Strike your hands together; they feel warm. The effect becomes a cause instantly, and that cause produces another effect, and the effect another cause; and there could not have been a cause until there was an effect. Because until there was an effect, nothing had been caused; until something had been caused, I am positive there was no cause. Now you cannot conceive of a lost effect, because the lost effect of which you can think, will in turn become a cause and that cause produce another effect. And as you cannot think of a lost effect, you cannot think of a first cause; it is not thinkable by the human mind.
They say God governs this world. Why does He not govern Russia as well as He does Massachusetts? Why does He allow the Czar to send beautiful girls of sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, simply for saying a word in favor of human liberty, to mines in Siberia, where they draw carts with knees bruised and bleeding, with hands scarred and swollen? What is that God worth that allows such things in the world He governs? Did He govern this country when it had four millions of slaves?—when it turned the cross of Christ into a whipping-post—when the holy bible was an auction-block on which the mother stood while her babe was sold from her breast?—when bloodhounds were considered apostles? Was God governing the world when the prisoners were confined in the Bastille? It seems to me, if there is a God, and someone would repeat the word "Bastille." it would cover almost his face with the blood of shame. But they say heaven will balance all the ills of life. Let us see: A large majority of us are sinners—at least a large majority with whom I am acquainted; and a majority of the Christians with whom I am acquainted are worse than sinners. And if their doctrine is true, you will be astonished at the gentlemen you will see in hell that day. You will know by the cast of their countenance that they used to preach here. They say that it may be that the sinners here have a very good time, and that the Christians don't have a very good time; that it is awful hard work to serve the Lord, and that you carry a cross when you deny yourself the delights of murder and forgery, and all manner of rascality that fills life with delight. But they say that while the rascals are having a good time, they will catch it in the other world. But, according to their account, ninety-nine out of a hundred will be damned, and I think it will be a close call for the hundredth. Like that dear old Scotch woman, when she was talking about the Presbyterian faith, some one said to her: "My dear woman, if your doctrine is true, nobody but you and your husband will be saved." "Ah," said she, "I'm na' sae sure about John." About one in a hundred will be saved, and the other ninety-nine will be in misery. So that on the average there will not be half as much happiness in the next world as in this. So, instead of God's plan getting better, it gets worse; and throughout all the ages of eternity there will be less happiness than in this world. This world is a school; this world is where we develop moral muscle. It may be that we are here simply because men cannot advance only through agony and pain. If it is necessary to have pain and agony to advance morally, then nobody can advance in heaven. Hell will be the only place offering opportunities to any gentleman who wishes to increase his moral muscle.
A gentleman once asked me if I could suggest any improvement on the present order of things, if I had the power. Well, said I, in the first place, I would make good health catching instead of disease. There will be no humanity until we get the orthodox God out of our religion. I want to do what little I can to put another one in God's name, so that we will worship a supreme human god, so that we will worship mercy, justice, love and truth, and not have the idea that we must sacrifice our brother upon the altar of fear to please some imaginary phantom. See what Christianity has done for the world! It has reduced Spain to a guitar, Italy to a hand organ and Ireland to exile. That is what religion has done. Take every country in the whole world, and the country that has got the least religion is the most prosperous, and the country that has got the most religion is in the worst condition.
In the vast cemetery, called the past, are most of the religions of men and there, too, are nearly all their gods.
The sacred temples of India were ruins long ago. Over column and cornice; over the painted and pictured walls, cling and creep the trailing vines. Brahma, the golden, with four heads and four arms; Vishnu, the sombre, the punisher of the wicked, with his three eyes, his crescent, and his necklace of skulls; Siva, the destroyer, red with seas of blood; Kali, the goddess; Draupadi, the white-armed, and Chrishna, the Christ, all passed away and left the thrones of heaven desolate. Along the banks of the sacred Nile, Iris no longer wandering weeps, searching for the dead Osiris. The shadow of Typhon's scowl falls no more upon the waves. The sun rises as of yore, and his golden beams still smite the lips of Memnon, but Memnon is as voiceless as the Sphinx. The sacred fanes are lost in desert sands; the dusty mummies are still waiting for the resurrection promised by their priests, and the old beliefs wrought in curiously sculptured stone, sleep in the mystery of a language lost and dead Odin, the author of life and soul, Vili and Ve, and the mighty giant Ymir, strode long ago from the ice halls of the North; and Thor, with iron glove and glittering hammer, dashes mountains to the earth no more.
Broken are the circles and the cromlechs of the ancient Druids; fallen upon the summits of the hills, and covered with the centuries' moss are the sacred cairns. The divine fires of Persia and of the Aztecs have died out in the ashes of the past, and there is none to rekindle, and none to feed the holy flames. The harp of Orpheus is still; the drained cup of Bacchus has been thrown aside; Venus lies dead in stone, and her white bosom heaves no more with love. The streams still murmur, but no naiads bathe; the trees still wave, but in the forest aisles no dryads dance. The gods have flown from high Olympus. Not even the beautiful women can lure them back, and Danae lies unnoticed, naked to the stars. Hushed forever are the thunders of Sinai; lost are the voices of the prophets, and the lard once flowing with milk and honey is but a desert waste. One by one the myths have faded from the clouds; one by one the phantom host has disappeared, and, one by one, facts, truths and realities have taken their places. The supernatural has almost gone, but man is the natural remains. The gods have fled, but man is here. Nations, like individuals, have their periods of youth, of manhood and decay. Religions are the same. The same inexorable destiny awaits them all. The gods created with the nations must perish with their creators. They were created by men, and, like men, they must pass away. The deities of one age are the by-words of the next. The religion of our day, and country, is no more exempt from the sneer of the future than others have been. When India was supreme, Brahma sat upon the world's throne. When the sceptre passed to Egypt, Isis and Osiris received the homage of mankind. Greece, with her fierce valor, swept to empire, and Zeus put on the purple of authority. The earth trembled with the tread of Rome's intrepid sons, and Jove grasped with mailed hand the thunderbolts of heaven. Rome fell, and Christians from her territory, with the red sword of war, carved out the ruling nations of the world, and now Jehovah sits upon the old throne. Who will be His successor?
Ingersoll's lecture on The Religion of Our Day
Ladies and Gentlemen:—I am glad that I have lived long enough to see one gentleman in the pulpit brave enough to say that God would not be offended at one who speaks according to the dictates of his conscience; who does not believe that God will give wings to a bird, and then damn the bird for flying. I thank the pastor and I thank the church for allowing its pastor to be so brave.
I admit that thousands and thousands of church people, with their pastors and the deacons, are today advocating religious principles that they deem right and good. I honor these men, but I do not believe that their method is a good one. I do not want these people to forgive me for the views I entertain, but I want them so to act that I will not have to forgive them. I am the friend of every one who preaches the gospel of absolute intellectual liberty, and that man is my friend.