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
They tell me that there never would have been any civilization if it had
not been for this Bible. The Jews had a Bible; the Romans had not. Which
had the greater and the grander government? Let us be honest. Which of
those nations produced the greatest poets, the greatest soldiers, the
greatest orators, the greatest statesmen, the greatest sculptors? Rome
had no Bible. God cared nothing for the Roman Empire. He let the men
come up by chance. His time was taken up with the Jewish people. And
yet Rome conquered the world, including the chosen people of God. The
people who had the Bible were defeated by the people who had not. How
was it possible for Lucretius to get along without the Bible?--how did
the great and glorious of that empire? And what shall we say of Greece?
No Bible. Compare Athens with Jerusalem. From Athens come the beauty and
intellectual grace of the world. Compare the mythology of Greece with
the mythology of Judea; one covering the earth with beauty, and the
other filling heaven with hatred and injustice. The Hindoos had no
Bible; they had been forsaken by the Creator, and yet they became the
greatest metaphysicians of the world. Egypt had no Bible. Compare Egypt
with Judea. What are we to do without the Bible? What became of the Jews
who had a Bible? Their temple was destroyed and their city was taken;
and they never found real prosperity until their God deserted them. The
Turks attributed all their victories to the Koran. The Koran gave them
their victories over the believers in the Bible. The priests of each
nation have accounted for the prosperity of that nation by its religion.
The Christians mistake an incident for a cause, and honestly imagine
that the Bible is the foundation of modern liberty and law. They forget
physical conditions, make no account of commerce, care nothing for
inventions and discoveries, and ignorantly give the credit to their
inspired book.
The foundations of our civilization were laid centuries before
Christianity was known. The intelligence of courage, of self-government,
of energy, of industry, that uniting made the civilization of this
century, did not come alone from Judea, but from every nation of the
ancient world.
Miracles of the New Testament.
There are many things in the New Testament that I cannot accept as true.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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