 Section 14, Ingersoll's Lecture on the Hereafter. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Ingersoll's lecture on the Hereafter from the book Lectures of Colonel Robert Green Ingersoll Volume 2. My friends, I tell you tonight, as I have probably told many of you dozens of times, that the orthodox doctrine of eternal punishment in the Hereafter is an infamous one. I have no respect for the man who preaches it or pretends to you he believes it. Neither have I any respect for the man who will pollute the imagination of innocent childhood with that infamous lie. And I have no respect for the man who will deliberately add to the sorrows of this world with this terrible dogma. No respect for the man who endeavors to put that infinite cloud and shadow over the heart of humanity. I will be frank with you and say, I hate the doctrine. I despise it. I defy it. I loathe it. And what man of sense does not. The idea of a hell was born of revenge and brutality on the one side and aren't cowardice on the other. In my judgment, the American people are too brave, too generous, too magnanimous, too humane to believe in that outrageous doctrine of eternal damnation. For a great many years, the learned intellects of Christendom have been examining into the religions of other countries and other ages in the world, the religions of the myriads who have passed away. They examined into the religions of Egypt, the religion of Greece, that of Rome and the Scandinavian countries. In the presence of the ruins of those religions, the learned men of Christendom insisted that those religions were baseless, false, and fraudulent. But they have all passed away. Now, while this examination was being made, the Christianity of our day applauded, and when the learned men got through with the religion of other countries, they turned their attention to our religion, and by the same methods, by the same mode of reasoning and the same arrangements that they used with the old religions, they were overturning the religion of our day. How is that? Because every religion in this world is the work of man. Every book that was ever written was written by man. Man existed before books, if otherwise we might reasonably admit that there was such a thing as a sacred Bible. I wish to call your attention to another thing. Man never had an original idea, and he never will have one, except it be supplied to him by his surroundings. Nature gave man every idea that he ever had in the world, and nature will continue to give man his ideas so long as he exists. No man can conceive of anything, the hint of which he has not received from the surroundings, and there is nothing on this earth coming from any other sphere whatever. As I have before said, man has produced every religion in the world. Why is this? Because each generation sends forth the knowledge and belief of the people at the time it was made, and in no book is there any knowledge formed except just at the time it was written. Barbarians have produced barbarian religions, and always will produce them. They have produced and always will produce ideas and belief in harmony with their surroundings, and all the religions of the past were produced by barbarians. We are making religions every day, that is to say we are constantly changing them, adapting them to our purposes, and the religion of today is not the religion of a few months or a year ago. Well, what changes these religions? Science does it. Education does it. The growing heart of man does it. Some men have nothing else to do but produce religions. Science is constantly changing them. If we are cursed with such barbarian religions today, for our religions are really barbarous, what will they be an hundred or a thousand years hence? But friends, we are making inroads upon orthodoxy that orthodox Christians are painfully aware of, and what think you will be left of their fearful doctrines 50 or a hundred years from tonight? What will become of their endless hell, their doctrine of the future anguish of the soul, their doctrine of the eternal burning and never ending gnashing of teeth? Man will discard the idea of such a future because there is now a growing belief in the justice of a supreme being. Do you not know that every religion in the world has declared every other religion a fraud? Yes, we all know it. That is the time all religions tell the truth, each of the other. Now do you want to know why this is? Suppose Mr. Johnson should tell Mr. Jones that he saw a corpse rise from the grave and that when he first saw it, it was covered with loadsome worms and that while he was looking at it, it suddenly was reclothed in healthy, beautiful flesh. And then suppose Jones should say to Johnson, well now, I saw that same thing myself. I was in a graveyard once and I saw a dead man rise and walk away as if nothing had ever happened to him. Johnson opens wide his eyes and says to Jones, Jones, you are a confounded liar. And Jones says to Johnson, you are an unmitigated liar. No, I'm not. You lie yourself. No, I say you lie. Each knew the other lied because each man knew he lied himself. Thus when a man says, I was upon Mount Sinai for the benefit of my health, and there I met God who said to me, stand aside you and let me drown these people. And the other man says to him, I was upon a mountain and there I met the supreme Brahma. And Moses steps in and says, that is not true and contends that the other man never did see Brahma. And the other man swears that Moses never saw God. And each man utters a deliberate falsehood and immediately after speaks truth. Therefore each religion has charged every other religion with having been an unmitigated fraud. Still, if any man had ever seen a miracle himself, he would be prepared to believe that another man had seen the same or a similar thing. Whenever a man claims to have been cognizant of or to have seen a miracle, he either utters a falsehood or he is an idiot. Truth relies upon the unerring course of the laws of nature and upon reason. Observe we have a religion that is many people have. I make no pretensions to having a religion myself. Possibly you do not. I believe in living for this beautiful world, in living for the present today, living for this very hour. And while I do live, to make everybody happy that I can, I cannot afford to squander my short life and what little talent I am blessed with in studying up and projecting schemes to avoid that seething lake of fire and brimstone. Let the future take care of itself and when I am required to pass over on the other side, I am ready and willing to stand my chances with you howling Christians. We have in this country a religion which men have preached for about 1800 years and men have grown wicked just in proportion as their belief in that religion has grown strong and just in proportion as they have ceased to believe in it men have become just humane and charitable and if they believed in it tonight as they believed for instance at the time of the immaculate Puritan fathers I would not be permitted to talk here in the city of New York. It is from the coldness and infidelity of the churches that I get my right to preach and I thank them for it and I say it to their credit. As I have said we have a religion. What is it? In the first place they say this vast universe was created by a god. I don't know and you don't know whether it was or not. Also if it had not been for the first sin of Adam they say there would never have been any devil in this world and if there had been no devil there would have been no sin and if no sin no death. As for myself I am glad there is death in the world for that gives me a chance. Somebody has to die to give me room and when my turn comes I am willing to let someone else take my place but if there is a being who gave me this life I thank him from the bottom of my heart because this life has been a joy and a pleasure to me. Further because of this first sin of Adam they say all men are consigned to eternal perdition but in order to save man from that frightful hell of the hereafter Christ came to this world and took upon himself flesh and in order that we might know the road to eternal salvation he gave us a book called the Bible and wherever that Bible has been read men have immediately commenced throttling each other and wherever that Bible has been circulated they have invented inquisitions and instruments of torture and commenced hating each other with all their hearts. Then we are told that this Bible is the foundation of civilization but I say it is the foundation of hell and damnation and we never shall get rid of that dogma until we get rid of the idea that the book is inspired. Now what does the Bible teach? I am not going to ask this preacher or that preacher what the Bible teaches but the question is ought a man be sent to an eternal hell for not believing this Bible to be the work of a merciful God? A very few people read it now perhaps they should read it and perhaps not. If I wanted to believe it I should never read a word of it never look upon its pages I would let it lie on its shelf until it rotted still perhaps we ought to read it in order to see what is read in schools that our children might become charitable and good to be read to our children that they may get ideas of mercy charity humanity and justice oh yes now read I will make mine arrows drunk with blood and my sword shall devour flesh Deuteronomy 32 42 very good for a merciful God that thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies and the tongue of the dogs in the same Psalms 68 24 merciful being I will quote several more choice bits from this inspired book although I have several times made use of them but the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction until they be destroyed and he shall deliver their kings into thine hand