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
Do not shrink. Do not shirk. Tell your people whether God ever upheld
polygamy. Do not shrink. Tell them whether God was ever in favor of
religious persecution. Stand right to it. Then tell your people whether
you honestly believe that a good man can suffer for a bad one and the
bad one get the credit. Be honor bright. Tell what you really think
and there will not be as much difference between you and myself as you
imagine.
The next gentleman, I believe, is the Rev. Dr. Lorimer. He comes to the
rescue, and I have an idea of his mental capacity from the fact that he
is a Baptist. He believes that the infinite God has a choice as to the
manner in which a man or babe shall be dampened. This gentleman
regards modern infidelity as "pitifully shallow" as to its intellectual
conceptions and as to its philosophical views of the universe and of
the problems regarding man's place in it and of his destiny. "Pitifully
shallow!"
What is the modern conception of the universe? The modern conception
is that the universe always has been and forever will be. The modern
conception of the universe is that it embraces within its infinite arms
all matter, all spirit, all forms of force, all that is, all that has
been, all that can be. That is the modern conception of this universe.
And this is called "pitiful."
What is the Christian conception? It is that all the matter in the
universe is dead, inert, and that back of it is a Jewish Jehovah who
made it, and who is now engaged in managing the affairs of this world.
And they even go so far as to say that that Being made experiments in
which he signally failed. That Being made man and woman and put them in
a garden and allowed them to become totally depraved. That Being of
infinite wisdom made hundreds and millions of people when he knew he
would have to drown them. That Being peopled a planet like this with
men, women and children, knowing that he would have to consign most of
them to eternal fire. That is a pitiful conception of the universe. That
is an infamous conception of the universe. Give me rather the conception
of Spinoza, the conception of Humboldt, of Darwin, of Huxley, of Tyndall
and of every other man who has thought. I love to think of the whole
universe together as one eternal fact. I love to think that everything
is alive; that crystallization is itself a step toward joy. I love to
think that when a bud bursts into blossom it feels a thrill. I love to
have the universe full of feeling and full of joy, and not full of
simple dead, inert matter, managed by an old bachelor for all eternity.
Another thing to which this gentleman objects is that I propose
to banish such awful thoughts as the mystery of our origin and our
relations to the present and to the possible future from human thought.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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