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
What makes you? Do you judge from the manner in which you are getting
along now? How many people are being born a year? About fifty millions.
How many are you converting a year, really, truthfully? Five or six
thousand. I think I have overstated the number. Is orthodox Christianity
on the increase? No. There are a hundred times as many unbelievers in
orthodox Christianity as there were ten years ago. What are you doing in
the missionary world? How long is it since you converted a Chinaman?
A fine missionary religion, to send missionaries with their Bibles and
tracts to China, but if a Chinaman comes here, mob him, simply to show
him the difference between the practical and theoretical workings of the
Christian religion. How long since you have had an intelligent convert
in India? In my judgment, never; there never has been an intelligent
Hindoo converted from the time the first missionary put his foot on
that soil; and never, in my judgment, has an intelligent Chinaman been
converted since the first missionary touched that shore. Where are they?
We hear nothing of them, except in the reports. They get money from poor
old ladies, trembling on the edge of the grave, and go and tell them
stories, how hungry the average Chinaman is for a copy of the New
Testament, and paint the sad condition of a gentleman in the interior
of Africa without the works of Dr. McCosh, longing for a copy of _The
Princeton Review_,--in my judgment, a pamphlet that would suit a savage.
Thus money is scared from the dying, and frightened from the old and
feeble.
About how long is it before this kingdom is to be established? No one
objects to the establishment of peace and good will. Every good man
longs for the time when war shall cease. We are all hoping for a day of
universal justice--a day of universal freedom--when man shall control
himself, when the passions shall become obedient to the intelligent
will. But the coming of that day will not be hastened by preaching the
doctrines of total depravity and eternal revenge. That sun will not rise
the quicker for preaching salvation by faith. The star that shines
above that dawn, the herald of that day, is Science, not
superstition,--Reason, not religion.
To show you how little advance has been made, how many intellectual bats
and mental owls still haunt the temple, still roost above the altar,
I call your attention to the fact that the Congregational Church,
according to this creed; still believes in the resurrection of the dead,
and in their Confession of Faith, attached to the creed, I find that
they also believe in the literal resurrection of the body.
The Resurrection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account