and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven there shall no man be able to stand before thee until thou have destroyed them Deuteronomy 7 23 and 24 and Joshua did unto them as the Lord bade him he horded their horses and burnt their chariots with fire and Joshua at that time turned back and took Hazor and smote the king thereof with the sword for Hazor before time was the head of all those kingdoms and all the cities of those kings and all the kings of them did Joshua take and smote them with the edge of the sword and he utterly destroyed them as Moses the servant of the Lord commanded and they smote all the souls that were there in with the edge of the sword utterly destroying them there was not any left to breathe and he burnt Hazor with fire do not forget that these things were done by the command of God but as for the cities that stood still in their strength Israel burnt none of them save Hazor only that did Joshua burn and all the spoil of those cities and the cattle the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves but every man they smote with the edge of the sword until they had destroyed them neither left they any to breathe as the moral and just God had commanded them as the Lord commanded Moses his servant so did Moses command Joshua and so did Joshua he left nothing undone of all that the Lord had commanded Joshua so Joshua took all that land the hills and all the south country and all the land of Goshen and the valley and the plain and mountain of Israel and the valley of the same even from the Mount Halak that goeth up to Sair even unto Baal God in the valley of Lebanon under Mount Hermon and all their kings he took and smote them and slew them Joshua made war a long time on all those kings there was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel save the heavites the inhabitants of Gibion and all the others they took in battle so Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord said unto Moses and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes and the land rested from war Joshua 11 7 through 23 when thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it then proclaim peace unto it and it shall be if it make the answer of peace and open unto thee then it shall be that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee and they shall serve thee and if it will make no peace with thee but will make war against thee then thou shalt besiege it and when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword but the women and the little ones and the cattle and all that is in the city even all the spoil thereof shalt thou take unto thyself and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies which the Lord thy God hath given thee thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee which are not of the cities of those nations but of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God hath give thee for an inheritance thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth but thou shalt utterly destroy them neither the old man nor the woman nor the beautiful maid nor the sweet dimpled babe smiling upon the lap of its mother and he said unto them thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel a merciful God indeed put every man his sword by his side and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp and slay every man his brother and every man his neighbor Ephesians 32 29 now recollect these instructions were given to an army of invasion and the people who were slayed were guilty of the crime of fighting for their homes and their firesides oh most merciful God the Old Testament is full of curses vengeance jealousy and hatred and a barbarity and brutality now do you for one moment believe that these words were written by the most merciful God don't pluck from the heart the sweet flower of piety and crush it by superstition do not believe that God ever ordered the murder of innocent women and helpless babes do not let this superstition turn our heart into stone when anything is said to have been written by the most merciful God and the thing is not merciful that I deny it and say he never wrote it I will live by the standard of reason and if thinking in accordance with reason takes me to perdition then I will go to hell with my reason rather than to heaven without it now does this bible teach political freedom or does it teach political tyranny does it teach a man to resist oppression does it teach a man to tear from the throne of tyranny the crowned thing and robber called king let us see let every soul be subject to the higher powers for there is no power but God the powers that be are ordained of God Romans 13 1 therefore to must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for conscience sake Romans 8 4 4 I deny this wretched doctrine wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn to protect the rights of man I am a rebel wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn to give men liberty to clothe him in all his just rights I am on the side of that rebellion does the bible give woman her rights does it treat woman as she ought to be treated or is it barbarian we will see let woman learn in silence with all subjection 1st Timothy 2 11 if a woman should know anything let her ask her husband imagine the ignorance of a lady who had only that source of information but suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man but to be in silence for Adam was first formed then eve indeed and Adam was not deceived but the woman being deceived it was in the transgression poor woman here is something from the old testament when thou goest forth to war against thine enemies and the Lord thy God had delivered them into thine hands and thou hast taken them captives and seized among the captives a beautiful woman and has to desire unto her that thou wouldst have her to be thy wife then thou shall bring her home to thine house and she shall shave her head and pair her nails Deuteronomy 21 10 through 12 that is self-defense I suppose I need not go further in bible quotations to show that woman throughout the old testament is a degraded being having no rights which her husband father brother or uncle is bound to respect still that is bible doctrine and that bible is the word of a just and omniscient god does the bible teach the existence of devils of course it does yes it teaches not only the existence of a good being but a bad being this good being has to have a home that home was heaven this bad being had to have a home and that home was hell this hell is supposed to be nearer to earth than I would care to have it and to be people with spirits spooks harb goblins and all the fiery shapes with which the imagination of ignorance and fear could people that horrible place and the bible teaches the existence of hell and this big devil and all these little devils the bible teaches the doctrine of witchcraft and makes us believe that there are sorcerers and witches and that the dead could be raised by the power of sorcery does anybody believe it now then said soul unto his servants seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit that I may go to her and inquire of her and his servants said to him behold there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at indoor in another place he declares that witchcraft is an abomination unto the lord he wants no rivals in this business now what does the new testament teach then was jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil and when he had fasted forty days and forty nights he was afterward a hunger and when the tempter came to him he said if thou be the son of god command these stones to be made bread but he answered and said it is written man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of god then the devil taketh him up into the holy city and seteth him on a pinnacle of the temple and sayeth unto him if thou be the son of god cast thyself down for it is written he shall give his angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up lest at any time thou dost dash thy foot against a stone jesus said unto him it is written again thou shalt not tempt the lord thy god and him only shalt thou serve matthew four one through seven is it possible that any one can believe that the devil absolutely took god almighty and put him upon the pinnacle of the temple and endeavored to persuade him to jump down is it possible again the devil taketh him into an exceedingly high mountain and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them and sayeth unto him all these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me then sayeth jesus unto him get they hence satan for it is written thou shalt worship the lord thy god and him only shalt thou serve matthew four eight through eleven now only the devil must have known at that time that he was god and god at that time must have known that the other was the devil who had the impudence to promise god a world in which he did not have a tax title to an inch of land now what of the Sabbath the lord's day why is sunday the lord's day if sunday alone is the lord's day whose day is monday tuesday friday etc no matter the idea that god hates to hear your children laugh on sunday on sunday let your children play games i see a poor man who hasn't money enough to go to a big church and he has too much independence to go to the little church which the big church built for charity if he enters the portals of the big church with poor clothes on the usher approaches him with a severe face and brother i'm sorry but only high-toned servants of the living god congregate in this church for worship and with that seedy suit on they cannot admit you all the seats in this magnificent edifice are owned and represented by solid men by man of capital we pay our past of five thousand dollars a year the annual eight weeks vacation