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
And now, coming to the second gentleman. He is a Protestant. The
Catholic Church says: "Don't think; pay your fare; this is a through
ticket, and we will look out for your baggage." The Protestant Church
says: "Read that Bible for yourselves; think for yourselves; but if you
do not come to a right conclusion you will be eternally damned." Any
sensible man will say, "Then I won't read it--I'll believe it without
reading it." And that is the only way you can be sure you will believe
it; don't read it.
Governor Woodford says that we are responsible for our thoughts. Why?
Could you help thinking as you did on this subject? No, Could you help
believing the Bible? I suppose not. Could you help believing that story
of Jonah? Certainly not--it looks reasonable in Brooklyn.
I stated that thought was the result of the impressions of nature upon
the mind through the medium of the senses. He says you cannot have
thought without memory. How did you get the first one?
Of course I intended to be understood--and the language is clear--that
there could be no thought except through the impressions made upon the
brain by nature through the avenues called the senses. Take away the
senses, how would you think then? If you thought at all, I think you
would agree with Mr. Coudert.
Now, I admit--so we need never have a contradiction about it--I admit
that every human being is responsible to the person he injures. If he
injures any man, woman, or child, or any dog, or the lowest animal that
crawls, he is responsible to that animal, to that being--in other words,
he is responsible to any being that he has injured.
But you cannot injure an infinite Being, if there be one. I will tell
you why. You cannot help him, and you cannot hurt him. If there be an
infinite Being, he is conditionless--he does not want anything--he has
it. You cannot help anybody that does not want something--you cannot
help him. You cannot hurt anybody unless he is a conditioned being
and you change his condition so as to inflict a harm. But if God be
conditionless, you cannot hurt him, and you cannot help him. So do
not trouble yourselves about the Infinite. All our duties lie within
reach--all our duties are right here; and my religion is simply this:
_First_. Give to every other human being every right that you claim for
yourself.
_Second_. If you tell your thought at all, tell your honest thought. Do
not be a parrot--do not be an instrumentality for an organization. Tell
your own thought, honor bright, what you think.
My next idea is, that the only possible good in the universe is
happiness. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here.
The way to be happy is to try and make somebody else so.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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