Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest Part 14

Does an infinite being need to be protected by a State Legislature? If the bible is inspired, does the author of it need the support of the law to command respect? We don't need any law to make mankind respect Shakespeare. We come to the altar of that great man and cover it with our grat.i.tude without a statute. Think of a law to govern tastes!

Think of a law to govern mind, or any question whatever! Think of the way in which they have supported the bible! They've terrorized the old with laws, and captured the dear, little innocent children and poisoned their minds with their false stories until, when they have reached the age of manhood, they have been afraid to think for themselves. Let us see what the laws are now, by which they guard their bible and their G.o.d.

[Here the speaker read extracts from the statutes of several states in reference to blasphemy and profanation of the Sabbath, commenting on each as he ran them through:] Pursuing the thread of his discourse, he said: Every American should see to it that all these laws are done away with once and forever.

There has been a reaction of late years. This country has begun to be prosperous. We don't think much of religion; 'tis only when hard times come we turn our attention toward it. There are people in this country who say we are getting too irreligious, too scientific. Now, is it not a fact that we are happier today than at any period in our history?

You live in a great country, though perhaps you do not know it. But live in any other country for a while, and you'll find it out. See, then, what we've got by looking a little to the affairs of the world!

The bible can't stand today without the support of the civil power. No religion ever flourished except by the support of the sword, and no religion like this could have been established except by brute force.

At one time we thought a great deal of clergymen, but now we have got to thinking they ain't of as much importance as a man that has invented something. The church seeing this has made up its mind that it is necessary to do something, and so got up a plan to be acknowledged by law. Here's what they wish to do: [Here the speaker read some extracts from the const.i.tution of the National Reform a.s.sociation.]

Continuing he said: Our fathers, in 1776, building better than they knew, retired the G.o.ds from politics. I do not believe Jesus Christ is the ruler of nations. If he is the ruler of one he is the ruler of all.

Why does he not then rule one as well as another? If you give him credit for the good things of one you must denounce him for the tyranny and despotism of others. The revealed word of G.o.d is not the standing of civil justice in this country! The bible is not the standard of right and wrong or of decency in this country.

You can't put G.o.d in the const.i.tution, because if you do there would be no room for the folks. Whatever you put in the const.i.tution you must enforce by the sword, and you can't go to war with any man for not believing in your G.o.d. G.o.d has no business there, and any man that is in favor of putting him there is an enemy to the interests of American inst.i.tutions.

Now for the purpose of preventing the name of G.o.d being put in the const.i.tution, there's another little party has been started and these are its doctrines: We want an absolute divorce between church and state. We demand that church property should not be exempt from taxation. If you are going to exempt anything, exempt the homesteads of the poor. Don't exempt a rich corporation, and make men pay taxes to support a religion in which they do not believe. But they say churches do good. I don't know whether they do or not. Do you see such a wonderful difference between a member of a church and the man who does not believe in it? Do church members pay their debts any better than any others? Do they treat their families any better? Did you ever hear of any man coming into a town broke and inquire where the deacon of a Presbyterian church lived? Has not the church opposed every science from the first ray of light until now? Didn't they d.a.m.n into eternal flames the man who discovered the world was round? Didn't they d.a.m.n into eternal flames the man who discovered the movement of the earth in its...o...b..t? Didn't they persecute the astronomers? Didn't they even try to put down life insurance by saying it was sinful to bet on the time G.o.d has given you to live? Science built the Academy, superst.i.tion the Inquisition. Science constructed the telescope, religion the rack; science made us happy here, and says if there's another life we'll all stand an equal chance there; religion made us miserable here, and says a large majority will be eternally miserable there. Should we, therefore, exempt it from taxation for any good it has done?

The next thing we ask is a perfect divorce between church and school.

We say that every school should be secular, because its just to everybody. If I was an Israelite I wouldn't want to be taxed to have my children taught that his ancestors had murdered a supreme being.

