 Ingersoll's Lecture on the Mistakes of Moses Now and then someone asks me why I am endeavouring to interfere with the religious faith of others, and why I try to take from the world the consolation naturally arising from a belief in eternal fire. And I answer, I want to do what little I can to make my country truly free. I want to broaden the intellectual horizon of our people. I want it so that we can differ upon all those questions and yet grasp each other's hands in genuine friendship. I want in the first place to free the clergy. I am a great friend of theirs, but they don't seem to have found it out generally. I want it so that every minister will be not a parrot, not an owl sitting upon the limb of the tree of knowledge, and hooting the hoots that have been hooted for eighteen hundred years. But I want it so that each one can be an investigator, a thinker. And I want to make his congregation grand enough so that they will not only allow him to think, but will demand that he shall think, and give to them the honest truth of his thought. As it is now, ministers are employed like attorneys for the plaintiff or the defendant. If a few people know of a young man in the neighborhood, maybe who has not a good constitution, he may not be healthy enough to be wicked, a young man who has shown no decided talent, it occurs to them to make him a minister. They contribute and send him to some school. If it turns out that that young man has more of the man in him than they thought, and he changes his opinion, everyone who contributed will feel himself individually swindled, and they will follow that young man to the grave with the poisoned shafts of malice and slander. I want it so that everyone will be free, so that a pulpit will not be a pillory. They have in Massachusetts at a place called Andover a kind of minister factory, and every professor in that factory takes an oath once in every five years, that is as long as an oath will last, that not only has he not during the last five years, but so help him, God, he will not, during the next five years, intellectually advance, and probably there is no oath he could easier keep. Since the foundation of that institution there has not been one case of perjury. They believe the same creed they first taught when the foundation stone was laid, and now when they send out a minister they brand him as hardware from Sheffield and Birmingham, and every man who knows where he was educated knows his creed, knows every argument of his creed, every book that he reads, and just what he amounts to intellectually, and knows he will shrink and shrivel and become solemnly stupid day after until he meets with death. It is all wrong. It is cruel. Those men should be allowed to grow. They should have the air of liberty and the sunshine of thought. I want to free the schools of our country. I want it so that when a professor in a college finds some fact inconsistent with Moses, he will not hide the fact. I wish to see an eternal divorce and separation between church and schools. The common school is the bread of life, but there should be nothing taught except what somebody knows, and anything else should not be maintained by a system of general taxation. I want its professors so that they will tell everything they find, that they will be free to investigate in every direction and will not be trampled by the superstitions of our day. What has religion to do with facts? Nothing. Is there any such thing as Methodist mathematics, Presbyterian botany, Catholic astronomy, or Baptist biology? What has any form of superstition or religion to do with a fact or with any science? Nothing but to hinder, delay, or embarrass. I want then to free the schools, and I want to free the politicians, so that a man will not have to pretend he is a Methodist, or his wife a Baptist, or his grandmother a Catholic, so that he can go through a campaign and when he gets through, will find none of the dust of hypocrisy on his knees. I want the people splendid enough that when they desire men to make laws for them, they will take one who knows something, who has brains enough to prophecy the destiny of the American Republic, no matter what his opinions may be on any religious subject. Suppose we are in a storm out at sea, and the billows are washing over our ship, and it is necessary that someone should reef the top sail, and a man presents himself. Would you stop him at the foot of the mast to find out his opinion on the five points of Calvinism? What has that to do with it? Congress has nothing to do with baptism or any particular creed, and from what little experience I have had in Washington, very little to do with any kind of religion whatever. Now I hope this afternoon this magnificent and splendid audience will forget that they are Baptists or Methodists, and remember that they are men and women. These are the highest titles humanity can bear, and every title you add belittles them. Man is the highest, woman is the highest. Let us remember that our views depend largely upon the country in which we happen to live. Suppose we were born in Turkey, most of us would have been Mohammedans, and when we read in the book that when Mohammed visited heaven he became acquainted with an angel named Gabriel, who was so broad between his eyes that it would take a smart camel three hundred days to make the journey. We probably would have believed it. If we did not, people would say that young man is dangerous. He is trying to tear down the fabric of our religion. What do you propose to give us instead of that angel? We cannot afford to trade off an angel of that size for nothing. Or if we had been born in India we would have believed in a god with three heads. Now we believe in three gods with one head. And so we might make a tour of the world and see that every superstition that could be imagined by the brain of man has been in some place held to be sacred. Now someone says the religion of my father and mother is good enough for me. Suppose we all said that, where would be the progress of the world? We would have the rudest and most barbaric religion, religion which no one could believe. I do not believe that it is showing real respect to our parents to believe something simply because they did. Every good father and every good mother