267. The Noblest Sons of, Earth
Who at the present day can imagine the courage, the devotion to principle, the intellectual and moral grandeur it once required to be an infidel, to brave the Church, her racks, her fagots, her dungeons, her tongues of fire—to defy and scorn her heaven and her hell—her devil and her God? They were the noblest sons of earth. They were the real saviors of our race, the destroyers of superstition, and the creators of Science. They were the real Titans who bared their grand foreheads to all the thunderbolts of all the gods.
268. How Ingersoll became an Infidel
I may say right here that the Christian idea that any God can make me His friend by killing mine is about as great a mistake as could be made. They seem to have the idea that just as soon as God kills all the people that a person loves, he will then begin to love the Lord. What drew my attention first to these questions was the doctrine of eternal punishment. This was so abhorrent to my mind that I began to hate the book in which it was taught. Then, in reading law, going back to find the origin of laws, I found one had to go but a little way before the legislator and priest united. This led me to study a good many of the religions of the world. At first I was greatly astonished to find most of them better than ours. I then studied our own system to the best of my ability, and found that people were palming off upon children and upon one another as the inspired words of God a book that upheld slavery, polygamy, and almost every other crime. Whether I am right or wrong, I became convinced that the Bible is not an inspired book, and then the only question for me to settle was as to whether I should say what I believed or not. This realty was not the question in my mind, because, before even thinking of such a question, I expressed my belief, and I simply claim that right, and expect to exercise it as long as I live. I may be damned for it in the next world, but it is a great source of pleasure to me in this.
269. Why Should Infidels Die in Fear?
Why should it be taken for granted that the men who devoted their lives to the liberation of their fellowmen should have been hissed at in the hour of death by the snakes of conscience, while men who defended slavery—practiced polygamy—justified the stealing of babes from the breasts of mothers, and lashed the naked back of unpaid labor, are supposed to have passed smilingly from earth to the embraces of the angels? Why should we think that the brave thinkers, the investigators, the honest men must have left the crumbling shore of time in dread and fear, while the instigators of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the inventors and users of thumb screws, of iron boots and racks, the burners and tearers of human flesh, the stealers, the whippers, and the enslavers of men, the buyers and beaters of maidens, mothers, and babes, the founders of the inquisition, the makers of chains, the builders of dungeons, the calumniators of the living, the slanderers of the dead, and even the murderers of Jesus Christ, all died in the odor of sanctity, with white, forgiven hands folded upon the breasts of peace, while the destroyers of prejudice, the breakers of fetters, the creators of light, died surrounded by the fierce fiends of God?