Let us teach, not the doctrines of the past, but the discoveries of the present; not the five points of Calvinism, but geology and geography.

Education is the lever to raise mankind, and superst.i.tion is the enemy of intelligence.

We demand, next, that woman shall be put upon an equality with man.

Why not? Why shouldn't men be decent enough in the management of the politics of the country for women to mingle with them? It is an outrage that anyone should live in this country for sixty or seventy years and be forced to obey the laws without having any voice in making them. Let us give woman the opportunity to care for herself, since men are not decent enough to seek to care for her. The time will come when we'll treat a woman that works and takes care of two or three children as well as a woman dressed in diamonds who does nothing. The time will come when we'll not tell our domestic we expect to meet her in heaven, and yet not be willing to have her speak to us in the drawing room.

Ignorance is a poor pedestal to set virtue upon and mock-modesty should not have the right to prevent people from knowing themselves. Every child has a right to be well-born, and ignorance has no right to people the world with scrofula and consumption. When we come to the conclusion that G.o.d is not taking care of us and that we have to take care of ourselves, then we'll begin to have something in the world worth living for.

I would wish there was seated upon the throne of the universe one who would see to it that justice did always prevail. I do not propose to give up the little world I live in for the unknown.

I would wish that the friends who bid us "good night" in this world might meet us with "good morning" there. Just as long as we love one another we'll hope for another world; just as long as love kisses the lips of death will we believe and hope for a future reunion. I would not take one hope away from the human heart or one joy from the human soul, but I hold in contempt the gentlemen who keep heaven on sale; I look with contempt on him who keeps it on draught; I look with pitying contempt on him who endeavors to prohibit honest thought by promising a reward in another world. If there is another world we'll find when we come there that no one has done enough good to be eternally rewarded, no one has done enough harm to meet with an unending, eternal pain and agony. We'll find that there is no being that ever hindered a man from exercising his reason. Now, while we are here, no matter what happens to us hereafter, let us cultivate strength of heart and brain to stand the inevitable. No creed can help you there. When the heart is touched with agony nothing but time can heal it.

I want, if I can, to do a little to increase the rights of men, to put every human being on an equality, to sweep away the clouds of superst.i.tion, to make people think more of what happens today than what somebody said happened 3,000 years ago. This is all I want: To do what little I can to clutch one-seventh of our time from superst.i.tion, to give our Sundays to rest and recreation. I want a day of enjoyment, a day to read old books, to meet old friends, and get acquainted with one's wife and children. I want a day to gather strength to meet the toils of the next. I want to get that day away from the church, away from superst.i.tion and the contemplation of h.e.l.l, to be the best and sweetest and brightest of all the days in the week. The best way to make a day sacred is to fill it up with useful labor. That day is best on which most good is done for the human race. I hope to see the time when we'll have a day for the opera, the play--good plays--for they do good. You never saw the villain foiled in a play where the audience did not applaud. You never saw them applaud when the rascal was successful in his villainy. If you could go to a theater and see put upon the stage the scenes of the old testament, with its butcheries and rapes and deeds of violence, you would detest it all the days of your life. I'd like to have every horror of the old testament set on this stage, to have somebody represent the being as he is represented there, giving his brutal orders, and let the orthodox see their G.o.d as he really is.

I want to have us all do what little we can to secularize this government--take it from the control of savagery and give it to science, take it from the government of the past and give it to the enlightened present, and in this government let us uphold every man and woman in their rights, that everyone, after he or she comes to the age of discretion, may have a choice in the affairs of the nation.

Do this, and we'll grow in grandeur and splendor every day, and the time will come when every man and every woman shall have the same rights as every other man and every other woman has. I believe, we are growing better. I don't believe the wail of want shall be heard forever; that the prison and gallows will always curse the ground. The time will come when liberty and law and love, like the rings of Saturn, will surround the world; when the world will cease making these mistakes; when every man will be judged according to his worth and intelligence. I want to do all I can to hasten that day.