thrown in and it would not be profitable for us to seriously encourage the attendance of so insignificant a person as yourself just around the corner there is a little cheap church with a little cheap pastor where they can dish up hell to you in an approved style in a style more suitable to your needs and condition and the dish will not be as expensive to you either if i had chanced to be that poor man in the seedy garments and had been endeavoring to serve my maker for even half a century i would have felt like muttering audibly you go to hell i am not much given to profanity but when i am sorely aggravated and vexed in spirit i declare to you that it is such a relief to me such a solace to my troubled soul and gives me such heavenly peace to now and then allow a word or phrase to escape my lips which can serve no other earthly purpose seemingly and to render emphatic my otherwise mildly expressed ideas i make this confession parenthetically and then a whisper my friends trusting you will not allow it to go further now i tell you if you don't want to go to church go to the woods and take your wife and children and a lunch with you and sit down upon the old log and let the children gather flowers and hear the leaves whispering poems like memories of long ago and when the sun is about going down kissing the summits of the distant hills go home with your hearts filled with throbs of joy and gladness and the cheeks of your little ones covered with the rose blushes of health there is more recreation and solid enjoyment in that than putting on your sunday clothes and going to a canal boat with the steeple on top of it and listening to a man tell you that your chances are about 99999 to one for being eternally damned oh strike with a hand of fire weird musician thy harp strong with apollo's golden hair fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim deft toucher of the organ's keys blow bugler blow until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves and charm the lovers wandering mid-divine clad hills but no your sweetest strains are but discord compared with childhood's happy laugh the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy oh rippling river of laughter thou art the blessed boundary line between beasts and men and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fretful fiend of care oh laughter rose-lipped daughter of joy there are dimples enough in thy cheek to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief do not make slaves of your children on sunday don't place them in long straight rows like fence posts and children it's sunday when by chance you hear a sound or rustle let win some johnny have light and air and let him grow beautiful let him laugh until his little sides ache if he feels like it let him pinch the cat's tail until the house is in an uproar with his gels let him do anything that will make him happy when i was a little boy children went to bed when they were not sleepy and always got up when they were i would like to see that changed we may see it someday it is really easier to wake a child with a kiss than a blow with kind words than with harshness and a curse another thing let the children eat what they want to let them commence at whichever end of the dinner they please they know what they want much better than you do nature knows perfectly well what she is about and if you go a fooling with her you may get in trouble the crime charged to me is this i insist that the bible is not the word of god that we should not whip our children that we should treat our wives as loving equals that god never upheld polygamy and slavery i deny that god ever commanded his generals to slaughter innocent babes and tear and rip open women with the sword of war that god ever turned lot's wife into a pillar of salt although she might have deserved that fate that god ever made a woman out of a man's or any other animal's rib and i emphatically deny that god ever signed or sealed a commission appointing his satanic majesty governor general over an extensive territory popularly styled hell with absolute power to torture burn maim boil or roast at his pleasure the victims of his masters displeasure i deny these things and for that i am assailed by the clergy throughout the united states now you have read the bible romance of the fall of adam yes well you know that nearly or quite all the religions of this world account for the existence of evil by such a story as that adam the miserable coward informed god that his wife was at the bottom of the whole business she did tempt me and i did eat and then commence to row and we have been engaged in it ever since you know what happened to adam and his wife for her transgressions in another account of what is said to have been the same transaction which is the most sensible account of the two the supreme brahma concluded as he had a little leisure that he would make a world and a man and a woman he made the world the man and then the woman and then placed the pair on the island of selon bear in mind there were no ribs used in this affair this island is said to be the most beautiful that the mind of man can conceive of such birds you never saw such songs you never heard and then such flowers such verdure the branches of the trees were so arranged that when the winds swept through they're floated out from every tree melodious strains of music from a thousand aeolian harps but after brahma put them there he said let them have a period of courtship for it is my desire and will that true love should forever precede marriage and with the nightingale singing and the stars twinkling and the little brooklets murmuring and the flowers blooming and the gentle breezes fanning their brows they courted and loved what a sweet courtship then brahma married the happy pair and remarked remain here you can be happy on this island and it is my will that you never leave it well after a little while the man became uneasy and said to the wife of his youth i believe i'll look about a little he determined to seek greener pastures he proceeded to the western extremity of the island and discovered a little narrow neck of land connecting the island with the mainland and the devil they had a genuine devil in those days too it seems it was always playing the devil with us produced a mirage and over on the mainland were such hills and veils such dels and dales such lofty mountains crowned with perpetual snow such cataracts clad in bows of glory that he rushed breathlessly back to his wife exclaiming oh heva the country over there is a thousand times better and lovelier than this let us migrate she woman like said adami we must let well enough alone we have all we want let us stay here but he said no we will go she followed him and when they came to this narrow neck of land he took her upon his back and carried her across but at the instant he put her down there was a crash and looking back they discovered that this narrow neck of land had fallen into the sea the mirage had disappeared and there was nothing but rocks and sand and the supreme brahma cursed them to the lowest hell then adami spoke and it showed him to be every inch a man curse me but curse not her it was not her fault it was mine our adam says with a pusillanimous wine curse her for it is her fault she tempted me and I did eat the world today is teeming with just such cowards then said brahma I will save her but not thee and then spoke his wife out of the fullness of the love of a heart in which there was enough to make all her daughters rich in holy affection if thou wilt not spare him spare neither me I do not wish to live without him I love him then magnanimously said the supreme brahma I will spare you both and watch over you and your children forever now tell me truly which is the grandest story the book containing this story is full of good things and yet christians style as heathens those who have adopted this book as their guide and spend thousands of dollars annually in sending missionaries to convert them it has been too often conceded that because the new testament contains in many passages a lofty and terse expression of love as the highest duty of man christianity must have a tendency to ennoble his nature but christianity is like sweetened whiskey and water it perverts and destroys that which it should nourish and strengthen christianity makes an often fatal attack on a man's morality if he happens to be blessed with any by substituting for the sentiments of love and duty to our neighbors a sense of obligation of blind obedience to an infinite mysterious revengeful tyrannical god the real principle of christian morality is servile obedience to a dangerous power dispute the assertions of even your priest as to the requirements dislikes desires and wishes of the almighty and you might as well count yourself as lost sulfurically lost if you are one of god's chosen or in other words have been saved and are even so fortunate as to attain to the glories and joys of the gold paved streets of heaven you are expected in looking over the banisters of heaven down into the abyss of eternal torture to view with complacency the agonized features of your mother sister brother or infant child who are writhing in hell and laugh at their calamity you are not allowed to carry them a drop of water to cool their parched tongue and if you are a christian you at this moment believe you will enjoy the situation if a man in a quarrel cut down his neighbor and his sins the poor miserable victim goes directly to hell the murderer may reasonably count on a lease of a few weeks of life interviews his pastor confesses to crime repents accepts the grace of god is forgiven and then smoothly and gently slides from the rudely constructed scaffold into a haven of joy and bliss there to sing the praises of the lamb of god forever and