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
WE must remember that there is a great difference. Myth is the
idealization of a fact. A miracle is the counterfeit of a fact. There is
the same difference between a myth and a miracle that there is between
fiction and falsehood--between poetry and perjury. Miracles belong to
the far past and the far future. The little line of sand, called the
present, between the seas, belongs to common sense, to the natural.
If you should tell a man that the dead were raised two thousand years
ago, he would probably say: "Yes, I know that." If you should say that
a hundred thousand years from now all the dead will be raised, he might
say: "Probably they will." But if you should tell him that you saw a
dead man raised and given life that day, he would likely ask the name of
the insane asylum from which you had escaped.
Our Bible is filled with accounts of miracles and yet they always fail
to convince.
Jehovah, according to the Scriptures, wrought hundreds of miracles for
the benefit of the Jews. With many miracles he rescued them from
slavery, guided them on their journey with a miraculous cloud by day and
a miraculous pillar of fire by night--divided the sea that they might
escape from the Egyptians, fed them with miraculous manna and
supernatural quails, raised up hornets to attack their enemies, caused
water to follow them wherever they wandered and in countless ways
manifested his power, and yet the Jews cared nothing for these wonders.
Not one of them seems to have been convinced that Jehovah had done
anything for the people.
In spite of all these miracles, the Jews had more confidence in a golden
calf, made by themselves, than in Jehovah. The reason of this is, that
the miracles were never performed, and never invented until hundreds of
years after those, who had wandered over the desert of Sinai, were dust.
The miracles attributed to Christ had no effect. No human being seems to
have been convinced by them. Those whom he raised from the dead, cured
of leprosy, or blindness, failed to become his followers. Not one of
them appeared at his trial. Not one offered to bear witness of his
miraculous power.
To this there is but one explanation: The miracles were never performed.
These stories were the growth of centuries. The casting out of devils,
the changing of water into wine, feeding the multitude with a few loaves
and fishes, resisting the devil, using a fish for a pocketbook, curing
the blind with clay and saliva, stilling the tempest, walking on the
water, the resurrection and ascension, happened and only happened, in
the imaginations of men, who were not born until several generations
after Christ was dead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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