Freeing humanity from the shackles of religion.
"I combat those only who, knowing nothing of the future, prophesy an eternity of pain- those who sow the seeds of fear in the hearts of men- those only who poison all the springs of life, and seat a skeleton at every feast." (Robert G. Ingersoll, Field-Ingersoll Debate, Letter to Dr. Field. 1887)
"Reason, Observation and Experience -- the Holy Trinity of Science -- have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this belief we are content to live and die. If by any possibility the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us stand erect." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality" 1873)
"The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know." (Robert Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy", 1884)
"Belief is not a voluntary thing. A man believes or disbelieves in spite of himself. They tell us that to believe is the safe way; but I say, the safe way is to be honest." (Robert Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why I Am a Freethinker", 1881)
"The church never doubts -- never inquires. To doubt is heresy -- to inquire is to admit that you do not know -- the church does neither." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Thomas Paine", 1870)
"The destroyer of weeds, thistles and thorns is a benefactor whether he soweth grain or not." (Robert G. Ingersoll, motto on the title page of "Some Mistakes of Moses", mentioned in Interview with Chicago Times, November 14, 1879)
"I have little confidence in any enterprise or business or investment that promises dividends only after the death of the stockholders." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "A Wooden God" letter to the Chicago Times, March 27, 1890)
"With soap, baptism is a good thing." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "My Reviewers Reviewed" lecture in San Francisco, June 27, 1877)
"The Declaration of Independence announces the sublime truth that all power comes from the people. This was a denial, and the first denial of a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man to govern others." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality" 1873)
"It is contended by many that ours is a Christian government, founded upon the Bible, and that all who look upon that book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have nothing to do. And yet there are some judges dishonest and cowardly enough to solemly decide that this is a Christian country, and that our free institutions are based upon the infamous laws of Jehovah." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality" 1873)
"He who commends the brutalities of the past, sows the seeds of future crimes." (Robert G. Ingersoll, Ingersoll-Gladstone debate, response to Wm. Gladstone, 1888)
"A crime against god is a demonstrated impossibility." (Robert G. Ingersoll, Second Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882)
"Orthodoxy cannot afford to put out the fires of hell." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy" 1884)
"We are told in the Pentateuch, that god, the father of us all, gave thousands of maidens, after having killed their fathers, their mothers, and their brothers, to satisfy the brutal lusts of savage men. If there be a god, I pray him to write in his book, opposite my name, that I denied this lie for him." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "A Few Reasons for Doubting the Inspiration of the Bible")
"If a man would follow, to-day, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane." (Robert G. Ingersoll, Third Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882)
"We are not accountable for the sins of "Adam" (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Myth and Miracle" 1885)
"If Christ, in fact, said "I came not to bring peace but a sword," it is the only prophecy in the New Testament that has been literally fulfilled." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why" 1881)
"We are continually told that the Bible is the very foundation of modesty and morality; while many of its pages are so immodest and immoral that a minister, for reading them in the pulpit, would be instantly denounced as an unclean wretch. Every woman would leave the church, and if the men stayed, it would be for the purpose of chastising the minister." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879)
"We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a 'this year's fact'. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years. Their reputation for 'truth and veracity' in the neighborhood where they resided is wholly unknown to us. Give us a new miracle, and substantiate it by witnesses who still have the cheerful habit of living this world. Do not send us to Jericho to hear the winding horns, nor put us in the fire with Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego. Do not compel us to navigate the sea with Captain Jonah, nor dine with Mr. Ezekiel. There is no sort of use in sending us fox-hunting with Samson. We have positively lost all interest in that little speech so eloquently delivered by Balaam's inspired donkey. It is worse than useless to show us fishes with money in their mouths, and call our attention to vast multitudes stuffing themselves with five crackers and two sardines. We demand a new miracle, and we demand it now. Let the church furnish at least one, or forever hold her peace." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods" 1872)
"This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves." (Robert G. Ingersoll), "An Interview on Chief Justice Comegys", Brooklyn Eagle, 1881)
"The real oppressor, enslaver, and corrupter of the people is the Bible. That book is the chain that binds, the dungeon that holds the clergy. That book spreads the pall of superstition over the colleges and schools. That book puts out the eyes of science, and makes honest investigation a crime. That book fills the world with bigotry, hypocrisy and fear." (_Some Mistakes of Moses_, Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 2 p. 43)
"Theology is not what we know about God, but what we do not know about Nature. In order to increase our respect for the Bible, it became necessary for the priests to exalt and extol that book, and at the same time to decry and belittle the reasoning powers of man. The whole power of the pulpit has been used for hundreds of years to destroy the confidence of man in himself-- to induce him to distrust his own powers of thought, to believe that he was wholly unable to decide any question for himself, and that all human virtue consists in faith and obedience. The church has said 'Believe and obey!' If you reason you will become an unbeliever, and unbelievers will be lost. If you disobey, you will do so through vain pride and curiosity, and will, like Adam and Eve, be thrust from Paradise forver! For my part, I care nothing for what the church says, except in so far as it accords with my reason; and the Bible is nothing to me, only in so far as it agrees with what I think or know." (_Some Mistakes of Moses_, Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 2 p. 53)
