The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 01 (of 12): Dresden Edition—LecturesIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 01 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Lectures
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
What right has the church to add conditions of salvation? Why should we
suppose that Christ failed to tell the young man all that was necessary
for him to do? Is it possible that he left out some important thing
simply to mislead? Will some minister tell us why he thinks that Christ
kept back the "scheme"?
Now comes an interpolation.
In the old times when the church got a little scarce of money, they
always put in a passage praising poverty. So they had this young man
ask: "What lack I yet? And Jesus said unto him: If thou wilt be perfect,
go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have
treasure in heaven."
The church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for
cash down. And when the next verse was written the church must have been
nearly bankrupt. "And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel
to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into
the kingdom of God." Did you ever know a wealthy disciple to unload on
account of that verse?
And then comes another verse, which I believe is an interpolation: "And
everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father,
or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall
receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life."
Christ never said it. Never. "Whosoever shall forsake father and
mother."
Why, he said to this man that asked him, "What shall I do to inherit
eternal life?" among other things, he said: "Honor thy father and thy
mother." And we turn over the page and he says again: "If you will
desert your father and mother you shall have everlasting life." It will
not do. If you will desert your wife and your little children, or your
lands--the idea of putting a house and lot on equality with wife and
children! Think of that! I do not accept the terms. I will never desert
the one I love for the promise of any god.
It is far more important to love your wife than to love God, and I will
tell you why. You cannot help him, but you can help her. You can fill
her life with the perfume of perpetual joy. It is far more important
that you love your children than that you love Jesus Christ. And why?
If he is God you cannot help him, but you can plant a little flower of
happiness in every footstep of the child, from the cradle until you die
in that child's arms. Let me tell you to-day it is far more important
to build a home than to erect a church. The holiest temple beneath the
stars is a home that love has built. And the holiest altar in all the
wide world is the fireside around which gather father and mother and the
sweet babes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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