ever poor unfortunate victim happy murderer ah what a beautiful religion humanitarianism and charity might become the following incident showing colonel ingersault's disposition to practice what he preaches whenever the opportunity presents itself we have never before seen in print one day during the winter of 1863 for when the colonel had a law office in peoria illinois and before the close of the late war of the rebellion a thinly clad middle-aged lady like woman came into his office and asked assistance my good woman why do you ask it sir my husband is a private in the illinois infantry and stationed somewhere in virginia but i do not know where as i have not heard from him for nearly six months although previous to that time i seldom failed to get a letter from him as often as once a week and whenever he received his pay the most of his money came to me to tell the truth i do not know whether he is living or not but one thing i do know i do not hear from him i have seven children to provide for but no money in the house not a particle of bread in the pantry nor a lump of coal in the shed and the landlord threatening to turn us out in the storm this city pledged itself to give wives a certain sum monthly providing they consented to their husbands responding to the call of the president for troops but disregarding these pledges we and our children are left to starve and freeze and to be turned out of our houses and homes by relentless landlords now sir can you tell me what i am to do the colonel drew his bandana from his great coat pocket lightly touched his eyes with it and rising to his feet pointed to a chair sit down madam and remain till i return i will be back in a few minutes he picked up a half sheet of legal cap and a pencil and departed for the law and other offices of the building of which there were several entering the first that appeared good morning smith give me half a dollar well now colonel you are never mind if i am i must have it it came he entered another hello colonel what's new i want a half dollar from you what for none of your business i want the money he got it he entered a third hello bob anything new on it never mind i must have fifty cents but but nothing jones give me what i ask for of course he got what he asked for so on through fourteen offices from which he obtained seven dollars returning to his office he put his hand in his own pocket and drew forth a five dollar note and handed the woman twelve dollars take this my good woman and make it go as far as you can if you obtain relief from no other source call on me again and i will do the best i can for you and still colonel ingress all is styled by hellfire advocates an infidel atheist dog to do so sweet a thing as to love our neighbors as we love ourselves to strive to attain to as perfect a spirit as a golden rule would bring us into to make virtue lovely by living it grandly and nobly and patiently the outgrowth of a brotherhood not possible in this world where men are living away from themselves and trampling justice and mercy and forgiveness under their feet speaking of the different religions of course they are represented by the different churches and the best hold of the churches and the surest way of giving totally depraved humanity a realising sense of their utterly lost condition is to talk and preach hell with all its horrible terrible concomitance true the different priests advocate the doctrine only when they see that it is the only thing to rouse the sinners from their lethargy for where is the man who will not accept the grace of jesus christ if he becomes convinced that his state in the hereafter is a terrible one the ministers of the different churches know full well which side of their bread is buttered a priest is a divinity among his people a man around whom his parishioners throw a glamour of sanctity and one who can do no wrong albeit his chief and growing characteristics are tyranny arrogancy self-conceit deception bigotry and superstition tyrannical do i call them most assuredly suppose for example the methodist or presbyterian church had the power to decide whether you or i or any other man should be a methodist or presbyterian and we should decline to follow the path pointed out to us or either of us what i solemnly and candidly ask you would be the result our fate would be more terrible than their endless hell the inquisition would rise again in all its horrid blackness instruments of torture would darken our vision on every hand but thank god not that terrible being whom christians would have us believe as our maker this is a free land free as the air we breathe and you and i can partake of the orthodox waters of life freely or we can let them alone when i see a man perched upon a pedestal called a pulpit a man who is one of nature's noblemen physically and fully able to breast the storms of life and earn his honest living telling his heroes with perspiring brow and all his might and main of the terrors of the seething cauldron of hell and how certain it is that they are to be unceremoniously dumped therein to be boiled through all ages yet never boiled done unless they seek salvation when i look upon that man on a bright eye pity him for i cannot help comparing him with the lower animals there is a reaction and i feel an utter contempt for him for he may know when he declares hell is a reality that he is lying now of the deception of the preacher at the close of a sermon in an orthodox church reverend mr solemn face steps to the side of brother ever bright who has been absent from the brimstone mill for several months ah brother ever bright how do you do long time since i have seen you how's your family quite well is it well with the today rather luke warm a sorry sorry well brother can you do something for us financially today our people think my pulpit is too common and say a couple hundred will put it in good shape and make it desirable and attractive can you contribute a few dollars to the fund well brother solemn face for four long months i have been ill not a day's work have i done and not a scent of money have i that i can call my own next year i trust i can do something for the cause of my maker ah and brother solemn faces face assumes a terrible look of disappointment and he is gone in a moment out upon such a fraud the pulpits of the land are full of them the world is cursed with them they possess all the elements of vagabonds deadbeats falsifiers beggars vultures hyenas and jackals in past ages the cross has been in partnership with the sword and the religion of christ was established by murderers tyrants and hypocrites i want you to know that the church carried the black flag and i ask you what must have been the civilizing influence of such a religion of all the selfish things in this world it is one man wanting to get to heaven caring nothing what becomes of the rest of mankind saying if i can only get my little soul in i have always noticed that the people who have the smallest souls make the most fuss about getting them saved here is what we are taught by the church of today we are taught by them that fathers and mothers can all be happy in heaven no matter who may be in hell that the husband could be happy there with the wife that would have died for him at any moment of his life in hell but they say hell we don't believe in fire i don't think you understand me what we believe in now is remorse what will you have remorse for for the mean things you have done when you are in hell will you have any remorse for the mean things you have done when you are in heaven or will you be so good that then you won't care how you used to be i tell you today that no matter in what heaven you may be no matter in what star you are spending the summer if you meet another man whom you have wronged you will drop a little behind in the tune and no matter in what part of hell you are you will meet someone who has suffered whose nakedness you have clothed and the fire will cool up a little according to this christian doctrine you won't care how mean you were once is it a compliment to an infinite god to say that every being he ever made deserved to be damned the minute he had got him done and that he will damn everybody he has not had a chance to make over is it possible that somebody else can be good for me and that this doctrine of the atonement is the only anchor for the human soul we sit by the fire side and see the flames and sparks fly up the chimney everybody happy in the cold wind and sleep beating on the windows and out on the doorstep a mother with a child on her breast freezing how happy it makes a fire that beautiful contrast and we say god is good and there we sit and there she sits and moans not one night but forever while we are sitting at the table with our wives and children everybody eating happy and delighted and famine comes and pushes out its shriveled palms and with hungry eyes implores us for a crust how that would increase the appetite and that is the christian heaven don't you see that these infamous doctrines petrify the human heart and i would have everyone who hears me swear that he will never contribute another dollar to build another church in which is taught such infamous lies let every man try to make every day a joy and god cannot afford to damn such a man consequently humanity is the only real religion man's inhumanity to man makes countless millions more end of ingress all's lecture on the hereafter this is a libra vox recording read for you by ted delorm in fort mill south carolina on june 7 2009 section 15 ingress all's lecture on the review of his reviewers this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org ingress all's lecture on the review of his reviewers from the book lectures of colonel robert green ingress all volume two ladies and gentlemen what have i said what