Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest Part 10

Ladies and Gentlemen: There is an old story of a missionary trying to convert an Indian. The Indian made a little circle in the sand and said, "That is what the Indian knows." Then he made another circle a little larger and said, "that is what missionary knows; but outside there the Indian knows just as much as missionary."

I am going to talk mostly outside that circle tonight.

First, what is the origin of the crime known as blasphemy? It is the belief in a G.o.d who is cruel, revengeful, quick tempered and capricious; a G.o.d who punishes the innocent for the guilty; a G.o.d who listens with delight to the shrieks of the tortured and gazes enraptured on their spurting blood. You must hold this belief before you can believe in the doctrine of blasphemy. You must believe that this G.o.d loves ceremonies, that this G.o.d knows certain men to whom He has told all His will. It then follows that, if this G.o.d loves ceremonies and has certain men to teach His will and perform these ceremonies, these men must have a place to live in. This place was called a temple, and it was sacred. And the pots and pans and kettles and all in it were sacred too. No one but the priests must touch them.

Then the G.o.d wrote a book in which He told His covenants to men, and gave this book to priests to interpret. While it was sacrilege to touch with the hands the pots and pans of the temple, it was blasphemy to doubt or question anything in the book. And then the right to think was gone, and the right to use the brain that G.o.d had given was taken away, and religion was entrenched behind that citadel called blasphemy.

G.o.d was a kind of juggler. He did not wish man to be impudent or curious about how He did things. You must sit in audience and watch the tricks and ask no questions. In front of every fact He has hung the impenetrable curtain of blasphemy. Now, then, all the little reason that poor man had is useless. To say anything against the priest was blasphemy and to say anything against G.o.d was blasphemy--to ask a question was blasphemy. Finally we sank to the level of fetis.h.i.+sm. We began to wors.h.i.+p inanimate things. If you will read your bible you will find that the Jews had a sacred box. In it were the rod of Aaron and a piece of manna and the tables of stone. To touch this box was a crime. You remember that one time when a careless Jew thought the box was going to tip he held it. G.o.d killed him. What a warning to baggage smashers of the present day.

We find also that G.o.d concocted a hair oil and threatened death to any one who imitated it. And we see that He also made a certain perfume and it was death to make anything that smelt like it. It seems to me this is carrying protection too far. It always has been blasphemy to say "I do not know whether G.o.d exists or not." In all Catholic countries it is blasphemy to doubt the bible, to doubt the sacredness of the relics. It always has been blasphemy to laugh at a priest, to ask questions, to investigate the Trinity. In a world of superst.i.tion, reason is blasphemy. In a world of ignorance, facts are blasphemy. In a world of cruelty, sympathy is a crime, and in a world of lies, truth is blasphemy. Who are the real blasphemers? Webster offers the definition; blasphemy is an insult offered to G.o.d by attributing to Him a nature and qualities differing from His real nature and qualities, and dishonoring Him. A very good definition, if you only know what His nature and qualities are. But that is not revealed; for, studying Him through the medium of the bible, we find Him illimitably contradictory.

He commands us not to work on the Sabbath day, because it is holy. Yet G.o.d works himself on the Sabbath day. The sun, moon and stars swing round in their orbits, and all the creation attributed to this G.o.d goes on as on other days. He says: "Honor thy father and mother," and yet this G.o.d, in the person of Christ, offered honors, and glory, and happiness a hundred fold to any who would desert their father and mother for Him. Thou shalt not kill, yet G.o.d killed the first-born of Egypt, and he commanded Joshua to kill all His enemies, not sparing old or young, man, woman or child, even an unborn child. "Thou shalt not commit adultery," he says, and yet this G.o.d gave the wives of defeated enemies to His soldiers of Joshua's army. Then again He says, "Thou shalt not steal." By this command He protected the inanimate property and the cattle of one man against the hand of another, and yet this G.o.d who said "Thou shalt not steal," established human slavery. The products of industry were not to be interfered with, but the producer might be stolen as often as possible. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." And yet the G.o.d who said this said also, "I have sent lying spirits unto Ahab." The only commandment He really kept was, "Thou shalt have none other G.o.ds but Me."

