The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 11 (of 12): Dresden Edition—MiscellanyIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 11 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Miscellany
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
"_If any person shall willfully blaspheme the holy name of God by
denying, cursing, or contumeliously reproaching his being_"--
I want to say right here--many a man has cursed the God of another man.
The Catholics have cursed the God of the Protestant. The Presbyterians
have cursed the God of the Catholics--charged them with idolatry--cursed
their images, laughed at their ceremonies. And these compliments have
been interchanged between all the religions of the world. But I say here
to-day that no man, unless a raving maniac, ever cursed the God in whom
he believed. No man, no human being, has ever lived who cursed his own
idea of God. He always curses the idea that somebody else entertains. No
human being ever yet cursed what he believed to be infinite wisdom and
infinite goodness--and you know it. Every man on this jury knows that.
He feels that that must be an absolute certainty. Then what have they
cursed? Some God they did not believe in--that is all. And has a man
that right? I say, yes. He has a right to give his opinion of Jupiter,
and there is nobody in Morristown who will deny him that right. But
several thousands years ago it would have been very dangerous for him to
have cursed Jupiter, and yet Jupiter is just as powerful now as he was
then, but the Roman people are not powerful, and that is all there was
to Jupiter--the Roman people.
So there was a time when you could have cursed Zeus, the god of the
Greeks, and like Socrates, they would have compelled you to drink
hemlock. Yet now everybody can curse this god. Why? Is the god dead? No.
He is just as alive as he ever was. Then what has happened? The Greeks
have passed away. That is all. So in all of our churches here. Whenever
a church is in the minority it clamors for free speech. When it gets in
the majority, no. I do not believe the history of the world will show
that any orthodox church when in the majority ever had the courage to
face the free lips of the world. It sends for a constable. And is it
not wonderful that they should do this when they preach the gospel of
universal forgiveness--when they say, "if a man strike you on one cheek
turn to him the other also--but if he laughs at your religion, put him
in the penitentiary"? Is that the doctrine? Is that the law?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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