has been my offense i have been spoken of as if i were a wolf endeavouring to devour the entire fold of sheep in the absence of the shepherd i believe in the trinity of observation reason and science the trinity of man woman and child the trinity of love joy and hope and thought that every man has a right to think for himself and no other man has the right to debar him of this privilege by torture by social ostracism or any of the numerous other expedience resorted to by the enemies of advancement i ask does god wish the lip worship of a slave a sneak of the man that dares not reason if i were the infinite god i would rather have the worship of one good man of brains than a world of such men i am told that i am in danger of everlasting fire and that i shall burn forever in hell i tell you my friends if i were going to hell tonight i would take an overcoat with me do not tell me that the eternal future of a man may depend upon his belief i deny it that a man should be punished for having come to an honest conclusion the honest production of his brain that an honest conclusion should be deemed a crime and so declared it is an infamous monstrous assertion and i would rather go to hell than to keep the company of a god who would damn his child for an honest belief next i preached that a woman was the equal of man entitled to everything that he is entitled to to be his partner and to be cherished and respected because she is the weaker to be treated as a splendid flower i said that man should not be crossed to her but fill the house that she is in with such joy that it would burst out at the window i have said that matrimony is the holiest of sacraments and i have said that the bible took woman up thousands of years ago and handed her down to man as a slave and i have said that the bible is a barbarous book for teaching that she is a slave and i repeat it and will prove later what i have said i have pleaded for the right of man of wife and of the little child i have said we can govern children by love and affection i have asked for tender treatment for the child of crime i have asked mothers to cease beating their children and take them to their hearts and for this i am denounced by the religious press and men in the pulpits as demon and a monster of heresy who should be driven out from among you as an unclean thing but i should not complain only a few years ago i should have been compelled to look at my denounces through flame and smoke but they dare not treat me so now or they would 100 years ago i should have been burned for claiming the right of reason 50 years ago i should have been imprisoned and my wife and children would have been torn away from me and 25 years ago i could not have made a living in the united states in my profession the law but i live now and can see through it all and all is light i delivered another lecture on ghosts in which i sought to show that man had been controlled in the past by phantoms created by his own imagination in which the pencil of fear had drawn pictures for him on the canvas of superstition and that men had groveled in the dirt before their own superstitious creations i endeavored to show that man had received nothing from these ghosts but hatred blood ignorance and unhappiness and that they had filled our world with woe and tears this is what i endeavored to show no more now everyone has as much right to differ with me as i with them but it does not make the slightest difference for the purpose of argument whether i am a good man or a bad whether i am ugly or handsome although i would not object to resting my case on that issue the only thing to be considered and discussed is is what i have said true or is it untrue now i said that the bible came from the ghosts and that they gave us the doctrine of immortality of the soul which i deny now the immortality of the soul if there is such a thing is a fact and therefore no book could make it if i am immortal i am if not no book can make me so the doctrine of immortality is based in the hope of the human heart and is not derived from any book or creed it has its origin in the ebb and flow of the human affections and will continue as long as affection and is the rainbow in the sky of hope it does not depend on a book on ghosts superstition of any kind it is a flower of the human heart i did say that these ghosts or the book taught that human slavery was right that most monstrous of all crimes that makes miserable the victim and debases the master for a slave can have all the virtues while the master cannot i did say that it riveted the chains upon the oppressed and that it counseled the robbing of that most precious of all boons liberty i add that the book upheld all this that it sustained and sanctified the institution of human slavery i did also assert that this same book which my critics claim was inspired by god inculcated the doctrine of witchcraft for which people through its teaching were hanged and burned for bringing disease upon the regal persons of kings and for souring beer i did say that this book upheld that most of all infamies polygamy and that it did not teach political liberty or religious toleration but political slavery and the most wretched intolerance i did try to prove that these ghosts knew less than nothing about medicine politics legislation astronomy geology and astrology but i am also aware that in saving these things i have done what my sensors think i ought not to have done but the victor ought not to feel malice and i shall have none as soon as i had said all these things some gentlemen felt called upon to answer them which they had a right to do now i like fairness i'm enamored with it probably because i get so little of it i can say a great many mean things for i have read all the religious papers and i ought to be able to account for every motive in a mean manner after the first gentleman whom i shall call your attention to is the reverend dr woodbridge it seems that when i delivered my lectures the conclusion had come to that man does not believe in anything but matter and force that man does not believe in spirit why not if by spirit you mean that which thinks i am one of them myself if you mean by spirit that which hopes and reasons and loves and aspires why then i am a believer in spirits but whatever spirit there is in this universe i will take my oath is a natural product and not superimposed upon this world all i will say is that whatever is is natural and there is as much goodness in my judgment as much spirit here in this world as in any other and you are just as near the heart of the universe here as you ever can be but they say there is matter and force and there is force and there is spirit well what of it there is no matter without force what would keep it together unless there was force can you imagine matter without force on a bright can you conceive a force without matter and what is spirit they say spirit is the first thing that ever was it seems to me sometimes as though spirit was the blossom and fruit of all and not the commencement but they say spirit was first what would that spirit do no force no matter a spirit living in an infinite vacuum without side edge or bottom this spirit created the world and if this spirit did there must have been a time when it commenced to create and back of that an eternity spent in absolute idleness can a spirit exist without matter or without force i honestly say i do not know what matter is what force is what spirit is but if you mean by matter anything that i can touch or by force anything that we can overcome then i believe in them if you mean by spirit anything that can think and love i believe in spirits the next critic who assailed me was the reverend mr calock i am not going to show you what i can withstand i am not going to say a word about the reputation of this man although he took some liberties with mine this gentleman says negation is a poor thing to die by i would just as leaf die by that as the opposite he spoke of the last hours of pain and voltaire and the terrors of their deathbeds but the question arises is there a word of truth in all he said i have observed that the murderer dies with courage and firmness in many instances but that does not make me think that it sanctified his crime in fact it makes no impression upon me one way or the other when a man through old age or infirmity approaches death the intellectual faculties are dimmed his senses become less and less and as he loses these he goes back to his old superstition old age brings back the memories of childhood and the great bard gave in the corrupt and besotted fall staff who prattled of babbling brooks and green fields an instance of the retracing steps taken by the memory at the last gasp it has been said that the bible was sanctified by our mothers every superstition in the world from the beginning of all time has had such a sanctification the turk dying on the russian battlefield pressing the koran to his bosom breeds his last thinking of the loving adoration of his mother to guard it every superstition has been rendered sacred by the love of a mother i know what it has cost the noble and the brave to throw to the winds these superstitions since the death of voltair who was innocent of all else than a desire to shake off the superstitions of the past the curse of rome has pursued him and ignorant protestants have echoed that curse i like voltair whenever i think of him it is as a plumed night coming from the fray with victory shining upon his brow he was once in the bastille and while there he changed his name from francis marie alouichus to voltair and when the bastille was torn down voltair was the battle cry of those who did it he did more to bring about religious toleration than any man in the galaxy of those who strove for the privilege of free thought he was