Produced by David Widger NEED TO REDO ALL THE "REMOVE" LINES: THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL "ARGUMENTS CANNOT BE ANSWERED WITH INSULTS. KINDNESS IS STRENGTH; ANGER BLOWS OUT THE LAMP OF THE MIND. IN THE EXAMINATION OF A GREAT AND IMPORTANT QUESTION, EVERY ONE SHOULD BE SERENE, SLOW-PULSED AND CALM." IN TWELVE VOLUMES VOLUME VI. DISCUSSIONS 1900 Dresden Edition CONTENTS. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. (1881.) I. Col. Ingersoll's Opening Paper--Statement of the Fundamental Truths of Christianity--Reasons for Thinking that Portions of the Old Testament are the Product of a Barbarous People--Passages upholding Slavery, Polygamy, War, and Religious Persecution not Evidences of Inspiration--If the Words are not Inspired, What Is?--Commands of Jehovah compared with the Precepts of Pagans and Stoics--Epictetus, Cicero, Zeno, Seneca, Brahma--II. The New Testament--Why were Four Gospels Necessary?--Salvation by Belief--The Doctrine of the Atonement--The Jewish System Culminating in the Sacrifice of Christ--Except for the Crucifixion of her Son, the Virgin Mary would be among the Lost--What Christ must have Known would Follow the Acceptance of His Teachings--The Wars of Sects, the Inquisition, the Fields of Death--Why did he not Forbid it All?--The Little that he Revealed--The Dogma of Eternal Punishment--Upon Love's Breast the Church has Placed the Eternal Asp--III. The "Inspired" Writers--Why did not God furnish Every Nation with a Bible? II. Judge Black's Reply--His Duty that of a Policeman--The Church not in Danger--Classes who Break out into Articulate Blasphemy--The Sciolist--Personal Remarks about Col. Ingersoll--Chief-Justice Gibson of Pennsylvania Quoted--We have no Jurisdiction or Capacity to Rejudge the Justice of God--The Moral Code of the Bible--Civil Government of the Jews--No Standard of Justice without Belief in a God--Punishments for Blasphemy and Idolatry Defended--Wars of Conquest--Allusion to Col. Ingersoll's War Record--Slavery among the Jews--Polygamy Discouraged by the Mosaic Constitution--Jesus of Nazareth and the Establishment of his Religion--Acceptance of Christianity and Adjudication upon its Divinity--The Evangelists and their Depositions--The Fundamental Truths of Christianity--Persecution and Triumph of the Church--Ingersoll's Propositions Compressed and the Compressions Answered--Salvation as a Reward of Belief--Punishment of Unbelief--The Second Birth, Atonement, Redemption, Non-resistance, Excessive Punishment of Sinners, Christ and Persecution, Christianity and Freedom of Thought, Sufficiency of the Gospel, Miracles, Moral Effect of Christianity.