The Gods: From 'The Gods and Other Lectures'Ingersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Gods: From 'The Gods and Other Lectures'
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Deism; Free thought; Rationalism
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 remorsely 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 a 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 door-post; and his master shall
bore his ear through 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?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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