The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents / Dresden Edition—Twelve Volumes

by Robert Green Ingersoll

Of course there can be no advance in a religion established by infinite wisdom. The only progress possible is in the comprehension of this religion.

For many generations, what is known under a vast number of disguises and behind many masks as the Christian religion, has been propagated and preserved by the sword and bayonet—that is to say, by force. The credulity of man has been bribed and his reason punished. Those who believed without the slightest question, and whose faith held evidence in contempt, were saints; those who investigated were dangerous, and those who denied were destroyed.

Every attack upon this religion has been made in the shadow of human and divine hatred—in defiance of earth and heaven. At one time Christendom was beneath the ignorant feet of one man, and those who denied his infallibility were heretics and Atheists. At last, a protest was uttered. The right of conscience was proclaimed, to the extent of making a choice between the infallible man and the infallible book. Those who rejected the man and accepted the book became in their turn as merciless, as tyrannical and heartless, as the followers of the infallible man. The Protestants insisted that an infinitely wise and good God would not allow criminals and wretches to act as his infallible agents.

Afterward, a few protested against the infallibility of the book, using the same arguments against the book that had formerly been used against the pope. They said that an infinitely wise and good God could not be the author of a cruel and ignorant book. But those who protested against the book fell into substantially the same error that had been fallen into by those who had protested against the man. While they denounced the book, and insisted that an infinitely wise and good being could not have been its author, they took the ground that an infinitely wise and good being was the creator and governor of the world.

Then was used against them the same argument that had been used by the Protestants against the pope and by the Deists against the Protestants. Attention was called to the fact that Nature is as cruel as any pope or any book—that it is just as easy to account for the destruction of the Canaanites consistently with the goodness of Jehovah as to account for pestilence, earthquake, and flood consistently with the goodness of the God of Nature.

The Protestant and Deist both used arguments against the Catholic that could in turn be used with equal force against themselves. So that there is no question among intelligent people as to the infallibility of the pope, as to the inspiration of the book, or as to the existence of the Christian's God—for the conclusion has been reached that the human mind is incapable of deciding as to the origin and destiny of the universe.

For many generations the mind of man has been traveling in a circle. It accepted without question the dogma of a First Cause—of the existence of a Creator—of an Infinite Mind back of matter, and sought in many ways to define its ignorance in this behalf. The most sincere worshipers have declared that this being is incomprehensible,—that he is "without body, parts, or passions"—that he is infinitely beyond their grasp, and at the same time have insisted that it was necessary for man not only to believe in the existence of this being, but to love him with all his heart.

Christianity having always been in partnership with the state,—having controlled kings and nobles, judges and legislators—having been in partnership with armies and with every form of organized destruction,—it was dangerous to discuss the foundation of its authority. To speak lightly of any dogma was a crime punishable by death. Every absurdity has been bastioned and barricaded by the power of the state. It has been protected by fist, by club, by sword and cannon.

For many years Christianity succeeded in substantially closing the mouths of its enemies, and lived and flourished only where investigation and discussion were prevented by hypocrisy and bigotry. The church still talks about "evidence," about "reason," about "freedom of conscience" and the "liberty of speech," and yet denounces those who ask for evidence, who appeal to reason, and who honestly express their thoughts.

To-day we know that the miracles of Christianity are as puerile and false as those ascribed to the medicine-men of Central Africa or the Fiji Islanders, and that the "sacred Scriptures" have the same claim to inspiration that the Koran has, or the Book of Mormon—no less, no more. These questions have been settled and laid aside by free and intelligent people. They have ceased to excite interest; and the man who now really believes in the truth of the Old Testament is regarded with a smile— looked upon as an aged child—still satisfied with the lullabys and toys of the cradle.