Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest

by Robert Green Ingersoll

Is the new testament inspired? I have not time to give many reasons, but I will give some. In the first place, they tell me the very fact that the witnesses disagree in minor matters shows that they have not conspired to tell the same story. Good. And I say in every lawsuit where four or five witnesses testify, or endeavor to testify, to the same transaction, it is natural that they should differ on minor points. Why? Because no two occupy exactly the same position; no two see exactly alike; no two remember precisely the same, and their disagreement is due to and accounted for by the imperfection of human nature, and the fact that they did not all have an equal opportunity to know. But if you admit or say that the four witnesses were inspired by an infinite being who did see it all, then they should remember all the same, because inspiration does not depend on memory.

That brings me to another point. Why were there four gospels? What is the use of more than one correct account of anything? If you want to spread it, send copies. No human being has got the ingenuity to tell me why there were four gospels, when one correct gospel would have been enough. Why should there have been four original multiplication tables? One is enough, and if anybody has got any use for it he can copy that one. The very fact that we have got four gospels shows that it is not an inspired book.

The next point is that, according to the new testament, the salvation of the world depended upon the atonement. Only one of the books in the new testament says anything about that, and that is John. The church followed John, and they ought to follow John, because the church wrote that book called John. According to that, the whole world was to be damned on account of the sins of one man; and that absurdity was the father and mother of another absurdity—that the whole world could be saved on account of the virtue of another man. I deny both propositions. No man can sin for me; no man can be virtuous for me; I must reap what I sow. But they say the law must be satisfied. What kind of a law is it that would demand punishment of the innocent? Just think of it. Here is a man about to be hanged, and another comes up and says: "That man has got a family, and I have not; that man is in good health and I am not well, and I will be hung in his place." And the governor says: "All right; a murder has been committed, and we have got to have a hanging—we don't care who." Under the Mosaic dispensation there was no remission of sins without the shedding of blood. If a man committed a murder he brought a pair of doves or a sheep to the priest, and the priest laid his hands on the animal, and the sins of the man were transferred to the animal. You see how that could be done easy enough. Then they killed the animal, and sprinkled its blood on the altar. That let the man off. And why did God demand the sacrifice of a sheep? I will tell you; because priests love mutton.

To make the innocent suffer is the greatest crime. I don't wish to go to heaven on the virtues of somebody else. If I can't settle by the books and go, I don't wish to go. I don't want to feel as if I was there on sufferance—that I was in the poorhouse of the universe, supported by the town.

They tell us Judas betrayed Christ. Well, if Christ had not been betrayed, no atonement would have been made, and then every human soul would have been damned, and heaven would have been for rent.

Supposing that Judas knew the Christian system, then perhaps he thought that by betraying Christ he could get forgiven, not only for the sins that he had already committed but for the sin of betrayal, and if, on the way to Calvary, and later, some brave, heroic soul had rescued Christ from the mob, he would have made his own damnation sure. It won't do. There is no logic in that.

They say God tried to civilize the Jews. If He had succeeded, according to the Christian system, we all would have been damned, because if the Jews had been civilized they would not have crucified Christ. They would have believed in the freedom of speech, and as a result the world would have been lost for two thousand years. The Christian world has been trying to explain the atonement, and they have always ended by failing to explain it.

Now I come to the second objection, which is that certain belief is necessary to salvation. I will believe according to the evidence. In my mind are certain scales, which weigh everything, and my integrity stands there and knows which side goes up and which side goes down. If I am an honest man I will report the weights like an honest man. They say I must believe a certain thing or I will be eternally damned. They tell me that to believe is the safer way. I deny it. The safest thing you can do is to be honest. No man, when the shadows of the last hours were gathering around him, ever wished that he had lived the life of a hypocrite. If I find at the Day of Judgment that I have been mistaken, I will say so, like a man. If God tells me then that he is the author of the old testament I will admit that he is worse than I thought He was, and when He comes to pronounce sentence upon me, I will say to Him: "Do unto others as You would that others should do unto You." I have a right to think; I cannot control my belief; my brain is my castle, and if I don't defend it, my soul becomes a slave and a serf.

If you throw away your reason, your soul is not worth saving. Salvation depends, not upon belief but upon deed—upon kindness, upon justice, upon mercy. Your own deeds are your savior, and you can be saved in no other way. I am told in this testament to love my enemies. I cannot; I will not. I don't hate enemies; I don't wish to injure enemies, but I don't care about seeing them. I don't like them. I love my friends, and the man who loves enemies and friends loves me. The doctrine of non-resistance is born of weakness. The man that first said it, said it because it was the best he could do under the circumstances. While the church said, "love your enemies," in her sacred vestments gleamed the daggers of assassination. With her cunning hand, she wore the purple for hypocrisy, and placed the crown upon the brow of crime.

For more than one thousand years larceny held the scales of justice, and hypocrisy wore the mitre, and the tiara of Christ was in fact God. He knew of the future. He knew what crimes and horrors would be committed in His name. He knew the fires of persecution would climb around the limbs of countless martyrs; that brave men and women would languish in dungeons and darkness; that the church would use instruments of torture; that in His name His followers would trade in human flesh; that cradles would be robbed and women's breasts unbabed for gold, and yet He died with voiceless lips. If Christ was God, why did He not tell His disciples, and through them, the world, "Man shall not persecute his fellow-man?" Why didn't He say, "I am God?" Why didn't He explain the doctrine of the Trinity? Why didn't He tell what manner of baptism was pleasing to Him? Why didn't He say the old testament is true? Why didn't He write His testament himself? Why did He leave His words to accident, to ignorance, to malice, and to chance? Why didn't He say something positive, definite, satisfactory, about another world? Why did He not turn the tear-stained hope of immortality to the glad knowledge of another life? Why did he go dumbly to His death, leaving the world to misery and to doubt? Because He was a man.