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
One of these gods, according to the account, drowned an entire world,
with the exception of eight persons. The old, the young, the beautiful
and the helpless were remorselessly devoured by the shoreless sea.
This, the most fearful tragedy that the imagination of ignorant priests
ever conceived, was the act not of a devil, but of God so-called, whom
men ignorantly worship unto this day. What a stain such an act would
leave upon the character of a devil! One of the prophets of one of
these gods, having in his power a captured king, hewed him in pieces in
the sight of all the people. Was ever any imp of any devil guilty of
such savagery?
One of these gods is reported to have given the following directions
concerning human slavery: "If thou buy a Hebrew servant six years
shall he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If
he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married,
then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a
wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her
children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if
the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife and my
children; I will not go out free; then his master shall bring him unto
the judges: he shall also bring him unto the door, or unto the
doorpost; and his Master shall bore his ear with an awl; and he shall
serve him forever."
According to this, a man was given liberty upon condition that he would
desert forever his wife and children. Did any devil ever force upon a
husband, upon a father, so cruel and so heartless an alternative? Who
can worship such a god? Who can bend the knee to such a monster? Who
can pray to such a fiend?
All these gods threatened to torment forever the souls of their
enemies. Did any devil ever make so infamous a threat? The basest
thing recorded of the devil, is what he did concerning job and his
family, and that was done by the express permission of one of these
gods and to decide a little difference of opinion between their serene
highnesses as to the character of "my servant Job."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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