The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 04 (of 12): Dresden Edition—LecturesIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 04 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Lectures
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
The man of sense knows the history of this belief, and he knows, also,
that for many centuries its truth was established by the Holy Bible. He
knows that the Old Testament is filled with allusions to the Devil,
to evil spirits, and that the New Testament is the same. He knows that
Christ himself was a believer in the Devil, in evil spirits, and that
his principal business was casting out devils from the bodies of men and
women. He knows that Christ himself, according to the New Testament, was
not only tempted by the Devil, but was carried by his Satanic Highness
to the top of the temple. If the New Testament is the inspired word of
God, then I admit that these devils, these imps, do actually exist and
that they do take possession of human beings.
To deny the existence of these evil spirits, to deny the existence
of the Devil, is to deny the truth of the New Testament. To deny the
existence of these imps of darkness is to contradict the words of Jesus
Christ. If these devils do not exist, if they do not cause disease,
if they do not tempt and mislead their victims, then Christ was an
ignorant, superstitious man, insane, an impostor, or the New Testament
is not a true record of what he said and what he pretended to do. If we
give up the belief in devils, we must give up the inspiration of the Old
and New Testament. We must give up the divinity of Christ. To deny
the existence of evil spirits is to utterly destroy the foundation of
Christianity. There is no half-way ground. Compromise is impossible. If
all the accounts in the New Testament of casting out devils are false,
what part of the Blessed Book is true?
As a matter of fact, the success of the Devil in the Garden of Eden made
the coming of Christ a necessity, laid the foundation for the atonement,
crucified the Savior and gave us the Trinity.
If the Devil does not exist, the Christian creeds all crumble, and the
superstructure known as "Christianity," built by the fathers, by popes,
by priests and theologians--built with mistakes and falsehoods, with
miracles and wonders, with blood and flame, with lies and legends
borrowed from the savage world, becomes a shapeless ruin.
If we give up the belief in devils and evil spirits, we are compelled
to say that a witch never lived. No sensible human being now believes in
witchcraft. We know that it was a delusion. We now know that thousands
and thousands of innocent men, women and children were tortured and
burned for having been found guilty of an impossible crime, and we also
know, if our minds have not been deformed by faith, that all the books
in which the existence of witches is taught were written by ignorant
and superstitious men. We also know that the Old Testament asserted
the existence of witches. According to that Holy Book, Jehovah was a
believer in witchcraft, and said to his chosen people: "Thou shalt not
suffer a witch to live."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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