Ingersoll's Lecture on Talmagian Theology (Second Lecture)

Col. Ingersoll began, "Only a few years ago the pulpit was almost supreme. The palace was almost in the shadow of the cathedral, and the power behind every throne was a priest. Man was held in physical slavery by kings, and in a mental prison by the church. He was allowed to hold no opinions as to where he came from, nor as to where he was going. It was sufficient for him to do the labor and believe the kings would do the governing and the priests the thinking--and, my G.o.d, what thinking! If the world had obeyed the priests we would all be idiots tonight. The eagle of intellect would have given way to the blind bat of faith. They were the rack, the f.a.ggot, the thumbscrew in this world, and h.e.l.l in the next. Only a few years ago no man could express an honest thought unless he agreed with the church. The church has been a perpetual beggar. It has never plowed, it never sowed, it never spun, yet Solomon in all his glory was not so arrayed. Thanks to modern thought, the brain of the nineteenth century, to Voltaire, Paine, Hume, to all the free men, that beggar--the church--is no longer upon horseback; and it fills me with joy to state that even its walking is not now good. Only a little while ago a priest was thought more than human. n.o.body dared contradict the minister. Now there are other learned professions. There are doctors, lawyers, writers, books, newspapers, and the priest has hundreds of rivals.

The priest grew jealous, hateful; he was always thankful for an epidemic or pestilence, so that people would turn to him in despair.

In our country all the men of intellect were in the pulpit once. Now there are so many avenues to distinction the men of brain, heart and red blood have left the pulpit and gone to useful things. I do not say all. There are still some men of mind in the pulpit, but they are nearer infidels than any others. Where do we get our ministers? A young man, without const.i.tution enough to be wicked, without health enough to enjoy the things of this world, naturally, fixes his gaze on high. He is educated, sent to a university where he is taught that it is criminal to think. Stuffed with a creed, he comes out a shepherd.

Most of them are intellectual shreds and patches, mental ravelings, selvage. Every pulpit is a pillory in which stands a convict; every member of the church stands over him with a club, called a creed. He is an intellectual slave, and dare not preach his honest thought.

There are thousands of good men in the pulpit, honest men. I am simply describing the average shepherd; they tell me "they've been called,"

that Almighty G.o.d selected them. He looked all over the world and said: "Now, there's a man I want!" And what selections! Shakespeare was not called. Yet he has done more for this world than all the ministers who have ever lived in it. Beethoven! He was not called. Raphael was not called. He was all an accident. All the inventors, discoverers, poets--G.o.d never called one of them; he turned his attention to popes, cardinals, priests, exhorters; and what selections he has made! It's astonis.h.i.+ng.

In the United States a great many ministers have been good enough to take me for a text. Among others the Rev. Mr. Talmage, of Brooklyn. I have nothing to say about his reputation. It has nothing to do with the question. Some ministers think he has more gesticulation than grace. Some call him a pious pantaloon, a Christian clown; but such remarks, I think, are born of envy. He is the only Presbyterian minister in the United States who can draw an audience. He stands at the head of the denomination, and I answer him. He's a strange man. I believe he's orthodox, or intellectual pride would prevent his saying these things. He believes in a literal resurrection of the dead; that we shall see countless bones flying through the air. He has some charges against me, and he has denied some of my statements. He has produced what he calls arguments, and I am going to answer some of the charges. Next Sunday afternoon, at 2 o'clock; in this place, I shall have a matinee, and answer his arguments. He says I am the champion blasphemer. What is blasphemy? To contradict a priest? to have a mind of your own? Whoever takes a step in advance is a blasphemer.

Blasphemy is what a last year's leaf says to a this year's bud. To deny that Mohammed is the prophet of G.o.d is not blasphemy in New York.

It is in Constantinople. It is a question, then, largely of Geography.

