The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 02 (of 12): Dresden Edition—LecturesIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 02 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Lectures
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
Is it possible that the Pentateuch could not have been written by
uninspired men? that the assistance of God was necessary to produce
these books? Is it possible that Galileo ascertained the mechanical
principles of "Virtual Velocity," the laws of falling bodies and of all
motion; that Copernicus ascertained the true position of the earth and
accounted for all celestial phenomena; that Kepler discovered his three
laws--discoveries of such importance that the 8th of May, 1618, may be
called the birthday of modern science; that Newton gave to the world
the Method of Fluxions, the Theory of Universal Gravitation, and the
Decomposition of Light; that Euclid, Cavalieri, Descartes, and Leibnitz,
almost completed the science of mathematics; that all the discoveries
in optics, hydrostatics, pneumatics and chemistry, the experiments,
discoveries, and inventions of Galvani, Volta, Franklin and Morse, of
Trevethick, Watt and Fulton and of all the pioneers of progress--that
all this was accomplished by uninspired men, while the writer of the
Pentateuch was directed and inspired by an infinite God? Is it possible
that the codes of China, India, Egypt, Greece and Rome were made by man,
and that the laws recorded in the Pentateuch were alone given by
God? Is it possible that Æschylus and Shakespeare, Burns, and Beranger,
Goethe and Schiller, and all the poets of the world, and all their
wondrous tragedies and songs, are but the work of men, while no
intelligence except the infinite God could be the author of the
Pentateuch? Is it possible that of all the books that crowd the
libraries of the world, the books of science, fiction, history and song,
that all save only one, have been produced by man? Is it possible that
of all these, the Bible only is the work of God?
If the Pentateuch is inspired, the civilization of our day is a mistake
and crime. There should be no political liberty. Heresy should be
trodden out beneath the bigot's brutal feet. Husbands should divorce
their wives at will, and make the mothers of their children houseless
and weeping wanderers. Polygamy ought to be practiced; women should
become slaves; we should buy the sons and daughters of the heathen and
make them bondmen and bondwomen forever. We should sell our own flesh
and blood, and have the right to kill our slaves. Men and women should
be stoned to death for laboring on the seventh day. "Mediums," such
as have familiar spirits, should be burned with fire. Every vestige of
mental liberty should be destroyed, and reason's holy torch extinguished
in the martyr's blood.
Is it not far better and wiser to say that the Pentateuch while
containing some good laws, some truths, some wise and useful things is,
after all, deformed and blackened by the savagery of its time? Is it not
far better and wiser to take the good and throw the bad away?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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