Is it blasphemous to describe this G.o.d as malicious? You know that laughter is a good index of the character of a man. You like and rejoice with the man whose laugh is free and joyous and full of good will. You fear and dislike him of the sneering laugh. How does G.o.d laugh? He says, "I will laugh at their calamity and mock at their misfortune," speaking of some who have sinned. Think of the malice and malignity of that in an infinite G.o.d when speaking of the sufferings He is going to impose upon His children. You know that it is said of a Roman emperor that he wrote laws very finely, and posted them so high on the walls that no one could read them, and then he punished the people who disobeyed the laws. That is the acme of tyranny: to provide a punishment for breach of laws the existence of which were unknown. Now we all know that there is sin against the Holy Ghost which will not be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been driven to the lunatic asylum by the thought that they had committed this unpardonable sin. Every educated minister knows that that part of the bible is an interpolation, but they all preach it. What that sin against the Holy Ghost is, is not specified. I say, "Oh, but my good G.o.d, tell me what this sin is." And He answers, "Maybe now asking is the crime. Keep quiet." So I keep quiet and go about tortured with the fear that I have committed that sin. Is it blasphemy to describe G.o.d as needing a.s.sistance from the Legislature? Calling for the aid of a mob to enforce His will here, compare that G.o.d with a man, even with Henry Bergh. See what Mr. Bergh has done to awaken pity in our people and call sympathy to the rescue of suffering animals. And yet our G.o.d was a torturer of dumb brutes.

It is blasphemy to say that our G.o.d sent the famine and dried the mother's breast from her infant's withered lips? Is it blasphemy to say that He is the author of the pestilence; that He ordered some of His children to consume others with fire and sword? Is it blasphemy to believe what we read in the 109th Psalm? If these things are not blasphemy, then there is no blasphemy. If there be a G.o.d I desire Him to write in the book of judgment opposite my name that I denied these lies for Him.

Let us take another step; let us examine the Presbyterian confession of faith. If it be possible to commit blasphemy, then I contend that the Presbyterian creed is most blasphemous, for, according to that, G.o.d is a cruel, unrelenting, revengeful, malignant and utterly unreasonable tyrant. I propose now to pay a little attention to the creed. First, it confesses that there is such a thing as a light of nature. It is sufficient to make man inexcusable, but not sufficient for salvation; just light enough to lead man to h.e.l.l. Now imagine a man who will put a false light on a hilltop to lure a s.h.i.+p to destruction. What would we say of that man? What can we say of a G.o.d who gives this false light of nature which, if its lessons are followed, results in h.e.l.l?

That is the Presbyterian G.o.d. I don't like Him. Now it occurred to G.o.d that the light of nature was somewhat weak, and He thought He'd light another burner. Therefore He made His book and gave it to His servants, the priests, that they might give it to men. It was to be accepted, not on the authority of Moses, or any other writer, but because it was the word of G.o.d. How do you know it's the word of G.o.d?

You're not to take the word of Moses, or David, or Jeremiah, or Isaiah, or any other man, because the authenticity of their work has nothing to do with the matter; this creed expressly lets them out. How are you to know that it is G.o.d's word? Because it is G.o.d's word. Why is it G.o.d's word? What proof have we that it is G.o.d's word? Because it is G.o.d's word.

Now, then, I find that the next thing in this wonderful confession of faith of the Presbyterians is the decree of predestination. [Reads the decree.] I am pleased to a.s.sure you that it is not necessary to understand this. You have only to believe it. You see that by the decree of G.o.d some men and angels are predestinated to heaven and others to eternal h.e.l.l, and you observe that their number is so certain and definite that it can neither be changed nor altered. You are asked to believe that billions of years ago this G.o.d knew the names of all the men and women whom He was going to save. Had 'em in His book, that being the only thing except Himself that then existed. He had chosen the names by the aid of the secret council. The reason they called it secret was because they knew all about it.