wished their children to find out more than they knew. Every good father wants his son to overcome some obstacle that he could not grapple with. And if you wish to reflect credit on your father and mother, do it by accomplishing more than they did because you live in a better time. Every nation has had what you call a sacred record. And the older the more sacred, the more contradictory and the more inspired is the record. We of course are not an exception and I propose to talk a little about what is called the Pentateuch, a book or a collection of books said to have been written by Moses. And right here in the commencement let me say that Moses never wrote one word of the Pentateuch, not one word was written until he had been dust and ashes for hundreds of years. But as the general opinion is that Moses wrote these books, I have entitled this lecture the mistakes of Moses. For the sake of this lecture we will admit that he wrote it. Nearly every maker of religion has commenced by making the world. And it is one of the safest things to do because no one can contradict as having been present, and it gives free scope to the imagination. These books in times when there was a vast difference between the educated and the ignorant became inspired and people bowed down and worshipped them. I saw a little while ago a Bible with immense okan covers, with hasps and clasps large enough almost for a penitentiary, and I can imagine how that book would be regarded by barbarians in Europe when not more than one person in a dozen could read and write. In imagination I saw it carried into the cathedral, heard the chant of the priest, saw the swinging of the censor and the smoke rising, and when that Bible was put on the altar I can imagine the barbarians looking at it and wondering what influence that book could have on their lives and future. I do not wonder that they imagined it was inspired. None of them could write a book, and consequently when they saw it they adored it. They were stricken with awe, and rascals took advantage of that awe. Now they say that the book is inspired. I do not care whether it is or not. The question is, is it true? If it is true it doesn't need to be inspired. Nothing needs inspiration except a falsehood or a mistake. A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except a lie made for the express purpose, and finally someone gets tired of lying, and the last lie will not fit the next fact, and then there is a chance for inspiration. Right then and there a miracle is needed. The real question is, in the light of science, in the light of the brain and heart of the 19th century, is this book true? The gentleman who wrote it begins by telling us that God made the universe out of nothing. That I cannot conceive, it may be so, but I cannot conceive it. Nothing in the light of raw material is to my mind a decided and disastrous failure. I cannot imagine of nothing being made into something any more than I can of something being changed back into nothing. I cannot conceive of force aside from matter because force to be force must be active, and unless there is matter there is nothing for force to act upon, and consequently it cannot be active. So I simply say I cannot comprehend it. I cannot believe it. I may roast for this, but it is in my honest opinion. The next thing he proceeds to tell us is that God divided the darkness from the light, and right here let me say when I speak about God I simply mean the being described by the Jews. There may be an immensity of being beneath whose wing the universe exists, whose every thought is a glittering star, but I know nothing about him. Not the slightest, and this afternoon I am simply talking about the being described by the Jewish people. When I say God I mean him. Moses describes God dividing the light from the darkness. I suppose that at that time they must have been mixed. You can readily see how light and darkness can get mixed. They must have been entities. The reason I think so is because in that same book I find that darkness overspread Egypt so thick that it could be felt, and they used to have on exhibition in Rome a bottle of the darkness that once overswept Egypt. The gentleman who wrote this in imagination saw God dividing light from the darkness. I am sure the man who wrote it believed darkness to be an entity, a something, a tangible thing that can be mixed with light. The next thing that he informs us is that God divided the waters above the firmament from those below the firmament. The man who wrote that believed the firmament to be a solid affair, and that is what the gods did. You recollect the gods came down and made love to the daughters of men, and I never blamed them for it. I have never read a description of any heaven I would not leave on the same errand. That is where the gods lived. There is where they kept the water. It was solid. That is the reason the people prayed for rain. They believed that an angel could take a lever, raise a window, and let out the desired quantity. I find in the Psalms that he bowed the heavens and came down, and we read that the children of men built a tower to reach the heavens and climb into the abode of the gods. The man who wrote that believed the firmament to be solid. He knew nothing about the laws of evaporation. He did not know that the sun wooed with amorous kiss the waves of the sea, and that disappointed their vaporous size changed to tears and fell again as rain. The next thing he tells us is that the grass began to grow, and the branches of the trees laughed into blossom, and the grass ran up the shoulder of the hills, and yet not a solitary ray of light had left the eternal quiver of the sun. Not a blade of grass had ever been touched by a gleam of light, and I do not think that grass will grow to hurt without a gleam of sunshine. I think the man who wrote that simply made a mistake, and is excusable to a certain degree. The next day he made the sun and the moon. The sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night. Do you think the man who wrote that knew anything about the size of the sun? I think he thought it was about three feet in diameter, because I find in some book that the sun was stopped a whole day to give a general named Joshua time to kill a few more Amalekites, and