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
A woman whose husband has gone down to the gutter, gone down to
degradation and filth; the woman who follows him and lifts him out of
the mire and presses him to her noble heart, until he becomes a man once
more, this woman is a worshiper. Her act is worship.
The poor man and the poor woman who work night and day, in order that
they may give education to their children, so that they may have a
better life than their father and mother had; the parents who deny
themselves the comforts of life, that they may lay up something to help
their children to a higher place--they are worshipers; and the children
who, after they reap the benefit of this worship, become ashamed of
their parents, are blasphemers.
The man who sits by the bed of his invalid wife,--a wife prematurely old
and gray,--the husband who sits by her bed and holds, her thin, wan hand
in his as lovingly, and kisses it as rapturously, as passionately, as
when it was dimpled,--that is worship; that man is a worshiper; that is
real religion.
Whoever increases the sum of human joy, is a worshiper. He who adds to
the sum of human misery, is a blasphemer.
Gentlemen, you can never make me believe--no statute can ever convince
me, that there is any infinite Being in this universe who hates an
honest man. It is impossible to satisfy me that there is any God, or
can be any God, who holds in abhorrence a soul that has the courage to
express his thought. Neither can the whole world convince me that any
man should be punished, either in this world or in the next, for being
candid with his fellow-men. If you send men to the penitentiary for
speaking their thoughts, for endeavoring to enlighten their fellows,
then the penitentiary will become a place of honor, and the victim will
step from it--not stained, not disgraced, but clad in robes of glory.
Let us take one more step.
What is holy, what is sacred? I reply that human happiness is holy,
human rights are holy. The body and soul of man--these are sacred. The
liberty of man is of far more importance than any book; the rights of
man more sacred than any religion--than any Scriptures, whether inspired
or not.
What we want is the truth, and does any one suppose that all of the
truth is confined in one book--that the mysteries of the whole world are
explained by one volume?
All that is--all that conveys information to man--all that has been
produced by the past--all that now exists--should be considered by an
intelligent man. All the known truths of this world--all the philosophy,
all the poems, all the pictures, all the statues, all the entrancing
music--the prattle of babes, the lullaby of mothers, the words of honest
men, the trumpet calls to duty--all these make up the bible of the
world--everything that is noble and true and free, you will find in this
great book.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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