The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 07 (of 12): Dresden Edition—DiscussionsIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 07 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Discussions
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
There is another phrase to which I object--"toleration." "The limits
of toleration." Why say "toleration"? I will tell you why. When
the thinkers were in the minority--when the philosophers were
vagabonds--when the men with brains furnished fuel for bonfires--when
the majority were ignorantly orthodox--when they hated the heretic as a
last year's leaf hates a this year's bud--in that delightful time
these poor people in the minority had to say to ignorant power, to
conscientious rascality, to cruelty born of universal love: "Don't kill
us; don't be so arrogantly meek as to burn us; tolerate us." At that
time the minority was too small to talk about rights, and the great big
ignorant majority when tired of shedding blood, said: "Well, we will
tolerate you; we can afford to wait; you will not live long, and when
the Being of infinite compassion gets hold of you we will glut our
revenge through an eternity of joy; we will ask you every now and then,
'What is your opinion now?'"
Both feeling absolutely sure that infinite goodness would have his
revenge, they "tolerated" these thinkers, and that word finally took
the place almost of liberty. But I do not like it. When you say "I
tolerate," you do not say you have no right to punish, no right to
persecute. It is only a disclaimer for a few moments and for a few
years, but you retain the right. I deny it.
And let me say here to-night--it is your experience, it is mine--that
the bigger a man is the more charitable he is; you know it. The more
brain he has, the more excuses he finds for all the world; you know it.
And if there be in heaven an infinite Being, he must be grander than any
man; he must have a thousand times more charity than the human heart can
hold, and is it possible that he is going to hold his ignorant children
responsible for the impressions made by nature upon their brain? Let us
have some sense.
There is another side to this question, and that is with regard to the
freedom of thought and expression in matters pertaining to this world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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