the moon was stopped also. Now it seems to me that the sun would give light enough without stopping the moon, but as they were in the stopping business they did it just for devilment. At another time we read the sun was turned ten degrees backward to convince Hezekiah that he was not going to die of a boil. How much easier it would have been to cure the boil! The man who wrote that thought the sun was two or three feet in diameter, and could be stopped and pulled around like the sun and moon in a theater. Do you know that the sun throws out every second of time as much heat as could be generated by burning eleven thousand million tons of coal? I don't believe he knew that, or that he knew the motion of the earth. I don't believe he knew that it was turning on its axis at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, because if he did he would have understood the immensity of heat that would have been generated by stopping the world. It has been calculated by one of the best mathematicians and astronomers that to stop the world would cause as much heat as it would take to burn a lump of solid coal three times as big as the globe. And yet we find in that book that the sun was not only stopped but turned back ten degrees simply to convince a gentleman that he was not going to die of a boil. They will say I will be damned if I do not believe that, and I tell them I will if I do. Then he gives us the history of astronomy, and he gives it to us in five words. He made the stars also. He came very near forgetting the stars. Do you believe that the man who wrote that knew that there are stars as much larger than this earth as this earth is larger than the apple which Adam and Eve are said to have eaten? Do you believe that he knew that this world is but a speck in the shining glittering universe of existence? I would gather from that that he made the stars after he got the world done. The telescope in reading the infinite leaves of the heavens has ascertained that light travels at the rate of 192,000 miles per second, and it would require millions of years to come from some of the stars to this earth. Yet the beams of those stars mingle in our atmosphere so that if those distant orbs were fashioned when this world began, we must have been whirling in space not 6,000, but many millions of years. Do you believe the man who wrote that, as a history of astronomy, really knew that this world was but a speck compared with millions of sparkling orbs? I do not. He then proceeds to tell us that God made fish and cattle, and that man and women were created male and female. The first account stops at the second verse of the second chapter. You see, the Bible originally was not divided into chapters. The first Bible that was ever divided into chapters in our language was made in the year of grace 1550. The Bible was originally written in the Hebrew language, and the Hebrew language at that time had no vowels in writing. It was written with consonants and without being divided into chapters or into verses, and there was no system of punctuation whatsoever. After you go home tonight, write an English sentence or two with only consonants close together, and you will find that it will take twice as much inspiration to read it as it did to write it. When the Bible was divided into verses and chapters, the divisions were not always correct, and so the division between the first and second chapter of Genesis is not in the right place. The second account of the creation commences at the third verse, and it differs from the first in two essential points. In the first account, man is the last maid. In the second, man is made before the beasts. In the first account, man is made male and female. In the second, only a male is made, and there is no intention of making a woman whatever. You will find by reading that second chapter that God tried to palm off on Adam a beast as his helpmeat. Everybody talks about the Bible, and nobody reads it. That is the reason it is so generally believed. I am probably the only man in the United States who has read the Bible through this year. I have wasted that time, but I had a purpose in view. Just read it, and you will find about the 23rd verse that God caused all the animals to walk before Adam in order that he might name them. And the animals came like a menagerie into town, and as Adam looked at all the crawlers, jumpers, and creepers, this God stood by to see what he would call them. After this procession passed, it was pathetically remarked, yet was there not found any helpmeat for Adam. Adam didn't see anything that he could fancy, and I am glad he didn't. If he had, there would not have been a free thinker in this world. We should have all died orthodox. And finding Adam was so particular, God had to make him a helpmeat. And having used up the nothing, he was compelled to take part of the man to make the woman with, and he took from the man a rib. How did he get it? And then imagine a God with a bone in his hand, and about to start a woman trying to make up his mind whether to make a blonde or a brunette. Right here it is only proper that I should warn you of the consequences of laughing at any story in the Bible. When you come to die, your laughing at this story will be a thorn in your pillow. As you look back upon the record of your life, no matter how many men you have wrecked and ruined, and no matter how many women you have deceived and deserted, all that may be forgiven you. But if you recollect that you have laughed at God's book, you will see through the shadows of death, the leering looks of fiends and the forked tongues of devils. Let me show you how it will be. For instance, it is the day of judgment. When the man is called up by the recording secretary or whoever does the cross-examining, he says to his soul, Where are you from? I am from the world. Yes, sir. What kind of man were you? Well, I don't like to talk about myself. But you have to. What kind of man were you? Well, I was a good fellow. I loved my wife. I loved my children. My home was my heaven. My fireside was my paradise. And to sit there and see the lights and shadows falling on the faces of those I love, that to me was a perpetual joy. I never gave one of them a solitary moment of pain. I don't owe a dollar in the world, and