"Ministers say that they teach charity. That is natural. They live on hand-outs. All beggars teach that others should give." - Robert Ingersoll "Why I Am Not a Christian"
"..if all the bones of all the victims of the Catholic Church could be gathered together, a monument higher than all the pyramids would rise..." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Must We Do To Be Saved?" 1880, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 497)
"Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Ghosts", 1877, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 285)
"Give the church a place in the Constitution, let her touch once more the sword of power, and the priceless fruit of all ages will turn to ashes on the lips of men." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 203, and from letter to Houston Post, Aug. 17, 1866)
"Suppose, however, that God did give this law to the Jews, and did tell them that whenever a man preached a heresy, or proposed to worship any other God that they should kill him; and suppose that afterward this same God took upon himself flesh, and came to this very chosen people and taught a different religion, and that thereupon the Jews crucified him; I ask you, did he not reap exactly what he had sown? What right would this god have to complain of a crucifixion suffered in accordance with his own command?" (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 2, p. 259)
"God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why I Am An Agnostic", 1876)
"These deities have demanded the most abject and degrading obedience. In order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust. Of course, they have always been partial to the people who created them, and have generally shown their partiality by assisting those people to rob and destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"And we are called upon to worship such a God; to get upon our knees and tell him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love. We are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and to trample under foot all the sweet charities of the heart. Because we refuse to stultify ourselves -- refuse to become liars -- we are denounced, hated, traduced and ostracized here, and this same god threatens to torment us in eternal fire the moment death allows him to fiercely clutch our naked helpless souls. Let the people hate, let the god threaten -- we will educate them, and we will despise and defy the god." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. It is the infamy of infamies. The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called "faith." What man, who ever thinks, can believe that blood can appease God? And yet, our entire system of religion is based upon that believe. The Jews pacified Jehovah with the blood of animals, and according to the Christian system, the blood of Jesus softened the heart of God a little, and rendered possible the salvation of a fortunate few. It is hard to conceive how the human mind can give assent to such terrible ideas, or how any sane man can read the Bible and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"As long as man believes the Bible to be infallible, that book is his master. The civilization of this century is not the child of faith, but of unbelief -- the result of free thought." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention -- of barbarian invention -- is to read it. Read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your brain the coiled form of superstition -- then read the Holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"The account shows, however, that the gods dreaded education and knowledge then just as they do now. The church still faithfully guards the dangerous tree of knowledge, and has exerted in all ages her utmost power to keep mankind from eating the fruit thereof. The priests have never ceased repeating the old falsehood and the old threat: "Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." From every pulpit comes the same cry, born of the same fear: "Lest they eat and become as gods, knowing good and evil." For this reason, religion hates science, faith detests reason, theology is the sworn enemy of philosophy, and the church with its flaming sword still guards the hated tree, and like its supposed founder, curses to the lowest depths the brave thinkers who eat and become as gods." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"In the olden times the church, by violating the order of nature, proved the existence of her God. At that time miracles were performed with the most astonishing ease. They became so common that the church ordered her priests to desist. And now this same church -- the people having found some little sense -- admits, not only, that she cannot perform a miracle but insists that the absence of miracle, the steady, unbroken march of cause and effect, proves the existence of a power superior to nature. The fact is, however, that the indissoluble chain of cause and effect proves exactly the contrary." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"If abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. If slaves are freed, man must free them. If new truths are discovered, man must discover them. If the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed; if justice is done; if labor is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind; if the defenseless are protected and if the right finally triumphs, all must be the work of man. The grand victories of the future must be won by man, and by man alone." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"The originality of repetition, and the mental vigor of acquiescence, are all that we have any right to expect from the Christian world. As long as every question is answered by the word "God," scientific inquiry is simply impossible. As fast as phenomena are satisfactorily explained the domain of the power, supposed to be superior to nature must decrease, while the horizon of the known must as constantly continue to enlarge." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"According to the theologians, God prepared this globe expressly for the habitation of his loved children, and yet he filled the forests with ferocious beasts; placed serpents in every path; stuffed the world with earthquakes, and adorned its surface with mountains of flame.
