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
And in this same Confession of Faith and in this creed they say that the
Lord's day is holy--every seventh day. Suppose you lived near the North
Pole where the day is three months long. Then which day would you keep?
If you could get to the North Pole you could prevent Sunday from ever
overtaking you. You could walk around the other way faster than the
world could revolve. How would you keep Sunday then? Suppose we invent
something that can go one thousand miles an hour? We can chase Sunday
clear around the globe. Is there anything that can be more perfectly
absurd than that a space of time can be holy? You might as well talk
about a virtuous vacuum. We are now told that the Bible is not a
scientific book, and that after all we cannot depend on what God said
four thousand years ago--that his ways are not as our ways--that we must
accept without evidence, and believe without understanding.
I heard the other night of an old man. He was not very well educated,
and he got into the notion that he must have reading of the Bible and
family worship. There was a bad boy in the family, and they were reading
the Bible by course. In the fifteenth chapter of Corinthians is this
passage: "Behold, brethren, I show you a mystery; we shall not all
die, but we shall all be changed." This boy had rubbed out the "c" in
"changed." So when the old man put on his spectacles, and got down his
Bible, he read: "Behold, brethren, I show you a mystery, we shall not
all die, but we shall all be hanged." The old lady said, "Father, I
don't think it reads that way." He said, "Who is reading this?" "Yes
mother, it says 'hanged,' and, more than that, I see the sense of it.
Pride is the besetting sin of the human heart, and if there is anything
calculated to take the pride out of a man it is hanging." It is in this
way that ministers avoid and explain the discoveries of Science.
People ask me, if I take away the Bible what are we going to do? How can
we get along without the revelation that no one understands? What are
we going to do if we have no Bible to quarrel about What are we to do
without hell? What are we going to do with our enemies? What are we
going to do with the people we love but don't like?
"No Bible, No Civilization."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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