In making His choice, G.o.d was not at all bigoted. He did not choose John Smith because He foresaw that Smith was to be a Presbyterian, and was to possess a loving nature, was to be honest and true and n.o.ble in all his ways, doing good himself and encouraging others in the same.

Oh, no! He was quite as likely to pick Brown, in spite of the fact that He knew long before that Brown would be a wicked wretch. You see He was just as apt to send Smith to the devil and take Brown to heaven--and all for "His glory." This G.o.d also blinds and hardens--ah!

he's a peculiar G.o.d. If sinners persevere, He will blind and harden and give them over at last to their own wickedness instead of trying to reclaim and save them.

Now we come to the comforting doctrine of the total depravity of man, and this leads us to consider how he came that way. Can any person read the first chapters of Genesis and believe them unless his logic was a.s.sa.s.sinated in the cradle? We read that our first parents were placed in a pleasant garden; that they were given the full run of the place and only forbidden to meddle with the orchard; that they were tempted as G.o.d knew they were to be tempted; that they fell as G.o.d knew they would fall, and that for this fall, which He knew would happen before He made them, He fixed the curse of original sin upon them, to be continued to all their children. Why didn't He stop right there?

Why didn't He kill Adam and Eve and make another pair who didn't like apples? Then when He brought His flood why did He rescue eight people if their descendants were to be so totally depraved and wicked? Why didn't He have His flood first, and then drown the devil? That would have solved the problem, and He could then have tried experiments unmolested.

The Presbyterian confession says this corruption was in all men. It was born with them, it lived through their life, and after death survived in the children. Well, can't man help himself? No, I'll show you, G.o.d's got him. Listen to this. [Reads extracts.] So that a natural man is not only dead in sin and unable to accomplish salvation, but he is also incapable of preparing himself therefore. Absolutely incapable of taking a trick. He is saved, if at all, completely by the mercy of G.o.d. If that's the case, then why doesn't He convert us all? Oh, He doesn't. He wishes to send the most of us to h.e.l.l--to show His justice.

Elect infants dying in infancy are regenerate. So also are all persons incapable of unbelief. That includes insane persons and idiots, because an idiot is incapable of unbelief. Idiots are the only fellows who've got the dead wood on G.o.d. Then according to this, the man who has lived according to the light of nature, doing the best he knew how to make this earth happy, will be d.a.m.ned by G.o.d because he never heard of His son. Whose fault is it that an infinite G.o.d does not advertise?

Something wrong about that. I am inclined to think that the Presbyterian church is wrong. I find here how utterly unpardonable sin is. There is no sin so small but it is punished with h.e.l.l, and away you go straight to the deepest burning pit unless your heart has been purified by this confession of faith--unless this snake has crawled in there and made itself a nest. Why should we help religion? I would like people to ask themselves that question. An infinite G.o.d, by practicing a reasonable economy, can get along without a.s.sistance.

Loudly this confession proclaims that salvation comes from Christ alone. What, then, becomes of the savage who, having never known the name of Christ, has lived according to the light of nature, kind and heroic and generous, and possessed of and cultivating all the natural virtues? He goes to h.e.l.l. G.o.d, you see, loves us. If He had not loved us what would He have done? The light of nature then shows that G.o.d is good and therefore to be feared--on account of his goodness, to be served and honored without ceasing. And yet this creed says that on the last day G.o.d will d.a.m.n anyone who has walked according to this light. It's blasphemy to walk by the light of nature.

The next great doctrine is on the preservation of the saints. Now, there are peculiarities about saints. They are saints without their own knowledge or free will; they may even be down on saints, but its no good. G.o.d has got a rolling hitch on them, and they have to come into the kingdom sooner or later. It all depends on whether they have been elected or not. G.o.d could have made me a saint just as easy as not, but He pa.s.sed me by. Now you know the Presbyterians say I trample on holy things. They believe in h.e.l.l and I come and say there is no h.e.l.l.