Notwithstanding all this, we are told that the world is perfect; that it was created by a perfect being, and is therefore necessarily perfect. The next moment, these same persons will tell us that the world was cursed; covered with brambles, thistles and thorns, and that man was doomed to disease and death, simply because our poor, dear mother ate an apple contrary to the command of an arbitrary God." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"A very pious friend of mine, having heard that I had said the world was full of imperfections, asked me if the report was true. Upon being informed that it was, he expressed great surprise that any one could be guilty of such presumption. He said that, in his judgement, it was impossible to point out an imperfection "Be kind enough," said he, "to name even one improvement that you could make, if you had the power." "Well," said I, "I would make good health catching, instead of disease." The truth is, it is impossible to harmonize all the ills, and pains, and agonies of this world with the idea that we were created by, and are watched over and protected by an infinitely wise, powerful and beneficent God, who is superior to and independent of nature." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"The civilization of man has increased just to the same extent that religious power has decreased. The intellectual advancement of man depends upon how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth. The church never enabled a human being to make even one of these exchanges; on the contrary, all her power has been used to prevent them. In spite, however, of the church, man found that some of his religious conceptions were wrong. By reading his Bible, he found that the ideas of his God were more cruel and brutal than those of the most depraved savage. He also discovered that this holy book was filled with ignorance, and that it must have been written by persons wholly unacquainted with the nature of the phenomena by which we are surrounded; and now and then, some man had the goodness and courage to speak his honest thoughts. In every age some thinker, some doubter, some investigator, some hater of hypocrisy, some despiser of sham, some brave lover of the right, has gladly, proudly and heroically braved the ignorant fury of superstition for the sake of man and truth. These divine men were generally torn in pieces by the worshipers of the gods. Socrates was poisoned because he lacked reverence for some of the deities. Christ was crucified by a religious rabble for the crime of blasphemy. Nothing is more gratifying to a religionist than to destroy his enemies at the command of God. Religious persecution springs from a due admixture of love towards God and hatred towards man." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"The terrible religious wars that inundated the world with blood tended at least to bring all religion into disgrace and hatred. Thoughtful people began to question the divine origin of a religion that made its believers hold the rights of others in absolute contempt. A few began to compare Christianity with the religions of heathen people, and were forced to admit that the difference was hardly worth dying for. They also found that other nations were even happier and more prosperous than their own. They began to suspect that their religion, after all, was not of much real value." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other. This is the war between Science and Faith. The few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have said, "Think!" The many have said, "Believe!" (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"When a man really believes that it is necessary to do a certain thing to be happy forever, or that a certain belief is necessary to ensure eternal joy, there is in that man no spirit of concession. He divides the whole world into saints and sinners, into believers and unbelievers, into God's sheep and Devil's goats, into people who will be glorified and people who are damned." (Robert Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why", 1881)
"... I want it so that every minister will be not a parrot, not an owl sitting upon a dead limb of the tree of knowledge and hooting the hoots that have been hooted for eighteen hundred years. But I want it so that each one can be an investigator, a thinker; and I want to make his congregation grand enough so that they will not only allow him to think, but will demand that he shall think, and give to them the honest truth of his thought." (Robert Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses")
"If the book (the Bible) and my brain are both the work of the same Infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and my brain do not agree?" (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why", 1881)
"Tell me there is a God in the serene heavens that will damn his children for the expression of an honest belief! More men have died in their sins, judged by your orthodox creeds, than there are leaves on all the forests in the wide world ten thousand times over. Tell me these men are in hell; that these men are in torment; that these children are in eternal pain, and that they are to be punished forever and forever! I denounce this doctrine as the most infamous of lies." (Robert Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877)
"Is it not wonderful that the creator of all worlds, infinite in power and wisdom, could not hold his own against the gods of wood and stone? Is it not strange that after he had appeared to his chosen people, delivered them from slavery, feed them by miracles, opened the sea for a path, led them by cloud and fire, and overthrown their pursuers, they still preferred a calf of their own making?" (Exod. 32:1-8) "...a God who gave his entire time for 40 years to the work of converting three millions of people, and succeeded in getting only two men, and not a single woman, decent enough to enter the promised land?" (Num. 14:29-30) (Robert G. Ingersoll, "A Few Reasons for Doubting the Inspiration of the Bible")
"It has been contended for many years that the Ten Commandments are the foundations of all ideas of justice and law. ...Nothing can be more stupidly false than such assertions. Thousands of years before Moses was born, the Egyptians had a code of laws. ...far better than the Mosaic." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses")
"In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences." (Robert Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why", 1881)
"As long as woman regards the Bible as the charter of her rights, she will be the slave of man. The bible was not written by a woman. Within its leaves there is nothing but humiliation and shame for her." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877)
"The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Great Infidels", 1881 also from Speech, New York City, 1 May 1881)
"A believer is a bird in a cage, a free-thinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873)
"In 1776 our fathers endeavored to retire the gods from politics. They declared that "all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." This was a contradiction of the then political ideas of the world; it was, as many believed, an act of pure blasphemy -- a renunciation of the Deity. ...It was a notice to all churches and priests that thereafter mankind would govern and protect themselves. Politically it tore down every altar and denied the authority of every "sacred book" and appealed from the Providence of God to the Providence of man." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "God in the Constitution", originally published in _The Arena_ in Boston in January 1890. Taken from _The New Dresden Edition of the Works of Ingersoll_ New York City: The Ingersoll Publishers, Inc., 1900)
"If all the historic books of the Bible were blotted from the memory of mankind, nothing of value would be lost...I do not see how it is possible for an intelligent human being to conclude that the Song of Solomon is the work of God, and that the tragedy of Lear was the work of an uninspired man." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why Am I An Agnostic?", 1889)
"I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Ghosts", 1877)
"I believe in the religion of reason -- the gospel of this world; in the development of the mind, in the accumulation of intellectual wealth, to the end that man may free himself from superstitious fear, to the end that he may take advantage of the forces of nature to feed and clothe the world." (Robert Ingersoll, "Why Am I An Agnostic?", 1896)
"...in every religion the priest insists on five things --
First: There is a God. Second: He has made known his will.