I left enough to pay my funeral expenses and keep the wolf of want from the door of the house I loved. That is the kind of man I am. Did you belong to any church? I did not. They were too narrow for me. They were always expecting me to be happy simply because somebody else was to be damned. Well, did you believe that rib story? What rib story? You mean that Adam and Eve business? No, I did not. To tell you the God's truth, that was a little more than I could swallow. Tell with him. Next, where are you from? I'm from the world too. Do you belong to any church? Yes, sir, and to the Young Men's Christian Association. What is your business? Cashier in a bank. Did you ever run off with any money? I don't like to tell, sir. Well, you have to. Yes, sir, I did. What kind of a bank did you have? A savings bank. How much did you run off with? One hundred thousand dollars. Did you take anything else along with you? Yes, sir. What? I took my neighbor's wife. Did you have a wife and children of your own? Yes, sir. And you deserted them? Oh, yes, but such was my confidence in God that I believed he would take care of them. Have you heard of them since? No, sir. Did you believe that rib story? Ah, bless your soul, yes. I believe all of it, sir. I often used to be sorry that there were not harder stories yet in the Bible so that I could show what my faith could do. You believed it, did you? Yes, with all my heart. Give him a harp. I simply wanted to show you how important it is to believe these stories. Of all the authors in the world, God hates a critic the worst. Having got this woman done, he brought her to the man, and they started housekeeping, and a few minutes afterwards, a snake came through a crack in the fence and commenced to talk with her on the subject of fruit. She was not acquainted in the neighborhood, and she did not know whether snakes talked or not, or whether they knew anything about the apples or not. Well, she was misled, and the husband ate some of those apples and laid it all on his wife. And there is where the mistake was made. God ought to have rubbed him out at once. He might have known that no good could come of starting the world with a man like that. They were turned out. Then the trouble commenced, and people got worse and worse. God, you must recollect, was holding the reins of government, but he did nothing for them. He allowed them to live six hundred and sixty-nine years without knowing their ABC. He never started a school, not even a Sunday school. He didn't even keep his own boys at home. And the world got worse every day, and finally he concluded to drown them. Yet that same God has the impudence to tell me how to raise my own children. What would you think of a neighbor who had just killed his babes, giving you his views on domestic economy? God found that he could do nothing with them, and he said, I will drown them all, except a few. And he picked out a fellow by the name of Noah that had been a bachelor for five hundred years. If I had to drown anybody, I would have drowned him. I believe that Noah had then been married something like one hundred years. God told him to build a boat, and he built one five hundred feet long, eighty or ninety feet broad, and fifty-five feet high, with one door shutting on the outside, and one window twenty-two inches square. If Noah had any hobby in the world, it was ventilation. Then into this ark he put a certain number of all the animals in the world. Naturalists have ascertained that at that time there were at least eleven hundred thousand insects necessary to go into the ark, about forty thousand mammalia, sixteen hundred reptiles, to say nothing of the mastodon, the elephant, and the animal-cule, of which thousands live upon a single leaf, and which cannot be seen by the naked eye. Noah had no microscope, and yet he had to pick them out by pairs. You have no idea the trouble that man had. Some say that the flood was not universal, that it was partial. Why then did God say, I will destroy every living thing beneath the heavens? If it was partial, why did Noah save the birds? An ordinary bird, tending strictly to business, can beat a partial flood. Why did he put the birds in there, the eagles, the vultures, the condors, if it was only a partial flood? And how did he get them in there? Were they inspired to go there, or did he drive them up? Did the polar bear leave his home of ice and start for the tropic inquiring for Noah? Or could the kangaroo come from Australia unless he was inspired, or somebody was behind him? Then there are animals on this hemisphere, not on that. How did he get them across? And there are some animals which would be very unpleasant in an ark, unless the ventilation was very perfect. When he got the animals in the ark, God shut the door and Noah pulled down the window. And then it began to rain, and it kept on raining until the water went twenty-nine feet over the highest mountain. Chimborazo then as now lifted its head above the clouds, and then as now there sat the condor. And yet the waters rose and rose over every mountain in the world, twenty-nine feet above the highest peaks covered with snow and ice. How deep were these waters? About five and a half miles. How long did it rain? Forty days. How much did it have to rain a day? About eight hundred feet? How is that for dampness? No wonder they said the windows of the heavens were open. If I had been there I would have said the whole side of the house was out. How long were they in this ark? A year and ten days, floating around with no rudder, no sail, nobody on the outside at all. The window was shut, and there was no door except the one that shut on the outside. Who ran this ark? Who took care of it? Finally it came down on Mount Ararat, a peak seventeen thousand feet above the level of the sea, and with about three thousand feet of snow, and it stopped there simply to give the animals from the tropics a chance. Then Noah opened the window and got a breath of fresh air and let out all the animals, and then Noah took a drink and God made a bargain with him that he would not drown us any more, and he put a rainbow in the clouds and said, when I see that I will recollect that I have promised not to drown you, because if it was not for that he is at to drown us at any minute. Now