It depends on where you are. The missionary who laughs at a modern G.o.d is a blasphemer. In a Catholic country whoever says Mary is not the mother of G.o.d is a blasphemer. In a Protestant country to say she is the mother of G.o.d is blasphemy. Everything has been blasphemy. My doctrine is this: He is a blasphemer who refuses to tell his honest thought; who is not true to himself; who enslaves his fellow man; who charges that G.o.d was once in favor of slavery. If there is any G.o.d, that man is a blasphemer. They're afraid we'll injure G.o.d. How? Is infinite goodness and mercy to become livid with wrath because a finite being expresses an opinion? I cannot help the infinite. That man only is the good man who helps his fellow man. I know then who would do anything for G.o.d, who doesn't need it, but nothing for men, who do need it. Why should G.o.d be so particular about my believing his book? It's no more his work than the stars of gravitation. Yet I may declare that the earth is flat, and he'll not d.a.m.n me for that. But if I make a mistake about that book I'm gone. I can blaspheme the multiplication table and deify the power of the wedge--in fact, the less I know the better my chance will be. I say that book is not inspired, and there is no infinitely good G.o.d who will d.a.m.n one human soul. At the judgment, if I am mistaken I own up--I am here, I do not know where I came from, nor where I am going--I'll be honest about it. I am on a s.h.i.+p and not on speaking terms with the captain, but I propose to have a happy voyage, and the best way is to do what you can to make your fellow pa.s.sengers happy. If we run into a good port, I'll be as happy an angel as you'll meet that day. Blasphemy is the cry of a defeated priest--the black flag of theology--it shows where argument stops and slander and persecution begin. I am told by Mr. Talmage that whoever contradicts this word is a fool, a howling wolf, one of the a.s.sa.s.sins of G.o.d. I presume the gentleman is honest. Take Mr. Talmage, now, he is a good man. Mr. Humboldt, he was another good man. What Humboldt knew and what Talmage didn't know would make a library.

The next charge is that I have said the universe was made of nothing, according to the bible. False in one thing, false in all, he says.

Think of that rule. Let us apply that to man. If the world was created, what was it make of? and who made that? If the Lord created it, what did He make it of? Nothing. That's all He had. No sides, no top, nothing. Yet G.o.d had lived there forever. What did He think about? What did He do? Nothing. Nothing had ever happened. All at once He made something. What did He make it of? Mr. Talmage explains.

He says if I knew anything I would know that G.o.d made this world out of His omnipotence. He might just as well made it out of His memory.

What is omnipotence? Is it a raw material? The weakest man in the world can lift as much nothing as G.o.d. Yet He made this world out of His omnipotence. It is so stated by a doctor of divinity, and I should think such divinity would need a doctor! I don't believe this. I believe this universe has existed throughout all eternity--everything.

All that is, is G.o.d. I do not give to that universe a personality that wants man to get his knees into dust and his fingers in holy water; that wants some body to ring a bell or eat a wafer. I am a part of this universe, and I believe all there is, is all the G.o.d there is. I may be mistaken; I don't know. I just give my best opinion. If there's any heaven, I'll give it there. But there'll be no discussion in heaven. h.e.l.l is the only place where mental improvement will be possible.

I have said, it is charged, that the bible says the world was made in six days. He says I don't understand Hebrew. The bible says the world was made in six days. G.o.d didn't work nights--evening and morning were the first day. G.o.d rested on the seventh day, and sanctified it.

That, they say, didn't mean days; it meant good whiles. He made the world in six good whiles. Adam was made, I think along about Sat.u.r.day.

If the account is correct, it's only 6,000 years since man made his appearance. We know that to be false. A few years ago a gentleman who was going to California in the cars met a minister. They came to the place called the Sink of the Humboldt, the most desolate place in the world. Just imagine perdition with the fire out. The traveler asked the minister whether G.o.d made the earth in six days, and the minister said he did. Then don't you think, said he, He could have put in another day's work to great advantage right here? I am charged, too, with saying that the sun was not made till the fourth day, whereas, according to the bible, vegetation began on the third day, before there was any light. But Mr. Talmage says there was light without the sun.