always on the side of justice he was full of faults and had many virtues his doctrines have never brought unhappiness to any country he died as serenely as any one could speaking to his servant he said farewell by faithful friend could he have done a more noble act than to recognize him who had served him faithfully as a man what more could be wished and now let me say here i will give one thousand dollars in gold to any clergyman who can substantiate that the death of voltair was not as peaceful as the dawn and of thomas pain whom they assert died in fear and agony frightened by the clanking chains of devils in fact frightened to death by god i will give one thousand dollars likewise to anyone who can substantiate this absurd story a story without a word of truth in it and let me ask who dies in the most fear the man who like the saint exclaims my god my god why has thou forsaken me or voltair who peacefully and quietly bade his servant farewell the question is not who died right but who lived right i look upon death as the most unimportant moment of life and believe that not half the responsibility is attached to dying that is to living properly this reverend mr calock is a baptist he has a right to be a baptist the first baptist though was a heretic but it is among the wonders that when a heretic gets fifteen or twenty to join him he suddenly begins to be orthodox roger williams was a baptist but how he or anyone not destitute of good sense could be one passes my comprehension let me illustrate suppose it was the day of judgment tonight and we were all assembled as the ghosts say we will be to be judged and god should ask a man have you been a good man yes have you loved your wife and children yes have you taken good care of them and made them happy yes have you tried to do right by your neighbors yes paid all your debts yes and then cap the climax by asking were you ever baptized could a solitary being hear that question without laughing i think not i once happened to be in the company of six or seven baptist elders i never have been able to understand sins how i got into such bad company and they wanted to know what i thought of baptism i answered that i had not given the matter any attention in fact i had no special opinion on the subject but they pressed me and finally i told them that i thought with soap baptism was a good thing the reverend mr. guard has attacked me and has described me among other things as a dog barking at a train of course he was the train he said first the bible is not an immoral book because i swore upon it when i joined the free and accepted masons that settles the question secondly he says that Solomon had softening of the brain and fatty degeneration of the heart thirdly that the Hebrews had the right to slay all the inhabitants of Canaan according to the doctrine of the survival of the fittest he says that the destruction of these Canaanites the ripping open by the bloody sword of women with child was an act of sublime mercy think of that he says that the Canaanite should have been driven from their homes and not only driven but that the men who simply were guilty of the crime of fighting for their native land the old men with gray hairs the old mothers the young mothers the little dimpled prattling child that it was an act of sublime mercy to plunge the sword of religious persecution into old and young if that is mercy let us have injustice if there is that kind of a god i am sorry that i exist fourthly mr god said god has the right to do as he pleases with the beings he has created and fifthly that god by choosing the jews and governing them personally spoiled them to that degree that they crucified him the first opportunity they had that shows what a good administration will do sixthly he says polygamy is not a bad thing when compared with a picture of anthony and cleopatra now on exhibition in this city i will just say one word about art i think this is one of the most beautiful words in our language and do you know it never seemed to me necessary for art to go into partnership with a rag i like the paintings of angelo of rafael i like those splendid souls that are put upon canvas all there is of human beauty there are brave souls in every land who worship nature grand and nude and who with swift indignant hand tear off the fig leaves of the prude seventhly it may be said that the bible sanctions slavery but that it is not an immoral book if it does mr god playfully says that he is a puppy nine days old that he was only eight days old when i came here i'm inclined to think he has overstated his age i account for his argument precisely as he did for the sin of solemn softening of the brain or fatty degeneration of the heart it does seem to me that if i were a good christian and knew that another man was going down to the bottomless pit to be miserable and in agony forever i would try to stop him and instead of filling my mouth with epithet and invective and drawing the lips of malice back from the teeth of hatred my eyes would be filled with tears and i would do what i could to reclaim him and take him up in the arms of my affection the next gentleman is the reverend mr robinson who delivered a sermon entitled ghost against god or ingus all against honesty of course he was honest he apologized for attending an infidel lecture upon the ground that he hated to contribute to the support of a materialistic showman i am willing to trade faggots for epithets and the rack for anything that may be said in his sermon i am willing to trade the instrument of torture with which they could pull the nails from my fingers for anything which the ingenuity of orthodoxy can invent when i saw that report although i do not know that i ought to tell it i felt bad i knew that man's conscience must be rankling like a snake in his bosom that he had contributed a dollar to the support of a man as bad as i i wrote him a letter in which i said the reverend samuel robinson my dear sir in order to relieve your conscience of the stigma of having contributed to the support of an unbeliever in ghosts i hereby enclosed the dollar you paid to attend my lecture i then gave him a little good advice to be charitable and regretted exceedingly that any man could listen to me for an hour and a half and not go away satisfied that other men had the same right to think that he had the speaker went on to answer the argument of mr robinson with regard to persecution contending that protestants had been guilty of it no less than catholics and showing that the first people to pass an act of toleration in the new world were the catholics in maryland the reverend gentleman has stated also that infidelity has done nothing for the world in the development of art and science has he ever heard of darwin of tendle of huxley of john w draper of august comte of decart laplace with spinosa or any man who has taken a step in advance of his time orthodoxy never advances when it does advance it ceases to be orthodoxy a reply to certain strictures in the oxidant led the lecturer up to another ministerial critic namely the reverend w e i james i want to say that so far as i can see in his argument this gentleman has treated me in a kind and considerate spirit he makes two or three mistakes but i suppose they are the fault of the report from which he quoted i am made to say in his sermon that there is no sacred place in the universe what i did say was there is no sacred place in all the universe of thought there is nothing too holy to be investigated nothing too sacred to be understood and i said that the fields of thought were finseless that they should be without a wall i say so tonight he further said that i said that a man had not only the right to do right but to do wrong what i did say was liberty is the right to do right and the right to think right and the right to think wrong not the right to do wrong that is all i have to say in regard to that gentleman except that so far as i could see he was perfectly fair and treated me as though i was a human being as well as he the speaker sarcastically referred to the slurs thrown upon him by his reviewers who have claimed that his theories have no foundation his arguments no reason and that his utterances are vapid blasphemous and unworthy a reply he said that their statements and their actions were sadly at variance for while declaring him a senseless idiot they spent hours in striving to prove themselves not idiots in other words in one breath they declare that his views were absolutely without point and needed no explaining away while in direct rebuttal of this declaration they devoted time and labor in attempts to disprove the very things they called self-evident absurdities turning from this subject mr. Ingersoll read numerous extracts from the bible with interpolated comments he claimed that the bible authorized slavery and that many devoted believers in that book had turned the cross of christ into a whipping post he did not wish it understood that he could find no good in believers in creeds far from it for some of his dearest friends were most orthodox in their religious ideas and there had been hundreds of thousands of good men among both clergy and laymen history has shown no people more nobly self-sacrificing than the jesuit fathers who first visited this country to proselytize among the indians but these men and their like were better than their creeds better than the book in which their faith was sintered the bible tells us distinctly that the world was made in six days not periods but actual bona fide days a statement which it iterates and reiterates it also tells us that god lengthened the day for the benefit of a gentleman named jesua in other words that he stopped the rotary motion of the earth motion is changed into heat by stoppage and the world turns with such velocity that its