can anybody believe that that is the origin of the rainbow? Are you not all familiar with the natural causes which bring those beautiful arches before our eyes? Then the people started out again, and they were as bad as before. Here let me ask why God did not make Noah in the first place? He knew he would have to drown Adam and Eve and all his family. Then another thing, why did he want to drown the animals? What had they done? What crime had they committed? It is very hard to answer these questions. That is, for a man who has only been born once, after a while they tried to build a tower to get into heaven, and the gods heard about it and said, let's go down and see what man is up to. They came and found things a great deal worse than they thought, and there upon he confounded the language to prevent them succeeding, so that the fellow up above could not shout down mortar or brick to the one below, and they had to give it up. Is it possible that anyone believes that that is the reason why we have the variety of languages in the world? Do you know that language is born of human experience and is a physical science? Do you know that every word has been suggested in some way by the feelings or observations of man, that there are words as tender as the dawn, as serene as the stars, and others as wild as the beasts? Do you know that language is dying and being born continually, that every language has its cemetery and its cradle, its bud and blossom, and withered leaf? Man has loved, enjoyed, and suffered, and language is simply the expression he gives those experiences. Then the world began to divide, and the Jewish nation was started. Now I want to say that at one time your ancestors like mine were barbarians. If the Jewish people had to write these books now they would be civilized books, and I do not hold them responsible for what their ancestors did. We find the Jewish people first in Canaan, and there were seventy of them counting Joseph and his children already in Egypt. They lived two hundred and fifteen years, and they then went down into Egypt and stayed there two hundred and fifteen years. They were four hundred and thirty years in Canaan and Egypt. How many did they have when they went to Egypt? Seventy. How many were they at the end of two hundred and fifteen years? Three millions. That is a good many. We had at the time of the revolution in this country three millions of people. Since that time there have been four doubles until we have forty eight millions today. How many would the Jews number at the same ratio in two hundred and fifteen years? Call it eight doubles and we have forty thousand, but instead of forty thousand they had three millions. How do I know they had three millions because they had six hundred thousand men of war? For every honest voter in the state of Illinois there will be five other people, and there are always more voters than men of war. They must have had at the lowest possible estimate three millions of people. Is that true? Is there a minister in the city of Chicago that will testify to his own idiocy by claiming that they could have increased to three millions by that time? If there is let him say so. Do not let him talk about the civilizing influence of a lie. When they got into the desert they took a census to see how many firstborn children there were. They found they had twenty thousand two hundred and seventy three firstborn males. It is reasonable to suppose there was about the same number of firstborn girls, or forty five thousand firstborn children. There must have been about as many mothers as firstborn children. Dividing three millions by forty five thousand mothers you will find that the women in Israel had to have on the average sixty eight children a piece. Some stories are too thin. This is too thick. Now we know that among three million people there will be about three hundred births a day, and according to the Old Testament whenever a child was born the mother had to make a sacrifice, a sin offering for the crime of having been a mother. If there is in this universe anything that is infinitely pure it is a mother with her child in her arms. Every woman had to have a sacrifice of a couple of pigeons, and the priest had to eat those pigeons in the most holy place. At that time there were at least three hundred births a day, and the priests had to cook and eat these pigeons in the most holy place, and at that time there were only three priests. Two hundred birds a piece per day. I look upon them as the champion bird-eaters of the world. Then where were these Jews? They were upon the desert of Sinai, and Sahara compared to that is a garden. Imagine an ocean of lava torn by storm and vexed by tempest suddenly gazed at by a gorgon and changed to stone. Such was the desert of Sinai. The whole supplies of the world could not maintain three millions of people on the desert of Sinai for forty years. It would cost one hundred thousand millions of dollars and would bankrupt Christendom. And yet there they were with flocks and herds so many that they sacrificed over one hundred and fifty thousand first born lambs at one time. It would require millions of acres to support these flocks, and yet there was no blade of grass, and there is no account of it raining bailed hay. They sacrificed one hundred and fifty thousand lambs, and the blood had all to be sprinkled on the altar within two hours, and there were only three priests. They would have to sprinkle the blood of twelve hundred and fifty lambs per minute. Then all the people gathered in front of the tabernacle eighteen feet deep. Three millions of people would make a column six miles long. Some reverend gentlemen say they were ninety feet deep. Well that would make a column of over a mile. Where were these people going? They were going to the Holy Land. How large was it? Twelve thousand square miles, one fifth the size of Illinois, a frightful country covered with rocks and desolation. There never was a land agent in the city of Chicago that would not have blushed with shame to have described that land as flowing with milk and honey. Do you believe that God Almighty ever went into partnership with Hornets? Is it necessary unto salvation? God said to the Jews, I will send Hornets before you to drive out the Canaanites. How