They got light, he says, from the crystallization of rocks. A nice thing to raise a crop of corn by. There may have been volcanoes, he says. How'd you like to farm it, and depend on volcanic glare to raise a crop? That's what they call religious science. G.o.d won't d.a.m.n a man for things like that. What else? The aurora borealis! A great cuc.u.mber country! It's strange He never thought of glow worms!

Imagine it! a Presbyterian divine gravely saying vegetation could grow by the light of the crystallization of rocks--by the light of volcanoes in other worlds, probably now extinct.

He says of me, too in his pulpit, that I was in favor of the circulation of immoral literature. Let me tell you the truth. Several gentlemen, so-called, were trying to exclude from the mails, books called infidel. I said the law should be modified. It is impossible for anybody to reach the depth of one who will print or circulate obscene books. One of my objections to the bible is that it contains obscene stories. Any book, couched in decent language, should have the liberty of the United States mails. Where books are immoral and obscene, I say, burn them, and have always said it. Mr. Talmage said what he knew to be untrue. He said it out of hatred, and because he cannot answer the arguments I have urged. I believe in pure books and pure literature. But when a G.o.d writes there is no excuse for Him. In Shakespeare we say obscene things are impure--we do not say they are inspired. That I have falsified the records of the bible showing the period of Jewish slavery, is another of the charges against me. That slavery extended over a period of 215 years; and he proceeded to substantiate this statement by being through a long and somewhat complicated genealogical table. If I made any misstatement I was misled by the new testament. Mr. Talmage may settle with St. Paul. If you can depend on what my friend Paul says, the Jews, in 215 years, increased from seventy persons till they had 600,000 men of war. I know it isn't so, and so does any man who knows anything. For such an increase as this each woman must have borne somewhat over fifty-seven children, and every child lived.

The next charge is that I have laughed at holy things. Holy things!

The priest always says: "Now don't laugh; look solemn; this is no laughing matter." There's nothing a priest hates like mirthfulness. He despises a smile. I read in the bible that G.o.d gave a recipe to Aaron for making hair-oil and said if anybody made any like it, kill him.

Well, I don't believe it. The penalty for infringing on that patent was death. Do you believe an infinite G.o.d gave a recipe for hair-oil?

Is it possible for absurdity to go beyond that? That's what they call a holy thing. And water for baptism! Do you believe G.o.d will look for this water-mark on the soul?

The next charge is that I misquote the scriptures. That's because I don't know Hebrew. Why didn't He write to me in English? If He wishes to hold a gentleman responsible, why doesn't He address him in his native tongue? Why write His word in such a way that hundreds of thousands make their living explaining it? If I'd only understood Hebrew I would have known G.o.d didn't make Eve out of a rib. He made her out of Adam's side. How did He get it out? Well, I suppose He cut it out with a kind of a splinter of His omnipotence! Then our mother was made from a rib. When you consider the material used it was the most successful job ever done. There's even a serpent in the bible that knows a language. It won't do. Sin, how did it come into the world? Where did the serpent come from? He was wicked. Adam's sin did not make him bad. Then there was sin in the world before Adam.

There's no sense in it--not a particle. Then Talmage touches me upon the flood. His flood didn't come to America, because America was not discovered then. He says it was a partial flood. Then why did they have to take any birds in the ark? How did Noah get the animals in the ark? Talmage says it was through the instinct to get out of the rain.

According to the bible they went in before the rain began. Dr. Scott says the angels helped carry them in. Imagine an angel with an animal under each wing. It must have rained 800 feet a day for forty days.

Why does Talmage try to explain a miracle? The beauty of a miracle is it cannot be explained. The moment the church begins to explain the church is gone. All it's got to do is swear it is so. The ark landed on Ararat, which is 17,000 feet high. There was only one window, twenty-two inches square. Talmage says the window ran clear around the ark. The bible doesn't say so. That's Brooklyn; that's no bible.