I hurt their hearts, they say, and they add that I am going to h.e.l.l myself. I thank them for that; but now let's see what these tender Presbyterians say of other churches. Here it is:

This confession of faith calls the pope of Rome anti-Christ and a son of perdition. Now there are forty Roman Catholics to one Presbyterian on this earth. Do not the Presbyterians rather trample on the things that are holy to the Roman Catholics, and do they respect their feelings? But the Presbyterians have a pope themselves, composed of the presbyters and preachers. This confession attributes to them the keys of heaven and h.e.l.l and the power to forgive sins. [Here extracts are read.] Therefore these men must be infallible, for G.o.d would never be so foolish as to entrust fallible men with the keys of heaven and h.e.l.l.

I care nothing for their keys, nor for any world these keys would open or lock; I prefer the country.

We are told by this faith that at the last day all the men and women and children who have ever lived on the earth will appear in the self same bodies they have had when on earth. Everyone who knows anything knows the constant exchange which is going on between the vegetable and animal kingdom. The millions of atoms which compose one of our bodies have all come from animals and vegetables, and they in their turn drew them from animals and vegetables which preceded them. The same atoms which are now in our bodies have previously been in the bodies of our ancestors. The negro from Central Africa has many times been mahogany and the mahogany has many times been negro. A missionary goes to the cannibal islands and a cannibal eats him and dies. The atoms which composed the missionary's body now compose in great part the cannibal's body. To whom will these atoms belong on the morning of the resurrection?

How did the devil, who had always lived in heaven among the best society, ever happen to become bad? If a man surrounded by angels could become bad, why cannot a man surrounded by devils become good?

Here is the last Presbyterian joy: At the day of judgment the righteous shall be caught up to heaven and shall stand at the right hand of Christ and share with Him in judging the wicked. Then the Presbyterian husband may have the ineffable pleasure of judging his wife and condemning her to eternal h.e.l.l, and the boy will say to his mother, echoing the command of G.o.d: "Depart, thou accursed, into everlasting torment!" Here will come a man who has not believed in G.o.d. He was a soldier who took up arms to free the slaves and who rotted to death in Andersonville prison rather than accept the offer of his captors to fight against freedom. He loved his wife and his children and his Home and his native country and all mankind, and did all the good he knew. G.o.d will say to the Presbyterians, "What shall We do to this man?"; and they will answer, "Throw him into h.e.l.l."

Last night there was a fire in Philadelphia, and at a window fifty feet above the ground Mr. King stood amid flame and smoke and pressed his children to his breast one after the other, kissed them, and threw them to the rescuers with a prayer. That was man. At the last day G.o.d takes His children with a curse and hurls them into eternal fire.

That's your G.o.d as the Presbyterians describe Him. Do you believe that G.o.d--if there is one--will ever d.a.m.n me for thinking Him better than He is? If this creed be true, G.o.d is the insane keeper of a mad house.

We have in this city a clergyman who contends that this creed gives a correct picture of G.o.d, and furthermore says that G.o.d has the right to do with us what He pleases--because He made us. If I could change this lamp into a human being, that would not give me the right to torture him, and if I did torture him and he cried out, "Why torturest thou me?" and I replied, "Because I made you," he would be right in replying, "You made me, therefore you are responsible for my happiness." No G.o.d has a right to add to the sum of human misery. And yet this minister believes an honest thought blasphemy. No doubt he is perfectly honest. Otherwise he would have too much intellectual pride to take the position he does. He says that the bible offers the only restraint to the savage pa.s.sions of man. In lands where there has been no bible there have been mild and beneficent philosophers, like Buddha and Confucius. Is it possible that the bible is the only restraint, and yet the nations among whom these men lived have been as moral as we? In Brooklyn and New York you have the bible, yet do you find that the restraint is a great success? Is there a city on the globe which lacks more in certain directions than some in Christendom, or even the United States? What are the natural virtues of man? Honesty, hospitality, mercy in the hour of victory, generosity--do we not find these virtues among some savages? Do we find them among all Christians? I am also told by these gentlemen that the time will come when the infidel will be silenced by society. Why that time came long ago. Society gave the hemlock to Socrates, society in Jerusalem cried out for Barabbas and crucified Jesus. In every Christian country society has endeavored to crush the infidel.

