The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 06 (of 12): Dresden Edition—DiscussionsIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 06 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Discussions
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
How does he know that God made the universe? How does he know what God
would be likely to do? How does he know that any revelation was made?
And how did he ascertain that any of the apostles and prophets were
entrusted with supernatural power? It will not do to prove your premises
by assertions, and then claim that your conclusions are correct, because
they agree with your premises.
If "God would be likely to reveal his will to the rational creatures
who were required to obey it," why did he reveal it only to the Jews?
According to Mr. Black, God is the only natural thing in the universe.
We should remember that ignorance is the mother of credulity; that
the early Christians believed everything but the truth, and that
they accepted Paganism, admitted the reality of all the Pagan
miracles--taking the ground that they were all forerunners of their own.
Pagan miracles were never denied by the Christian world until late in
the seventeenth century. Voltaire was the third man of note in Europe
who denied the truth of Greek and Roman mythology. "The early Christians
cited Pagan oracles predicting in detail the sufferings of Christ. They
forged prophecies, and attributed them to the heathen sibyls, and they
were accepted as genuine by the entire church."
St. Irenæus assures us that all Christians possessed the power of
working miracles; that they prophesied, cast out devils, healed the
sick, and even raised the dead. St. Epiphanius asserts that some rivers
and fountains were annually transmuted into wine, in attestation of the
miracle of Cana, adding that he himself had drunk of these fountains.
St. Augustine declares that one was told in a dream where the bones
of St. Stephen were buried, that the bones were thus discovered, and
brought to Hippo, and that they raised five dead persons to life, and
that in two years seventy miracles were performed with these relics.
Justin Martyr states that God once sent some angels to guard the human
race, that these angels fell in love with the daughters of men, and
became the fathers of innumerable devils.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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