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
Can that tongue be palsied by a presbytery that praises a self-denying
and heroic life? Is it a sin to speak a charitable word over the grave
of John Stuart Mill? Is it heretical to pay a just and graceful tribute
to departed worth? Must the true Presbyterian violate the sanctity of
the tomb, dig open the grave and ask his God to curse the silent dust?
Is Presbyterianism so narrow that it conceives of no excellence, of no
purity of intention, of no spiritual and moral grandeur outside of its
barbaric creed? Does it still retain within its stony heart all the
malice of its founder? Is it still warming its fleshless hands at the
flames that consumed Servetus? Does it still glory in the damnation of
infants, and does it still persist in emptying the cradle in order that
perdition may be filled? Is it still starving the soul and famishing
the heart? Is it still trembling and shivering, crouching and crawling
before its ignorant Confession of Faith?
Had such men as Robert Collyer and John Stuart Mill been present at the
burning of Servetus, they would have extinguished the flames with their
tears. Had the presbytery of Chicago been there, they would have quietly
turned their backs, solemnly divided their coat tails, and warmed
themselves.
_Third_. With having spoken disparagingly of the doctrine of
predestination.
If there is any dogma that ought to be protected by law, predestination
is that doctrine. Surely it is a cheerful, joyous thing, to one who is
laboring, struggling, and suffering in this weary world, to think that
before he existed; before the earth was; before a star had glittered in
the heavens; before a ray of light had left the quiver of the sun, his
destiny had been irrevocably fixed, and that for an eternity before his
birth he had been doomed to bear eternal pain.
_Fourth._ With failing to preach the efficacy of a "vicarious
sacrifice."
Suppose a man had been convicted of murder, and was about to be
hanged--the governor acting as the executioner; and suppose that just
as the doomed man was about to suffer death some one in the crowd
should step forward and say, "I am willing to die in the place of that
murderer. He has a family, and I have none." And suppose further, that
the governor should reply, "Come forward, young man, your offer is
accepted. A murder has been committed and somebody must be hung,
and your death will satisfy the law just as well as the death of the
murderer." What would you then think of the doctrine of "vicarious
sacrifice"?
This doctrine is the consummation of two outrages--forgiving one crime
and committing another.
_Fifth_. With having inculcated a phase of the doctrine commonly known
as "evolution," or "development".
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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