sudden stoppage would create a heat of intensity beyond the wildest flight of our imagination and yet this impossible feat was performed that jesua might have longer time to expend in slaying a handful of amorites the bible also upholds the doctrines of witchcraft and spiritualism for sol visited the witch of indoor and she after preparing the cabinet trotted out the spirit of samuel said spirit kindly joining in conversation with sol without requiring the aid of a trans medium the speaker then quoted at length from leviticus concerning wizards and evil spirits described the temptation of christ by satan and the driving of devils from man into swine he sneered at the rights of children as biblically described citing the law which sentenced them to be stoned to death for disobedience to parents the almost sacrifice of isaac by his father and the actual murder of jeff does daughter asking if a god who could demand such worship was worthy the love of man he next referred to the conversation between god and satan concerning the man job and of the reward given to the latter for his long continued patience his three daughters and his seven sons had been taken from him merely to test his patience and the merciful god gave him in exchange three other daughters and seven sons but they were not the children whom he had loved and lost the bible represents woman as vastly inferior to man while he believed with robbie burns that god made man with a prentice hand and woman after he had learned the trade polygamy also was a doctrine supported by this pure and pious work a doctrine so foul that language is not strong enough to express its infamy the bible taught as a religious creed that if your wife your sister your brother your dearest friend tempted you to change from the religion of your father's your duty to god demanded that you should at once strike a blow at the life of your tempter let us suppose then that in truth god went to palestine and selected the scanty tribes of israel as his chosen people and supposing that he afterward came to jerusalem in the shape of a man and taught a different doctrine from the one prescribed by their book and their clergy and that the chosen people in obedience to the education he had prepared for them struck at the life of him who tempted them were they to be cursed by god and man because the former had reaped the harvest of his own sowing end of section 15 this is a libra vox recording read for you by ted delorm in fort mill south carolina on june 18th 2009 section 16 ingersaw's lecture on how the gods grow this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org ingersaw's lecture on how the gods grow from the book lectures of colonel robert green ingersaw volume two ladies and gentlemen priests have invented a crime called blasphemy that crime is the breastwork behind which ignorance superstition and hypocrisy have crouched for thousands of years and shot their poisoned arrows at the pioneers of human thought priests tell us that there is a god somewhere in heaven who objects to a human being thinking and expressing his thought priests tell us that there is a god somewhere who takes care of the people of this world a god somewhere who watches over the widow and the orphan a god somewhere who releases the slave a god somewhere who visits the innocent man in prison the same god that has allowed men for thousands of years to burn to ashes human beings simply for loving that god we have been taught that it is dangerous to reason upon these subjects extremely dangerous and that of all crimes in the world the greatest is to deny the existence of that god red in your hands in innocent blood steal the bread of the orphan deceive ruin and desert the beautiful girl who has loved and trusted you and for all this you may be forgiven for all this you can have the clear writ of that bankrupt court of the gospel but deny the existence of one of these gods and the tearful face of mercy becomes lurid with eternal hate the gates of heaven are shut against you and you with an infinite curse ringing in your ears commence your wanderings as an immortal vagrant as a deathless convict as an eternal outcast and we have been taught that the infinite has become enraged at the finite simply when the finite said i don't know why imagine it suppose mr smith should hear a couple of small bugs in his front yard discussing the question as to the existence of smith and suppose one little red bug swore on the honor of a bug that in his judgment no such man as smith lived what would you think of mr smith if he fell into a rage and brought his heel down on this little atheist bug and said i will teach you that smith is a diabolical fact and yet if there is an infinite god there is infinitely a greater difference between god and a human being than between Shakespeare and the smallest bug that ever crawled it cannot be there is something wrong in this somewhere i am told also that this being watches over us takes care of us and the other day i read a sermon you will hardly believe it but i did i had nothing else to i had read everything in that paper including the advertisements so i read this sermon it was a sermon by reverend mr moody on prayer in which he took the ground that our prayer should be thy will be done and he seemed to believe that if we prayed that prayer often enough we could induce god to have his own way he gives an instance of a woman in illinois who had a sick child and she prayed that god would not take from her arms that babe she did not pray thy will be done but she prayed according to mr moody almost a prayer of rebellion and said i cannot give up my babe god heard her prayer and the child got well and mr moody says it was an idiot when it got well for fifteen years that woman watched over and took care of that idiotic child and mr moody says how much better would it have been if she had allowed god to have had his own way think of a god who would punish a mother for speaking to him from an agonizing heart and saying i cannot give up my babe and making the child an idiot what would the devil have done under the same circumstances that is the god we are expected to worship i range myself with the opposition the next day i read another sermon preached by the reverend d whit talmadge a man of not much fancy but of great judgment he preached a sermon on dreams and went on to say that god often visited us in dreams and that he often convinces men of his existence in that way so far as i am concerned i had rather see something in the light and according to that sermon there was a poor woman in england a pauper who had the rheumatism and there was another pauper who had not the rheumatism and the pauper who had not the rheumatism used to take food to the pauper that had after a while the pauper without rheumatism died and then the pauper with the rheumatism began to think in her own mind who will bring me food that night god appeared to her in a dream he did not cure her rheumatism though he appeared to her in a dream and he took her out of the house and pointed on the right hand to an immense mountain of bread and on the left hand to an immense mountain of butter and when i read that i said to myself my lord what a place that would be to start a political party and he said to her these belong to your father do you think that he will allow one of his children to starve what a place would ireland be with that mountain of bread and butter until i read these two sermons i hardly believe that in this day and generation anybody believed that god would make a child an idiot simply because the mother had prayed for its sweet dear life or that god's visits are only in dreams but so it is orthodoxy has not advanced upon the religion of the fiji islander it is the same yesterday today and forever now we are told that there is a god and nearly every nation has had a god generally a good many of them you see the raw material was so cheap and gods were manufactured so easily that heaven has always been crammed with the phantoms of these monsters but they say there is a god and every savage tribe believes in a god it is an argument made to me every day i concede to you that fact i concede to you that all savages agree with you i admit it takes a certain amount of civilization a certain amount of thought to rise above the idea that some personal being for his own ends for his own glory made and governs this universe i admit that it takes some thought to see the universe is good and all that is good and every star that shines is a part of god and i am something no matter how little and that the infinite cannot exist without me and that therefore i am a part of the infinite i admit that it takes a little civilization to get to that point now every nation has made a god and every man that has made a god has used himself for a pattern and men have put into the mouth of their god all their mistakes in astronomy and geography in philosophy and morality and the god is never wiser or better than his creators if they believe in slavery so did he if they believe in eating human flesh he wanted his share if they were polygamous so was he if they were cruel so was he and just to the extent that man has become civilized he has civilized his god you can hardly imagine the progress that our god has made in four thousand years four thousand years ago he was a barbarian tonight he is quite an educated gentleman four thousand years ago he believed in killing and butchering little babes at the breasts of their mothers he has reformed four thousand years ago he did not believe in taking prisoners of war he said kill the old men mingle their blood with the white hair kill the women what shall we do oh god with the maidens give them to satisfy the lust of the soldiers and of the priests if there is anywhere in the serene heaven a real god i want him