would a Hornet know a Canaanite? Is it possible that God inspired the Hornets, that he granted letters of mark and reprisal to Hornets? I am willing to admit that nothing in the world would be better calculated to make a man leave his native country than a few Hornets attending strictly to business. God said kill the Canaanites slowly. Why? Lest the beast of the field increase upon you. How many Jews were there? Three millions. Going to a country how large? Twelve thousand square miles. But were there nations already in this Holy Land? Yes, there were seven nations mightier than the Jews. Say there would be twenty-one millions when they got there, or twenty-four millions with themselves. Yet they were told to kill them slowly, lest the beasts of the field increase upon them. Is there a man in Chicago that believes that? Then what does he teach it to little children for? Let him tell the truth. So the same God went into partnership with snakes. The children of Israel lived on manna. One account says all the time, and another only a little while. That is the reason there is a chance for commentaries, and you can exercise faith. If the book was reasonable, everybody could get to heaven in a moment. But whenever it looks as if it could not be that way, and you believe, you are almost a saint. And when you know it is not that way and believe, you are a saint. He fed them on manna. Now manna is very peculiar stuff. It would melt in the sun, and yet they used to cook it by seething and baking. I would as soon think of frying snow and boiling icicles. But this manna had other peculiar qualities. It shrank to an omer, no matter how much they gathered, and swelled up to an omer, no matter how little they gathered. What a magnificent thing manna would be for the currency, shrinking and swelling according to the volume of business. There was not a change in the bill of fare for forty years, and they knew that God could just as well give them three square meals a day. They remembered about the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions in Egypt, and they said, Our souls abhoreth this light bread. Then this God got mad. You know cooks are always touchy, and thereupon he sent snakes to bite the men, women and children. He also sent them quails in wrath and anger, and while they had the flesh between their teeth, he struck thousands of them dead. He always acted in that way, all of a sudden. People had no chance to explain, no chance to move for a new trial. Nothing. I want to know if it is reasonable he should kill people for asking for one change of diet in forty years. Suppose you had been boarding with an old lady for forty years, and she never had a solitary thing on her table but hash, and one morning you said, My soul abhoreth hash. What would you say if she let a basket full of rattlesnakes up on you? Now, is it possible for people to believe this? The Bible says their clothes did not wax old, they did not get shiny at the knees or elbows, and their shoes did not wear out. They grew right along with them. The little boy, starting out with his first pants, grew up, and his pants grew with him. Some commentators have insisted that angels attended to their wardrobes. I never could believe it. Just think of one angel hunting another and saying, There goes another button. I cannot believe it. There must be a mistake somewhere or somehow. Do you believe the real God if there is one ever killed a man for making hair oil? And yet you find in the Pentateuch that God gave Moses a recipe for making hair oil to grease Aaron's beard, and said if anybody made the same hair oil he should be killed. And he gave him a formula for making ointment, and he said if anybody made ointment like that he should be killed. I think that is carrying patent laws to excess. There must be some mistake about it. I cannot imagine the infinite creator of all the shining worlds giving a recipe for hair oil. Do you believe that the real God came down to Mount Sinai with a lot of patterns for making a tabernacle, patterns for tongs for snuffers and such thing? Do you believe that God came down on that mountain and told Moses how to cut a coat and how it should be trimmed? What would an infinite God care on which side he cut the breast? What color the fringe is or how the buttons were placed? Do you believe God told Moses to make curtains of fine linen? Where did they get their flax in the desert? How did they weave it? Did he tell him to make things of gold, silver, and precious stones when they hadn't them? Is it possible that God told them not to eat any fruit until after the fourth year of planting the trees? You see all these things were written hundreds of years afterwards and the priests in order to collect the tides dated the laws back. They did not say this is our law, but thus said God to Moses in the wilderness. Now can you believe that? Imagine a scene the eternal God tells Moses here is the way I want you to consecrate my priests. Catch a sheep and cut his throat. I never could understand why God wanted a sheep killed just because a man had done a mean trick. Perhaps it was because his priests were fond of mutton. He tells Moses further to take some of the blood and put it on his right thumb, a little on his right ear, and a little on his right big toe. Do you believe God ever gave such instructions for the consecration of his priests? If you should see the South Sea islanders going through such a performance you could not keep your face straight. And will you tell me that it had to be done in order to consecrate a man to the service of the infinite God? Supposing the blood got on the left toe. Then we find in this book how God went to work to make the Egyptians let the Israelites go. Suppose we wish to make a treaty with the Mikado of Japan and Mr. Hayes sent a commissioner there and suppose he should employ Herman, the wonderful German, to go along with him. And when they came in the presence of the Mikado, Herman threw down an umbrella which changed into a turtle, and the commissioner said, this is my certificate. You would say the country is disgraced. You would say the president of a republic like this disgraces himself with jugglery. Yet we are told God sent Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh, and when they got