be true,
and you should come to the day of judgment and find all these things to
be true. What would you do then?" I would walk up like a man, and
say, "I was mistaken."
"And suppose God was about to pass judgment on you, what would you
say?" I would say to Him, "Do unto others as you would that others
should do unto you." Why not?
I am told that I must render good for evil. I am told that if smitten
on one cheek I must turn the other. I am told that I must overcome
evil with good. I am told that I must love my enemies; and will it do
for this God who tells me, "Love my enemies," to say, "I will damn
mine." No, it will not do; it will not do.
In the book of John all this doctrine of regeneration; all this
doctrine that it is necessary to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; all
the doctrine that salvation depends upon belief--in this book of John
all these doctrines find their warrant; nowhere else.
Read these three gospels and then read John, and you will agree with me
that the gospels that teach "We must be kind, we must be merciful, we
must be forgiving, and thereupon that God will forgive us," is true,
and then say whether or no that doctrine is not better than the
doctrine that somebody else can be good for you, that somebody else can
be bad for you, and that the only way to get to heaven is to believe
something that you do not understand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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