Third: He has selected me to explain this message. Fourth: We will now take up a collection; and Fifth: Those who fail to subscribe will certainly be damned."
(Robert G. Ingersoll, "Has Freethought a Constructive Side?", printed in The Truth Seeker, New York 1890)
"Commerce makes friends, religion makes enemies; the one enriches, and the other impoverishes; the one thrives best where the truth is told, the other where falsehoods are believed." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "A Wooden God", letter to the Chicago Times, written at Washington, D.C., March 27, 1890)
"Ignorance is the soil of the supernatural. The foundation of Christianity has crumbled, has disappeared, and the entire fabric must fall. The natural is true. The miraculous is false." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why Am I An Agnostic?" Part 2, North American Review, March, 1890)
"We have at last ascertained that miracles can be perfectly understood; that there is nothing mysterious about them; that they are simply transparent falsehoods." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Divided Household of Faith", 1888)
"All the professors in all the religious colleges in this country rolled into one, would not equal Charles Darwin." (Robert G. Ingersoll, Fifth Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882)
"Should it turn out that I am the worst man in the whole world, the story of the flood will remain just as improbable as before, and the contradictions of the Pentateuch will still demand an explanation." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes Of Moses", 1879)
"To know that the Bible is the literature of a barbarous people, to know that it is uninspired, to be certain that the supernatural does not and cannot exist -- all this is but the beginning of wisdom." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "How to Edit a Liberal Paper", Secular Thought, Toronto, January 8, 1887)
"Christians tell me that they love their enemies, and yet all I ask is -- not that they love their enemies, not that they love their friends even, but that they treat those who differ from them, with simple fairness. We do not wish to be forgiven, but we wish Christians to so act that we will not have to forgive them." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes Of Moses", 1879)
"I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the star-less night, -- blown and flared by passion's storm,-- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains." (Robert G. Ingersoll, Field-Ingersoll Debate, "A Reply to the Rev. Henry M. Field, D.D., 1887)
"Beyond the truths that have been demonstrated is the horizon of the Probable, and in the world of the Probable every man has the right to guess for himself. Beyond the region of the Probable is the Possible, and beyond the Possible is the Impossible, and beyond the Impossible are the religions of this world. My idea is this: Any man who acts in view of the Improbable or of the Impossible -- that is to say, of the Supernatural -- is a superstitious man. Any man who believes that he can add to the happiness of the Infinite, by depriving himself of innocent pleasure, is superstitious. Any man who imagines that he can make some God happy, by making himself miserable, is superstitious. Any one who thinks he can gain happiness in another world, by raising hell with his fellow-men in this, is simply superstitious. Any man who believes in a Being of infinite wisdom and goodness, and yet believes that that being has peopled a world with failures, is superstitious. Any man who believes that an infinitely wise and good God would take pains to make a man, intending at the time that the man should be eternally damned, is absurdly superstitious. In other words, he who believes that there is, or that there can be, any other religious duty than to increase the happiness of mankind, in this world, now and here, is superstitious." (Robert G. Ingersoll, Thirteen Club Dinner, New York, December 13, 1886)
"The mechanic, when a wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of dropping on his knees and asking the assistance of some divine power. He knows there is a reason. He knows that something is too large or too small; that there is something wrong with his machine; and he goes to work and he makes it larger or smaller, here or there, until the wheel will turn." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877)
"Honest investigation is utterly impossible within the pale of any church, for the reason, that if you think the church is right you will not investigate, and if you think it wrong, the church will investigate you." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873)
"What effect will logic have upon a religious gentleman who firmly believes that a God of infinite compassion sent two bears to tear thirty or forty children in pieces for laughing at a bald-headed prophet?" (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Voltaire", 1894)
"Human love is generous and noble. The love of God is selfish, because man does not love God for God's sake, but for his own." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Rome or Reason, A Reply to Cardinal Manning", 1888)
"But honest men do not pretend to know; they are candid and sincere; they love the truth; they admit their ignorance, and they say, "We do not know." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Superstition", 1898)
"I admit that I do not know whether there is any infinite personality or not, because I do not know that my mind is an absolute standard. But according to my mind, there is no such personality; and according to my mind, it is an infinite absurdity to suppose that there is such an infinite personality. But I do know something of human nature; I do know a little of the history of mankind; and I know enough to know that what is known as the Christian faith, is not true. I am perfectly satisfied, beyond all doubt and beyond all peradventure, that all miracles are falsehoods. I know as well as I know that I live -- that others live -- that what you call your faith, is not true." (Robert G. Ingersoll, unfinished article, reply to Rev. Lyman Abbott's article "Flaws in Ingersollism" printed in the North American Review, April 1890)
"In the history of our poor world, no horror has been omitted, no infamy has been left undone by the believers in ghosts, -- by the worshipers of these fleshless phantoms. And yet these shadows were born of cowardice and malignity. They were painted by the pencil of fear upon the canvas of ignorance by that artist called superstition." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Ghosts", 1877)
