The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. / Interviews

by Robert Green Ingersoll

—The Commercial, Cincinnati, Ohio, December 6, 1880.

MR. BEECHER, MOSES AND THE NEGRO.

Question. Mr. Beecher is here. Have you seen him?

Answer. No, I did not meet Mr. Beecher. Neither did I hear him lecture. The fact is, that long ago I made up my mind that under no circumstances would I attend any lecture or other entertainment given at Lincoln Hall. First, because the hall has been denied me, and secondly, because I regard it as extremely unsafe. The hall is up several stories from the ground, and in case of the slightest panic, in my judgment, many lives would be lost. Had it not been for this, and for the fact that the persons owning it imagined that because they had control, the brick and mortar had some kind of holy and sacred quality, and that this holiness is of such a wonderful character that it would not be proper for a man in that hall to tell his honest thoughts, I would have heard him.

Question. Then I assume that you and Mr. Beecher have made up?

Answer. There is nothing to be made up for so far as I know. Mr. Beecher has treated me very well, and, I believe, a little too well for his own peace of mind. I have been informed that some members of Plymouth Church felt exceedingly hurt that their pastor should so far forget himself as to extend the right hand of fellowship to one who differs from him upon what they consider very essential points in theology. You see I have denied with all my might, a great many times, the infamous doctrine of eternal punishment. I have also had the temerity to suggest that I did not believe that a being of infinite justice and mercy was the author of all that I find in the Old Testament. As, for instance, I have insisted that God never commanded anybody to butcher women or to cut the throats of prattling babes. These orthodox gentlemen have rushed to the rescue of Jehovah by insisting that he did all these horrible things. I have also maintained that God never sanctioned or upheld human slavery; that he never would make one child to own and beat another.

I have also expressed some doubts as to whether this same God ever established the institution of polygamy. I have insisted that the institution is simply infamous; that it destroys the idea of home; that it turns to ashes the most sacred words in our language, and leaves the world a kind of den in which crawl the serpents of selfishness and lust. I have been informed that after Mr. Beecher had treated me kindly a few members of his congregation objected, and really felt ashamed that he had so forgotten himself. After that, Mr. Beecher saw fit to give his ideas of the position I had taken. In this he was not exceedingly kind, nor was his justice very conspicuous. But I cared nothing about that, not the least. As I have said before, whenever Mr. Beecher says a good thing I give him credit. Whenever he does an unfair or unjust thing I charge it to the account of his religion. I have insisted, and I still insist, that Mr. Beecher is far better than his creed. I do not believe that he believes in the doctrine of eternal punishment. Neither do I believe that he believes in the literal truth of the Scriptures. And, after all, if the Bible is not true, it is hardly worth while to insist upon its inspiration. An inspired lie is not better than an uninspired one. If the Bible is true it does not need to be inspired. If it is not true, inspiration does not help it. So that after all it is simply a question of fact. Is it true? I believe Mr. Beecher stated that one of my grievous faults was that I picked out the bad things in the Bible. How an infinitely good and wise God came to put bad things in his book Mr. Beecher does not explain. I have insisted that the Bible is not inspired, and, in order to prove that, have pointed out such passages as I deemed unworthy to have been written even by a civilized man or a savage. I certainly would not endeavor to prove that the Bible is uninspired by picking out its best passages. I admit that there are many good things in the Bible. The fact that there are good things in it does not prove its inspiration, because there are thousands of other books containing good things, and yet no one claims they are inspired. Shakespeare's works contain a thousand times more good things than the Bible, but no one claims he was an inspired man. It is also true that there are many bad things in Shakespeare—many passages which I wish he had never written. But I can excuse Shakespeare, because he did not rise absolutely above his time. That is to say, he was a man; that is to say, he was imperfect. If anybody claimed now that Shakespeare was actually inspired, that claim would be answered by pointing to certain weak or bad or vulgar passages in his works. But every Christian will say that it is a certain kind of blasphemy to impute vulgarity or weakness to God, as they are all obliged to defend the weak, the bad and the vulgar, so long as they insist upon the inspiration of the Bible. Now, I pursued the same course with the Bible that Mr. Beecher has pursued with me. Why did he want to pick out my bad things? Is it possible that he is a kind of vulture that sees only the carrion of another? After all, has he not pursued the same method with me that he blames me for pursuing in regard to the Bible? Of course he must pursue that method. He could not object to me and then point out passages that were not objectionable. If he found fault he had to find faults in order to sustain his ground. That is exactly what I have done with Scriptures—nothing more and nothing less. The reason I have thrown away the Bible is that in many places it is harsh, cruel, unjust, coarse, vulgar, atrocious, infamous. At the same time, I admit that it contains many passages of an excellent and splendid character —many good things, wise sayings, and many excellent and just laws.

But I would like to ask this: Suppose there were no passages in the Bible except those upholding slavery, polygamy and wars of extermination; would anybody then claim that it was the word of God? I would like to ask if there is a Christian in the world who would not be overjoyed to find that every one of these passages was an interpolation? I would also like to ask Mr. Beecher if he would not be greatly gratified to find that after God had written the Bible the Devil had got hold of it, and interpolated all these passages about slavery, polygamy, the slaughter of women and babes and the doctrine of eternal punishment? Suppose, as a matter of fact, the Devil did get hold of it; what part of the Bible would Mr. Beecher pick out as having been written by the Devil? And if he picks out these passages could not the Devil answer him by saying, "You, Mr. Beecher, are like a vulture, a kind of buzzard, flying through the tainted air of inspiration, and pouncing down upon the carrion. Why do you not fly like a dove, and why do you not have the innocent ignorance of the dove, so that you could light upon a carcass and imagine that you were surrounded by the perfume of violets?" The fact is that good things in a book do not prove that it is inspired, but the presence of bad things does prove that it is not.

Question. What was the real difficulty between you and Moses, Colonel, a man who has been dead for thousands of years?

Answer. We never had any difficulty. I have always taken pains to say that Moses had nothing to do with the Pentateuch. Those books, in my judgment, were written several centuries after Moses had become dust in his unknown sepulchre. No doubt Moses was quite a man in his day, if he ever existed at all. Some people say that Moses is exactly the same as "law-giver;" that is to say, as Legislature, that is to say as Congress. Imagine somebody in the future as regarding the Congress of the United States as one person! And then imagine that somebody endeavoring to prove that Congress was always consistent. But, whether Moses lived or not makes but little difference to me. I presume he filled the place and did the work that he was compelled to do, and although according to the account God had much to say to him with regard to the making of altars, tongs, snuffers and candlesticks, there is much left for nature still to tell. Thinking of Moses as a man, admitting that he was above his fellows, that he was in his day and generation a leader, and, in a certain narrow sense, a patriot, that he was the founder of the Jewish people; that he found them barbarians and endeavored to control them by thunder and lightning, and found it necessary to pretend that he was in partnership with the power governing the universe; that he took advantage of their ignorance and fear, just as politicians do now, and as theologians always will, still, I see no evidence that the man Moses was any nearer to God than his descendants, who are still warring against the Philistines in every civilized part of the globe. Moses was a believer in slavery, in polygamy, in wars of extermination, in religious persecution and intolerance and in almost everything that is now regarded with loathing, contempt and scorn. The Jehovah of whom he speaks violated, or commands the violation of at least nine of the Ten Commandments he gave. There is one thing, however, that can be said of Moses that cannot be said of any person who now insists that he was inspired, and that is, he was in advance of his time.