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
Geologists have divided a few years of the worlds history into periods,
reaching from the azoic rocks to the soil of our time. With most of
these periods they associate certain forms of life, so that it is known
that the lowest forms of life belonged with the earliest periods, and
the higher with the more recent. It is also known that certain forms of
life existed in Europe many ages ago, and that many thousands of years
ago these forms disappeared.
For instance, it is well established that at one time there lived in
Europe, and in the British Islands some of the most gigantic mammals,
the mammoth, the woolly-haired rhinoceros, the Irish elk, elephants and
other forms that have in those countries become extinct. Geologists say
that many thousands of years have passed since these animals ceased to
inhabit those countries.
It was during the Drift Period that these forms of life existed in
Europe and England, and that must have been hundreds of thousands of
years ago.
In caves, once inhabited by men, have been found implements of flint and
the bones of these extinct animals. With the flint tools man had split
the bones of these beasts that he might secure the marrow for food.
Many such caves and hundreds of such tools, and of such bones have been
found. And we now know that in the Drift Period man was the companion of
these extinct monsters.
It is therefore certain that many, many thousands of years before Adam
lived, men, women and children inhabited the earth.
It is certain that the account in the Bible of the creation of the first
man is a mistake. It is certain that the inspired writers knew nothing
about the origin of man.
Let me give you another fact:
The Egyptians were astronomers. A few years ago representations of the
stars were found on the walls of an old temple, and it was discovered
by calculating backward that the stars did occupy the exact positions as
represented about seven hundred and fifty years before Christ. Afterward
another representation of the stars was found, and by calculating in
the same way, it was found that the stars did occupy the exact positions
represented about three thousand eight hundred years before Christ.
According to the Bible the first man was created four thousand and four
years before Christ If this is true then Egypt was founded, its language
formed, its arts cultivated, its astronomical discoveries made and
recorded about two hundred years after the creation of the first man.
In other words, Adam was two or three hundred years old when the
Egyptian astronomers made these representations.
Nothing can be more absurd.
Again I say that the writers of the Bible were mistaken.
How do I know?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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