"Nothing is greater than to break the chains from the bodies of men -- nothing nobler than to destroy the phantom of the soul." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Abraham Lincoln", 1894)
"Fear paralyzes the brain. Progress is born of courage. Fear believes -- courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays -- courage stands erect and thinks. Fear retreats -- courage advances. Fear is barbarism -- courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. Fear is religion -- courage is science." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Ghosts", 1877)
"It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Which Way?", 1884)
"We do believe that it is better to love men than to fear gods; that it is grander and nobler to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed. We are satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven. We do not expect to accomplish everything in our day; but we want to do what good we can, and to render all the service possible in the holy cause of human progress. We know that doing away with gods and supernatural persons and powers is not an end. It is a means to an end: the real end being the happiness of man." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"Why should men in the name of religion try to harmonize the contradictions that exist between Nature and a book? Why should philosophers be denounced for placing more reliance upon what they know than upon what they have been told?" (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879)
"Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy", 1884)
"Not one of the learned gentlemen who pretend that the Mosaic laws are filled with justice and intelligence, would live, for a moment, in any country where such laws were in force." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879)
"The church persecutes the living and her God burns, for all eternity, the dead." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Heretics and Heresies", 1874)
"If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant. I make my choice now. I despise that doctrine. It has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. It has polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned the imaginations of men. It has been a constant pain, a perpetual terror to every good man and woman and child. It has filled the good with horror and with fear; but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. It has wrung the hearts of the tender, it has furrowed the cheeks of the good. This doctrine never should be preached again. What right have you, sir, Mr. clergyman, you, minister of the gospel to stand at the portals of the tomb, at the vestibule of eternity, and fill the future with horror and with fear? I do not believe this doctrine, neither do you. If you did, you could not sleep one moment. Any man who believes it, and has within his breast a decent, throbbing heart, will go insane. A man who believes that doctrine and does not go insane has the heart of a snake and the conscience of a hyena." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877)
"A devout clergyman sought every opportunity to impress upon the mind of his son the fact, that god takes care of all his creatures. Happening, one day, to see a crane wading in quest of food, the good man pointed out to his son the perfect adaptation of the crane to get his living in that manner. "See," said he, "how his legs are formed for wading! What a long slender bill he has! Observe how nicely he folds his feet when putting them in or drawing them out of the water! He does not cause the slightest ripple. He is thus enabled to approach the fish without giving them any notice of his arrival." "My son," said he, "it is impossible to look at that bird without recognizing the design, as well as the goodness of God, in thus providing the means of subsistence." "Yes," replied the boy, "I think I see the goodness of God, at least so far as the crane is concerned; but after all, father, don't you think the arrangement a little tough on the fish?" (Robert Green Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872)
"On every hand there seems to be design to defeat design. If God created man -- if he is the father of us all, why did he make the criminals, the insane, the deformed and idiotic? Should the mother, who clasps to her breast an idiot child, thank God?" (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why I Am An Agnostic", 1896)
"I am told that I am in danger of hell; that for me to express my honest convictions is to excite the wrath of God. They inform me that unless I believe in a certain way, meaning their way, I am in danger of everlasting fire.
There was a time when these threats whitened the faces of men with fear. That time has substantially passed away. For a hundred years hell has been gradually growing cool, the flames have been slowly dying out, the brimstone is nearly exhausted, the fires have been burning lower and lower, and the climate gradually changing. To such an extent has the change already been effected that if I were going there to-night I would take an overcoat and a box of matches.
They say that the eternal future of man depends upon his belief. I deny it. A conclusion honestly arrived at by the brain cannot possibly be a crime; and the man who says it is, does not think so. The god who punishes it as a crime is simply an infamous tyrant. As for me, l would a thousand times rather go to perdition and suffer its torments with the brave, grand thinkers of the world, than go to heaven and keep the company of a god who would damn his children for an honest belief." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "My Reviewers Reviews", lecture in San Francisco, June 27, 1877, reply to attacks by clergymen for his lectures "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", and "The Ghosts")
"To exempt the church from taxation, is to pay part of the priest's salary." (Robert G. Ingersoll, Interview in The Truth Seeker, New York, September 5, 1885. Quoted by Joseph Lewis in "Franklin the Freethinker")
"All that the human race has suffered in war and want, in pestilence and famine, in fire and flood -- all the pangs and pains of every disease and every death -- all of this is nothing compared with the agonies to be endured by one lost soul.