Blasphemy is a padlock which hypocrisy tries to put on the lips of all honest men. At one time Christianity succeeded in silencing the infidel, and then came the dark ages, when all rule was ecclesiastical, when the air was filled with devils and spooks, when birth was a misfortune, life a prolonged misery of fear and torment, and death a horrible nightmare. They crushed the infidels, Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, wherever a ray of light appeared in the ecclesiastical darkness. But I want to tell this minister tonight, and all others like him, that that day is pa.s.sed. All the churches in the United States can not even crush me. The day for that has gone, never to return. If they think they can crush free thought in this country, let them try it. What must this minister think of you and the citizens of this republic when he says, "Take the fear of h.e.l.l out of men's hearts and a majority of them will become ungovernably wicked." Oh, think of an angel in heaven having to allow that he was scared there.

This minister calls for my arrest. He thinks his G.o.d needs help, and would like to see the police crush the infidel. I would advise Mr.

Talmage (hisses) to furnish his G.o.d with a rattle, so that when he is in danger again he can summon the police immediately.

I'll tell you what is blasphemy. It is blasphemy to live on the fruits of other men's labor, to prevent the growth of the human mind, to persecute for opinion's sake, to abuse your wife and children, to increase in any manner the sum of human misery.

I'll tell you what is sacred. Our bodies are sacred, our rights are sacred, justice and liberty are sacred. I'll tell you what is the true bible. It is the sum of all actual knowledge of man, and every man who discovers a new fact adds a new verse to this bible. It is different from the other bible, because that is the sum of all that its writers and readers do not know.

Ingersoll's Lecture ent.i.tled "Some Reasons Why"

Ladies and Gentlemen: The history of the world shows that religion has made enemies instead of friends. That one word "religion" paints the horizon of the past with every form of agony and torture, and when one p.r.o.nounces the name of "religion" we think of 1,500 years of persecution, of 6,000 years of hatred, slander and vituperation.

Strange, but true, that those who have loved G.o.d most have loved men least; strange that in countries where there has been the most religion there has been the most agony; and that is one reason why I am opposed to what is known as religion. By religion I mean the duties that men are supposed to owe to G.o.d; by religion I mean, not what man owes to man, but what we owe to some invisible, infinite and supreme being.

The question arises, Can any relation exist between finite man and infinite being? An infinite being is absolutely conditional. An infinite being can not walk, cannot receive, and a finite being cannot give to the infinite. Can I increase his happiness or decrease his misery? Does he need my strength or my life? What can I do for him?

I say, nothing.

For one, I do not believe there is any G.o.d who gives rain or suns.h.i.+ne for praying. For one, I do not believe there is any being who helps man simply because he kneels. I may be mistaken, but that is my doctrine--that the finite cannot by any possibility help the infinite, or the infinite be indebted to the finite; that the finite cannot by any possibility a.s.sist a being who is all in all. What can we do? We can help man; we can help clothe the naked, feed the hungry; we can help break the chains of the slave; we can help weave a garment of joy that will finally cover this world. That is all that man can do.

Wherever he has endeavored to do more he has simply increased the misery of his fellows. I can find out nothing of these things myself by my unaided reasoning. If there is an infinite G.o.d and I have not reason enough to comprehend His universe, whose fault is it? I am told that we have the inspired will of G.o.d. I do not know exactly what they mean by inspired. Not two sects agree on that word. Some tell me that every great work is inspired; that Shakespeare is inspired. I would be less apt to dispute that than a similar remark about any other book on this earth. If Jehovah had wanted to have a book written, the inspiration of which should not be disputed, He should have waited until Shakespeare lived.