there Moses threw down a stick which turned into a snake. That God is a juggler. He is the infinite prestidigitator. Is that possible? Was that really a snake or was it the appearance of a snake? If it was the appearance of a snake it was a fraud. Then the necromancers of Egypt were sent for and they threw down sticks which turned into snakes, but those were not so large as Moses's snakes which swallowed them. I maintain that it is just as hard to make small snakes as it is to make large ones. The only difference is that to make large snakes, either larger sticks or more practice is required. Do you believe that God reigned Hale on innocent cattle, killing them in the highways and in the field? Why should he inflict punishment on cattle for something their owners had done? I could never have any respect for a God that would so inflict pain upon a brute beast simply on account of the crime of its owner. Is it possible that God worked miracles to convince Pharaoh that slavery was wrong? Why did he not tell Pharaoh that any nation founded on slavery could not stand? Why did he not tell him your government is founded on slavery and it will go down and the sands of the desert will hide from the view of man, your temples, your altars, and your feigns? Why did he not speak about the infamy of slavery? Because he believed in the infamy of slavery himself. Can we believe that God will allow a man to give his wife the right of divorcement and make the mother of his children a wanderer and a vagrant? There is not one word about woman in the Old Testament except the word of shame and humiliation. But God of the Bible does not think woman is as good as man. She never was worth mentioning. It did not take the pains to recount the death of the mother of us all. I have no respect for any book that does not treat woman as the equal of man, and if there is any God in this universe who thinks more of me than he thinks of my wife, he is not well acquainted with both of us. And yet they say that that was done on account of the hardness of their hearts and that was done in a community where the law was so fierce that it stoned a man to death for picking up sticks on Sunday. Would it not have been better to stone to death every man who abused his wife and allowed them to pick up sticks on account of the hardness of their hearts? If God wanted to take those Jews from Egypt to the land of Canaan, why didn't he do it instantly? If he was going to do a miracle, why didn't he do one worth talking about? After God had killed all the first born in Egypt, after he had killed all the cattle, still Egypt could raise an army that could put to flight six hundred thousand men. And because this God overwhelmed the Egyptian army, he bragged about it for a thousand years, repeatedly calling the attention of the Jews to the fact that he overthrew Pharaoh and his hosts. Did he help much with their six hundred thousand men? We find by the records of the day that the Egyptian standing army at the time was never more than one hundred thousand men. Must we believe all these stories in order to get to heaven when we die? Must we judge of a man's character by the number of stories he believes? Are we to get to heaven by creed or by deed? That is the question. Shall we reason or shall we simply believe? Ah, but they say the Bible is not inspired about those little things. The Bible says the rabbit and the hare chew the cud, but they do not. They have a tremulous motion of the lip, but that being that made them says they chew the cud. The Bible therefore is not inspired in natural history. Is it inspired in its astrology? No. Well, what is it inspired in, in its law? Thousands of people say that if it had not been for the ten commandments, we would not have known any better than to rob or steal. Suppose a man planted an acre of potatoes, hod them all summer and dug them in the fall. And suppose a man had sat upon the fence all the time and watched him. Do you believe it would be necessary for that man to read the ten commandments, to find out who in his judgment had a right to take those potatoes? All laws against larceny had been made by industry to protect the fruits of its labor. Why is there a law against murder simply because a large majority of people object to being murdered? That is all. And all these laws were in force thousands of years before that time. One of the commandments said they should not make any graven images, and that was the death of art in Palestine. No sculptor has ever enriched stone with the divine forms of beauty in that country. And any commandment that is the death of art is not a good commandment. But they say the Bible is morally inspired, and they tell me there is no civilization without this Bible. Then God knows that just as well as you do. God always knew it. And if you can't civilize a nation without a Bible, why didn't God give every nation just one Bible to start with? Why did God allow hundreds of thousands and billions of billions to go down to hell just for the lack of a Bible? They say that it is morally inspired. Well, let us examine it. I want to be fair about this thing because I am willing to stake my salvation or damnation upon this question, whether the Bible is true or not. I say it is not. And upon that I am willing to wager my soul. Is there a woman here who believes in the institution of polygamy? Is there a man here who believes in that infamy? You say no, we do not. Then you are better than your God was four thousand years ago. Four thousand years ago he believed in it, taught it, and upheld it. I pronounce it and denounce it the infamy of infamies. It robs our language of every sweet and tender word in it. It takes the fireside away forever. It takes the meaning out of the words father, mother, sister, brother, and turns the temple of love into a vile den where crawl the slimy snakes of lust and hatred. I was in Utah a little while ago and was on the mountain where God used to talk to Brigham Young. Me never said anything to me. I said that it was just as reasonable that God in the 19th century should talk to a polygamist in Utah as it was that four thousand years ago on Mount Sinai he talked to Moses upon that hellish and damnable question. I have no love for any God who believes in polygamy. There is no heaven