If the bible account is true the ark must have struck bottom on the top of a mountain. Would any but a G.o.d of mercy and kindness people a world, and then drown them all? A G.o.d cruel enough to drown His own children ought not to have the impudence to tell me how to bring up mine. Why did He save eight of the same kind of people to take a fresh start? Why didn't He make a fresh lot, kill His snake, and give His children a fair show? It won't do.

Talmage says the bible does not favor polygamy and slavery. There was room enough on the table of stone for saying man should only have one wife and no slaves. If not, G.o.d might have written it on the other side. David and Solomon were pursued of G.o.d, but they had a pretty good time of it. Most anybody would be willing to be pursued that way.

There is not a word in the old testament against slavery or polygamy.

Frederick Douglas, a slave in Maryland, is the greatest man that state ever produced. He was enslaved by Christians. Why did G.o.d pay so much attention to blasphemers, and so little to slaveholders and robbers? I am opposed to any G.o.d that was ever in favor of slavery. The bible upholds polygamy, and that's the reason I don't uphold the bible. The most glorious temple ever erected is the home--that's my church. I've misquoted the story of Jonah, Talmage says. When somebody had been guilty of blasphemy the winds rose; they tried to get Jonah ash.o.r.e, but couldn't do it. The sea waxed. He was swallowed by a whale. The people of Minerva wrapped all their cattle up in sack-cloth, and if anything would have pleased G.o.d I should think that would. Jonah sat under a gourd, and G.o.d made a worm out of some omnipotence he had left over, and set it work on the ground. Talmage doesn't think Jonah was in the whale's belly--he said in his mouth. Well, judging from the doctor's photograph, that explanation would be quite natural to him.

He says he might have been in the whale's stomach, and avoided the action of the gastric juice by walking up and down. Imagine Jonah, sitting on a back tooth, leaning against the upper jaw, longingly looking through the open mouth for signs of land! But that's scripture and you've got to believe it or be d.a.m.ned. Let me say his brother preachers will not thank Talmage for his explanations. I don't believe it, and if I am to be d.a.m.ned for it, I'll accept it cheerfully.

They say I was defeated for Governor of Illinois because I was an infidel, and that I am an infidel because I was defeated. That's logic. Now I'll tell you. They asked me whether I was an infidel, and I said I was! I was defeated. I preserved my manhood and lost an office. If everybody were as frank as I was, some men now in office would be private citizens. I would rather be what I am than hold any office in the world and be a slimy hypocrite.

Next they say I slandered my parents because I do not believe what they believed. My father at one time believed the bible to be the inspired word of G.o.d. He was an honorable man, and told me to read the bible for myself and be honest. He lived long enough to believe that the old testament was not the word of G.o.d. He had not in his life as much happiness as I have in one year. I hope my children will dishonor me by being nearer right than I am. If I have made a mistake, I want my children to correct it. My mother died when I was 2 years old. Were she living tonight, or if she does live, she would say, be absolutely true to yourself and preserve your manhood. If Talmage had been born in Constantinople he would have been a dervish. He is what he is because he can't help it. His head is just that shape. I am taking away the hope and consolation of the world, he says. His consolation is that ninety-nine out of every hundred are going to h.e.l.l. His church was founded by John Calvin, a murderer. Better have no heaven than a h.e.l.l. I would rather G.o.d would commit suicide this minute than that a single soul should go to h.e.l.l. I want no Presbyterian consolation, I want no fore-ordination, no consolation, no d.a.m.nation.

[Col. Ingersoll concluded with a few remarks about the bible women, saying that women today are as true to the gallows as Mary Magdalene was to the cross.]

Wherever there are women there are heroines. Shakespeare's women are vastly superior to the bible women. I am accused of putting out the light-houses on the sh.o.r.es of the other world. The Christians are tr.i.m.m.i.n.g invisible wicks and pouring in allegorical oil. The Christian is willing wife, children and parents shall burn if only he can sing and have a harp. Mr. Talmage can see countless millions burn in h.e.l.l without decreasing the length of his orthodox smile.