This is the consolation of the Christian religion. This is the justice of God -- the mercy of Christ.
This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the implacable enemy of Christianity. The truth is that this belief in eternal pain has been the real persecutor. It founded the Inquisition, forged the chains, and furnished the fagots. It has darkened the lives of many millions. It made the cradle as terrible as the coffin. It enslaved nations and shed the blood of countless thousands. It sacrificed the wisest, the bravest and the best. It subverted the idea of justice, drove mercy from the heart, changed men to fiends and banished reason from the brain.
Like a venomous serpent it crawls and coils and hisses in every orthodox creed.
It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public curse. Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this Christian dogma, savagery cannot go. It is the infinite of malice, hatred, and revenge.
Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God.
While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why I Am An Agnostic", 1896)
"Can a good man mock at the children of deformity? Will he deride the misshapen? Your Jehovah deformed some of his own children, and then held them up to scorn and hatred. These divine mistakes -- these blunders of the infinite -- were not allowed to enter the temple erected in honor of him who had dishonored them. Does a kind father mock his deformed child? What would you think of a mother who would deride and taunt her misshapen babe?" (Robert G. Ingersoll, Response to Wm. E. Gladstone on his letter "Regarding Col. Ingersoll on Christianity; Some Remarks on his Reply to Dr. Field", 1888)
"Failure seems to be the trademark of Nature. Why? Nature has no design, no intelligence. Nature produces without purpose, sustains without intention and destroys without thought. Man has a little intelligence, and he should use it. Intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Is Religion?", his last public address, delivered before the American Free Religious association, Boston, June 2, 1899)
"When a professor in a college finds a fact, he should make it known, even if it is inconsistent with something Moses said." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879)
"Why should a woman ask pardon of God for having been a mother? Why should that be considered a crime in Exodus, which is commanded as a duty in Genesis? Why should a mother be declared unclean? Why should giving birth to a daughter be regarded twice as criminal as giving birth to a son? Can we believe that such laws and ceremonies were made and instituted by a merciful and intelligent God? If there is anything in this poor world suggestive of, and standing for, all that is sweet, loving and pure, it is a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms her prattling babe." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879)
"When a man has been "born again", all the passages of the Old Testament that appear so horrible and so unjust to one in his natural state, become the dearest, the most consoling, and the most beautiful of truths. The real Christian reads the accounts of these ancient battles with the greatest possible satisfaction. To one who really loves his enemies, the groans of men, the shrieks of women, and the cries of babes, make music sweeter than the zephyr's breath." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Talmadgian Catechism", 1882)
"Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?" (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879)
"How touching when the learned and wise crawl back in cribs and ask to hear the rhymes and fables once again! How charming in these hard and scientific times to see old age in Superstition's lap, with eager lips upon her withered breast!" (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Christian Religion" Part III, The Ingersoll - Black Debate, 1881)
"I would not for my life destroy one star of human hope, but I want it so that when a poor woman rocks the cradle and sings a lullaby to the dimpled darling, she will not be compelled to believe that ninety-nine chances in a hundred she is raising kindling wood for hell." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Must We Do To Be Saved", 1880)
"Science is the enemy of fear and credulity. It invites investigation, challenges the reason, stimulates inquiry, and welcomes the unbeliever. It seeks to give food and shelter, and raiment, education and liberty to the human race. It welcomes every fact and every truth. It has furnished a foundation of morals, a philosophy for the guidance of man. From all books it selects the good, and from all theories, the true. It seeks to civilize the human race by the cultivation of the intellect and heart. It refines, through art, music and the drama -- giving voice and expression to every noble thought. The mysterious does not excite the feeling of worship, but the ambition to understand. It does not pray -- it works. It does not answer inquiry with the malicious cry of "blasphemy." Its feelings are not hurt by contradiction, neither does it ask to be protected by law from the laughter of heretics. It has taught man that he cannot walk beyond the horizon -- that the questions of origin and destiny cannot be answered -- they an infinite personality cannot be comprehended by a finite being, and that the truth of any system of religion based on the supernatural cannot by any possibility be established -- such a religion not being within the domain of evidence. And, above all, it teaches that all our duties are here -- that all our obligations are to sentient beings; that intelligence, guided by kindness, is the highest possible wisdom; and that "man believes not what he would, but what he can." (Robert G. Ingersoll, Response to Wm. E. Gladstone on his letter "Regarding Col. Ingersoll on Christianity; Some Remarks on his Reply to Dr. Field", 1888)
"Who can estimate the misery that has been caused by this most infamous doctrine of eternal punishment? Think of the lives it has blighted -- of the tears it has caused -- of the agony it has produced. Think of the millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of dogmas. This doctrine renders God the basest and most cruel being in the universe. Compared with him, the most frightful deities of the most barbarous and degraded tribes are miracles of goodness and mercy. There is nothing more degrading than to worship such a god. Lower than this the soul can never sink. If the doctrine of eternal damnation is true, let me share the fate of the unconverted; let me have my portion in hell, rather than in heaven with a god infamous enough to inflict eternal misery upon any of the sons of men." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Heretics and Heresies", 1874)
"I beg of you not to pollute the soul of childhood, not to furrow the cheeks of mothers, by preaching a creed that should be shrieked in a mad-house. Do not make the cradle as terrible as the coffin. Preach, I pray you, the gospel of Intellectual Hospitality -- the liberty of thought and speech. Take from loving hearts the awful fear. Have mercy on your fellow-men. Do not drive to madness the mothers whose tears are falling on the pallid faces of those who died in unbelief. Pity the erring, wayward, suffering, weeping world. Do not proclaim as "tidings of great joy" that an Infinite Spider is weaving webs to catch the souls of men." (Robert G. Ingersoll, Field-Ingersoll Debate, "A Reply to the Rev. Henry M. Field, D.D., 1887)