to write in the book of his eternal remembrance opposite my name that i deny that lie for him four thousand years ago our god was in favor of slavery four thousand years ago our god would have a man beaten to death with rugged rocks for expressing his honest thought four thousand years ago our god told the husband to kill his wife if she disagreed with him upon the important subject of religion four thousand years ago our god was a monster and if he is any better now it is simply because we have made him so i am talking about the god of the christian world there may be for ought i know upon the shore of the eternal vast some being whose very thought is the constellation of those numberless stars i do not know but if there is he has never written a bible he has never been in favor of slavery he has never advocated polygamy and he never told the murderer to sheath his dagger in the dimpled breast of a babe but they say to me our god has written a book i'm glad he did and it is by that book that i propose to judge them i find in that book that it was a crime to eat of the tree of knowledge i find that the church has always been the enemy of education and i find that the church still carries the flaming sword of ignorance and bigotry over the tree of knowledge and if that story is true ought we not after all to thank the devil he was the first schoolmaster he was the first to whisper liberty in our ears he was the author of modesty he was the author of ambition and progress and as for me give me the storm and tempest of thought and action rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith punish me when and how you will but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and there is one peculiar thing i might as well speak of here while the world has made gods it has also made devils and as a rule the devils have been better friends to man than the gods it was not a devil that drowned the world it was not a devil that covered with the multitudinous waves of an infinite sea the corpses of men women and children that was the good god the devil never sent pestilence and famine the devil never starved women and children that was the good god the meanest thing recorded of the devil is what happened concerning my servant job according to that book god met the devil and said where have you been oh been walking up and down have you noticed my man job nobody like him well who wouldn't be you have given him everything but take away what he has and he will curse you to your face and so the devil went to work and tried it it was a mean thing and that was all done to decide what you might call a wager on a difference of opinion between the serene highnesses he took away his property but job didn't sin and when god met the devil he said well what did i tell you smarty ah he said that is all very well but you touch his flesh and he will curse you and he did but job didn't curse him and then what did god do to help him he gave him some other children better looking than the first ones what kind of an idea is that for a god to kill our children and then give us better looking ones if you have loved a child i don't care if it is deformed if you have held it in your arms and covered its face with kisses you want that child back and no other i find in this bible that there was an old gentleman a little short of the article of hair and as he was going through the town a number of little children cried out to him go up thou bald head and this man of god turned and cursed them a real good humored fellow and two bears came out of the woods and tore in pieces forty two children how did the bears get there elisha could not control the bears nobody but god could control the bears in that way now just think of an infinite god making a shining star having his attention attracted by hearing some children saying to an old gentleman go up thou bald head and then speaking to his secretary or somebody else bring in a couple of bears now what a magnificent god what would the devil have done under the same circumstances and yet that is the god they want to put into the constitution in order to make our children gentle and kind and loving you hate a god like that i do i despise him and yet little children in the sabbath school are taught that infamous lie why i have very little respect for an old man that will get mad about such a thing anyway what would the christian world say of me if i should have a few children torn to pieces if they should make that remark in my face what would the devil have done under the same circumstances i tell you i cannot worship a god who is no better than the devil i cannot do it and if you will just read the old testament with the bandage off your eyes and the cloud of fear from your heart you will come to the conclusion that it was written not only by men but by barbarians by savages and that it is totally unworthy of a civilized age i believe in no god who believes in slavery i will worship no god who ever said that one of his children should own another of his children but they say to me there must be a god somewhere well i say i don't know there may be i hope there is more than one one is so lonesome just think of an old bachelor always alone i want more than one and they say somebody must have made this well i say i don't know but it strikes me that the indestructible cannot be created what would you make it of oh nothing well it strikes me that nothing considered in the light of raw material is a decided failure for my part i cannot conceive of force apart from matter and i cannot conceive of matter apart from force i cannot conceive of force somewhere without acting upon something because force must be active or it is not force and if it has no matter to act upon it ceases to be force i cannot conceive of the smallest atom of matter staying together without force beside if some god made all this there must have been some morning when he commenced and if he has existed always there is an eternity back of that when he never did anything when he lived in an infinite hole without side top or bottom he did not think for there was nothing to think about certainly he did not remember for nothing had ever happened now i cannot conceive of this i do not say it is not so i may be damned for my smartness yet i simply say i cannot conceive of it that is all but men tell me you cannot conceive of eternity that is just what i can conceive of i cannot conceive of its stopping they say i cannot conceive of infinite space that is just what i can conceive of because let me imagine all i can my imagination will stand upon the verge and see infinite space beyond infinite space is a necessity of the mind because i cannot think of enough matter to fill it eternity is a necessity of the mind because i cannot dream of the cessation of time but they say there is a design in the world consequently there must be a designer well i don't know paley says that the more wonderful a thing is the greater the necessity for creation that a watch is a wonderful thing and that it must have had a creator that the watchmaker is more wonderful than the watch therefore he must have had a creator then we come to god he is altogether more wonderful than the watchmaker therefore he had no creator there is a link out somewhere i don't pretend to understand it and so i say that had the world been any other way you would have seen the same evidence of design precisely we grow up with our conditions and you cannot imagine of a first cause why every cause has an effect 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 16 17 18 simply for saying a word in favor of human liberty to minds in ciberia 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 gentleman 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 sinners here have a very good time and that the christians don't have a very good time that is awful hard work to serve the lord and that you carry across when you deny yourself the delights of murder and forgery and all manner 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 99 out of 100 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 someone 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 not sure about john about one in a hundred will be saved and the other 99 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 brama the golden with four heads and four arms vishnu the somber 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 dropadi the white armed and krishna 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 scowl falls no more upon the waves the sun rises as of your and his golden beams still smite the lips of memnon but memnon is as voiceless as this the sacred faines 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 vile and vey and the mighty giant emir 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 crumblex of the ancient druids fallen upon the summits of the hills and covered with the centuries moss are the sacred cans 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 bachas has been thrown aside venus lies dead in stone and her white bosom heaths no more with love the streams still murmur but no niads bathe the trees still wave but in the forest aisles no dry ads dance the gods have flown from high olympus not even the beautiful women can lure them back and an eye lies unnoticed naked to the stars hushed forever are the thunders of signi lost are the voices of the prophets and the land 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 bywords 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 brama sat upon the world's throne when the scepter passed to egypt ices 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 johova sits upon the old throne who will be his successor end of section 16 this is a libravox recording read for you by ted delorm in fort mill south carolina on june 23rd 2009