Whatever they mean by inspiration, they at least mean that it is true.

If it is true, it does not need to be inspired. The truth will take care of itself. Nothing except a falsehood needs inspiration. What is inspiration? A man looks at the sea, and the sea says something to him. Another man looks at the same sea, and the sea tells another story to him. The sea cannot tell the same story to any two human beings.

There is not a thing in nature, from a pebble to a constellation, that tells the same story to any two human beings. It depends upon the man's experience, his intellectual development, and what chord of memory it touches. One looks upon the sea and is filled with grief; another looks upon it and laughs.

Last year, riding in the cars from Boston to Portsmouth, sat opposite me a lady and gentleman. As we reached the latter place the woman, for the first time in her life, caught a burst of the sea, and she looked and said to her husband "Isn't that beautiful!" And he looked and said: "I'll bet you can dig clams right there."

Another ill.u.s.tration: A little while ago a gentleman was walking with another in South Carolina, at Charleston--one who had been upon the other side. Said the Northerner to the Southerner, "Did you ever see such a night as this; did you ever in your life see such a moon?" "Oh, my G.o.d," said he, "you ought to have seen that moon before the War!"

I simply say these things to convince you that everything in nature has a different story to tell every human being. So the bible tells a different story to every man that reads it. History proves what I say.

Why so many sects? Why so much persecution? Simply because two people couldn't understand it exactly alike. You may reply that G.o.d intended it should be so understood, and that is the real revelation that G.o.d intended.

For instance, I write a letter to Smith. I want to convey to him certain thoughts. If I am honest I will use the words which will convey to him my thoughts, but not being infinite, I don't know exactly how Smith will understand my words; but if I were infinite I would be bound to use the words that I know Smith would get my exact idea from.

If G.o.d intended to make a revelation to me He has to make it to me through my brain and my reasoning. He cannot make a revelation to another man for me. That other man will have G.o.d's word for it but I will only have that man's word for it. As that man has been dead for several thousand years, and as I don't know what his reputation was for truth and veracity in the neighborhood in which he lived, I will wait for the Lord to speak again.

Suppose when I read it, the revelation to me, through the bible, is that it is not true, and G.o.d knew that I would know that when I did read it, and knew, if I did not say it, I would be dishonest. Is it possible that He would d.a.m.n me for being honest, and give me wings if I would play the hypocrite?

The inspiration of the bible depends upon the ignorance of the gentleman who reads it. Yet they tell me this book was written by the creator of every s.h.i.+ning star. Now let us see. I want to be honest and candid. I have just as much at stake in the way of soul as any doctor of divinity that ever lived, and more than some I have met.

According to this book, the first attempt at peopling this world was a failure. G.o.d had to destroy all but eight. He saved some of the same kind to start again, which I think was a mistake. After that, the people still getting worse, he selected from the wide world a few of the tribe of Abraham. He had no time to waste with everybody. He had no time to throw away on Egypt. It had at that time a vast and splendid civilization, in which there were free schools; in which the one man married the one wife; where there were courts of law; where there were codes of laws.

Neither could He give attention to India, that had at that time a literature as splendid almost as ours, a language as perfect; that had produced poets, philosophers, statesmen. He had no time to waste with them, but took a few of the tribe of Abraham, and He did His best to civilize these people. He was their governor, their executive, their supreme court. He established a despotism, and from Mount Sinai He proclaimed His laws. They didn't pay much attention to them. He wrought thousands of miracles to convince them that He was G.o.d.

Isn't it perfectly wonderful that the priest of one religion never believes the miracles told by the priest of another? Is it possible that they know each other? I heard a story the other day. A gentleman was telling a very remarkable circ.u.mstance that happened to himself, and all the listeners except one said, "Is it possible; did you ever hear such a wonderful thing in all your life?" They noticed that this one man didn't appear to take a vivid interest in the story, so one said to him, "You don't express much astonishment at the story?" "No,"

says he, "I am a liar myself."