"I beg, I implore, I beseech you, never to give another dollar to build a church in which that lie is preached. Never give another cent to send a missionary with his mouth stuffed with that falsehood to a foreign land. Why, they say, the heathen will go to heaven, any way, if you let them alone. What is the use of sending them to hell by enlightening them? Let them alone. The idea of going and telling a man a thing that if he does not believe, he will be damned, when the chances are ten to one that he will not believe it, is monstrous." (Robert G. Ingersoll "Orthodoxy", 1884)
"The religion of Jesus Christ, as preached by his church, causes war, bloodshed, hatred, and all uncharitableness; and why? Because, they say, a certain belief is necessary to salvation. They do not say, if you behave yourself you will get there; they do not say, if you pay your debts and love your wife and love your children, and are good to your friends, and your neighbors, and your country, you will get there; that will do you no good; you have got to believe a certain thing. No matter how bad you are, you can instantly be forgiven; and no matter how good you are, if you fail to believe that which you cannot understand, the moment you get to the day of judgment nothing is left but to damn you, and all the angels will shout "hallelujah." (Robert G. Ingersoll "Orthodoxy", 1884)
"Over the wild waves of battle rose and fell the banner of Jesus Christ. For sixteen hundred years the robes of the church were red with innocent blood. The ingenuity of Christians was exhausted in devising punishment severe enough to be inflicted upon other Christians who honestly and sincerely differed with them upon any point whatever." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Heretics and Heresies", 1874)
"Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Address to the Jury", trial of C.B. Reynolds for Blasphemy)
"To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Liberty in Literature", 1890)
"Celibacy is the essence of vulgarity." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Rome or Reason?", Reply to Cardinal Manning, 1888)
"Twenty years after the death of Luther there were more Catholics than when he was born. And twenty years after the death of Voltaire there were millions less than when he was born." (Robert G. Ingersoll, Interview with New York correspondent, Chicago Times, May 29, 1881, answering criticism by NY ministers in response to his "Great Infidels" lecture)
"This century will be called Darwin's century. He was one of the greatest men who ever touched this globe. He has explained more of the phenomena of life than all of the religious teachers. Write the name of Charles Darwin on the one hand and the name of every theologian who ever lived on the other, and from that name has come more light to the world than from all of those. His doctrine of evolution, his doctrine of the survival of the fittest, his doctrine of the origin of species, has removed in every thinking mind the last vestige of orthodox Christianity. He has not only stated, but he has demonstrated, that the inspired writer knew nothing of this world, nothing of the origin of man, nothing of geology, nothing of astronomy, nothing of nature; that the Bible is a book written by ignorance -- at the instigation of fear. Think of the men who replied to him. Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin; and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. He was held up to the ridicule, the scorn and contempt of the Christian world, and yet when he died, England was proud to put his dust with that of her noblest and her grandest. Charles Darwin conquered the intellectual world, and his doctrines are now accepted facts." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy", 1884)
"Every fact is an enemy of the church. Every fact is a heretic. Every demonstration is an infidel. Everything that ever really happened testifies against the supernatural." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy", 1884)
"The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child" 1877)
"I would have all the professors in colleges, all the teachers in schools of every kind, including those in Sunday schools, agree that they would teach only what they know, that they would not palm off guesses as demonstrated truths. (Robert G. Ingersoll, Speech at Chicago Exposition Building, October 20, 1876)
"If there is a God, it is reasonably certain that he made the world, but it is by no means certain that he is the author of the Bible. Why then should we not place greater confidence in Nature than in a book? And even if this God made not only the world but the book besides, it does not follow that the book is the best part of creation, and the only part that we will be eternally punished for denying. It seems to me that it is quite as important to know something of the solar system, something of the physical history of this globe, as it is to know the adventures of Jonah or the diet of Ezekiel. For my part, I would infinitely prefer to know all the results of scientific investigation, than to be inspired as Moses was. Supposing the Bible to be true; why is it any worse or more wicked for Freethinkers to deny it, than for priests to deny the doctrine of evolution, or the dynamic theory of heat? Why should we be damned for laughing at Samson and his foxes, while others, holding the Nebular Hypothesis in utter contempt, go straight to heaven? It seems to me that a belief in the great truths of science are fully as essential to salvation, as the creed of any church. We are taught that a man may be perfectly acceptable to God even if he denies the rotundity of the earth, the Copernican system, the three laws of Kepler, the indestructibility of matter and the attraction of gravitation. And we are also taught that a man may be right upon all these questions, and yet, for failing to believe in the "scheme of salvation," be eternally lost." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879)
"Christianity has such a contemptible opinion of human nature that it does not believe a man can tell the truth unless frightened by a belief in God. No lower opinion of the human race has ever been expressed." (Robert G. Ingersoll)
"A few years ago the Deists denied the inspiration of the Bible on account of its cruelty. At the same time they worshiped what they were pleased to call the God of Nature. Now we are convinced that Nature is as cruel as the Bible; so that, if the God of Nature did not write the Bible, this God at least has caused earthquakes and pestilence and famine, and this God has allowed millions of his children to destroy one another. So that now we have arrived at the question -- not as to whether the Bible is inspired and not as to whether Jehovah is the real God, but whether there is a God or not." (Robert G. Ingersoll)
"We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men, reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and skins -- they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of Science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average man of to-day -- of a master-mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago.
