Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I - Including His Answers to the Clergy, - His Oration at His Brother's Grave, Etc., Etc.
Ingersoll, R. G. (Robert Green), 1833-1899
English
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Below is a summary of Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I - Including His Answers to the Clergy, - His Oration at His Brother's Grave, Etc., Etc.
LECTURES OF COL. R. G. INGERSOLL
Including His Answers To The Clergy, His Oration At His Brother's
Grave, Etc., Etc.
Complete In Two Volumes
Volume I
CONTENTS
Gods
Ghosts
Hell
Individuality
Humboldt
Which Way
The Great Infidels
Talmagian Theology
At a Child's Grave
Ingersoll's Oration at His Brother's Grave
Mistakes of Moses
Skulls and Replies
What Shall We Do To Be Saved?
Ingersoll's Answer To Prof. Swing, Dr. Thomas, And Others
INGERSOLL'S LECTURE ON GODS
Ladies and Gentlemen: An honest god is the noblest work of man. Each
nation has created a god, and the god has always resembled his creators.
He hated and loved what they hated and loved, and he was invariably
found on the side of those in power. Each god was intensely patriotic,
and detested all nations but his own. All these Gods demanded praise,
flattery, and worship. Most of them were pleased with sacrifice, and
the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume.
All these gods have insisted upon having a vast number of priests, and
the priests have always insisted upon being supported by the people, and
the principal business of these priests has been to boast about their
God, and to insist that he could easily vanquish all the other gods put
together.
These gods have been manufactured after numberless models, and according
to the most grotesque fashions. Some have a thousand arms, some a
hundred heads, some are adorned with necklaces of living snakes, some
are armed with clubs, some with sword and shield, some with bucklers,
and some with wings as a cherub; some were invisible, some would show
themselves entire, and some would only show their backs; some were
jealous, some were foolish, some turned themselves into men, some into
swans, some into bulls, some into doves, and some into holy ghosts, and
made love to the beautiful daughters of men. Some were married--all
ought to have been--and some were considered as old bachelors from all
eternity. Some had children, and the children were turned into gods and
worshiped as their fathers had been. Most of these gods were
revengeful, savage, lustful, and ignorant; as they generally depended
upon their priests for information, their ignorance can hardly excite
our astonishment.
These gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had created,
but supposed them perfectly flat. Some thought the day could be
lengthened by stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw
down the walls of a city, and all knew so little of the real nature of
the people they had created, that they commanded the people to love
them. Some were so ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just
as he might desire, or as might command, and to be governed by
observation, reason, and experience was a most foul and damning sin.
None of these gods could give a true account of the creation of this
little earth. All were woefully deficient in geology and astronomy. As
a rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as executives, they
were far inferior to the average of American presidents.
The deities have demanded the most abject and degrading obedience. In
order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust. Of course,
they have always been partial to the people who created them, and they
have generally shown their partiality by assisting those people to rob
and destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters. Nothing is
so pleasing to these gods as the butchery of unbelievers. Nothing so
enrages them, even now as to have some one deny their existence.
Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so
easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god
market was fairly glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms.
These gods not only attended to the skies, but were supposed to
interfere in all the affairs of men. They presided over everybody and
everything. They attended to every department. All was supposed to be
under their immediate control. Nothing was too small--nothing too
large; the falling of sparrows and the motions of planets were alike
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