These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or behind altars -- neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience -and for them all, man is indebted to man." (Robert G. Ingersoll "God in the Constituion")
"The Bible is not inspired in its morality, for the reason that slavery is not moral, that polygamy is not good, that wars of extermination are not merciful, and that nothing can be more immoral than to punish the innocent on account of the sins of the guilty." (Robert G. Ingersoll)
"The believers in the Bible are loud in their denunciation of what they are pleased to call the immoral literature of the world; and yet few books have been published containing more moral filth than this inspired word of God." (Robert G. Ingersoll "Some Mistakes of Moses")
"My creed is this: Happiness is the only good.
The place to be happy is here.
The time to be happy is now.
The way to be happy is to help make others so."(Robert G. Ingersoll, Motto on the title page of Vol. xii, Works)
"Surely investigation is better than unthinking faith. Surely reason is a better guide than fear." (Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child")
"When we find out that an assertion is a falsehood, a shining truth takes its place, and we need not fear the destruction of the false. The more false we destroy the more room there will be for the true." Robert G. Ingersoll, "44 Complete Lectures"
"The doctrine of eternal punishment is the most infamous of all doctrines--born of ignorance, cruelty and fear. Around the angel of immortality Christianity has coiled the serpent. Upon Love's breast the church has placed the eternal asp." Robert G. Ingersoll "Crumbling Creeds"
"A known infidel cannot get very rich, for the reason that the Christians are so forgiving and loving that they boycott him." Robert G. Ingersoll
"He who endeavors to control the mind by force is a tyrant, and he who submits is a slave." Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses"
"Nothing can be more infamous than intellectual tyranny. To put chains upon the body is nothing compared with putting shackles on the brain. No god is entitled to the worship or respect of a man who does not give, even to the meanest of his children, every right he claims for himself. If the Pentateuch is true, religious persecution is a duty, The dungeons of the Inquisition were temples and the clank of every chain upon the limbs of heresy was music to the ear of God." Robert G. Ingersoll
"The assassin cannot sanctify his dagger by falling on his knees, and it does not help a falsehood if it be uttered as a prayer. Religion, used to intensify the hatred of men toward men under the pretense of pleasing God, has cursed this world." Robert G. Ingersoll
"The country that has got the least religion is the most prosperous, and the country that has got most religion is in the worst condition." Robert G. Ingersoll, Speech in Boston, April 23, 1880
"Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and all depths; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought; that your intellect owes no allegiance to any being, human or divine; that you hold all in fee upon no condition and by no tenure whatever; that in the world of mind you are relieved from all personal dictation, and from the ignorant tyranny of majorities. Surely it is worth something to feel that there are no popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods, to whom your intellect can be compelled to pay a reluctant homage." Robert G. Ingersoll
"Christ according to the faith, is the second person in the Trinity, the Father being the first and the holy Ghost the third. Each of these three persons is God. Christ is his own father and his own son. The Holy Ghost is neither father nor son, but both. The son was begotten by the father, but existed before he was begotten--just the same before as after. Christ is just as old as his father, and the father is just as young as his son. The Holy Ghost proceeded form the Father and Son, but was an equal to the Father and Son before he proceeded, that is to say before he existed, but he is of the same age as the other two. Nothing ever was, nothing ever can be more perfectly idiotic and absurd than the dogma of the Trinity." Robert G. Ingersoll
The Atheist-Experience
You can read Robert Ingersoll's complete works HERE .
Nick Gisburne Ingersoll audio page
Librivox Ingersoll audio page
Thomas Paine
Charles Darwin
William Shakespeare
^^ Dan Barker (former preacher)versus Phil Fernandes debate.
^^ Jeff Lowder versus Phil Fernandes debate.