on this earth save where the one woman loves the one man and the one man loves the one woman. I guess it is not inspired on the polygamy question. Maybe it is inspired about religious liberty. God said if anybody differs with you about religion, kill him. He told his peculiar people if anyone teaches a different religion, kill him. He did not say try and convince him that he is wrong, but kill him. He did not say I am in the miracle business and I will convince him, but kill him. He said to every husband if your wife that you love as you love your own soul says let us go and worship other gods then thy hand shall be the first upon her and she shall be stoned with stones until she dies. Well now I hate a god of that kind and I cannot think of being nearer heaven than to be away from him. A god tells a man to kill his wife simply because she differs with him on religion. If the real god were to tell me to kill my wife I would not do it. If you had lived in Palestine at that time and your wife the mother of your children had woke up at night and said I am tired of Jehovah. He is always turning up that board bill. He is always telling about whipping the Egyptians. He is always killing somebody. I am tired of him. Let's worship the sun. The sun has clothed the world in beauty. It has covered the earth with green and flowers. By its divine light I first saw your face. Its light has enabled me to look into the eyes of my beautiful babe. Let us worship the sun, father and mother of light and love and joy. Then what would it be your duty to do? Kill her? Do you believe a real god ever did that? Your hand should be first upon her and when you took up some ragged rock and hurled it against a white bosom filled with love for you and saw running away the red current of her sweet life then you would look up to heaven and receive the congratulations of the infinite fiend whose commandments you had to obey. I guess the Bible was not inspired about religious liberty. Let me ask you right here, suppose as a matter of fact God gave those laws to the Jews and told them whenever a man preaches a different religion kill him and suppose that afterwards the same God took upon himself flesh and came to the world and taught and preached a different religion and the Jews crucified him did he not reap exactly what he sowed? Maybe this book is inspired about war. God told the Israelites to overrun that country and kill every man woman and child for defending their native land kill the old men yes kill the women certainly and the little dimpled babes in the cradle that smile and coo in the face of murder dash out their brains this is the will of God will you tell me that any God ever commanded such infamy kill the men and the women and the young men and the babes what shall we do with the maiden give them to the rabble murderers do you believe that God ever allowed the roses of love and the violets of modesty that shed their perfume in the heart of a maiden to be trampled beneath the brutal feet of lust if there is any God I pray to him to write in the book of eternal remembrance opposite to my name that I denied that lie whenever a woman reads a Bible and comes to that passage she ought to throw the book from her in contempt and scorn do you tell me that any decent God would do that what would the devil have done under the same circumstances just think of it and yet that is the God that we want to get into the constitution that is the God we teach our children about so that they will be sweet and tender amiable and kind that monster that fiend I guess the Bible is not inspired about religious liberty nor about war then if it is not inspired about these things maybe it is inspired about slavery God tells the Jews to buy up the children of the heathen round about and they should be servants for them what is a servant if they struck a servant and he died immediately punishment was to follow but if the injured man should linger a while there was no punishment because the servant represented their money do you believe that it is right that God made one man to work for another and to receive pay in rations do you believe God said that a whip on the naked back was the legal tender for labor performed is it possible that the real God ever gave such infamous blood thirsty laws what more does he say when the time of a married slave expired he could not take his wife and children with him then if the slave did not wish to desert his family he had his ears pierced with an all and became his master's property forever do you believe that God ever turned the dimpled cheeks of little children into iron chains to hold a man in slavery do you know that a God like that would not make a respectable devil I want none of his mercy I want no pot and no lot in the heaven of such a God I will go to perdition where there is human sympathy the only voice we have ever had from either of those other worlds came from hell there was a rich man who prayed his brothers to attend to Lazarus so that they might not come to this place that is the only instance so far as we know of souls across the river having any sympathy and I would rather be in hell asking for water than in heaven denying that petition well what is this book inspired about where does the inspiration come from why was it that so many animals were killed it was simply to make atonement for man that is all they killed something that had not committed a crime in order that the one who had committed the crime might be acquitted based upon that idea is the atonement of the Christian religion that is the reason I attack this book because it is the basis of another infamy this that one man can be good for another or that one man can sin for another I deny it you have got to be good for yourself you have got to sin for yourself the trouble about the atonement is that it saves the wrong man for instance I kill someone he is a good man he loves his wife and children and tries to make them happy but he is not a Christian and goes to hell just as soon as I am convicted and cannot get a pardon I get religion and I go to heaven the hand of mercy cannot reach down through the shadows of hell to my victim there is no atonement for the saint only for the sinner and the criminal the atonement saves the wrong man I have said that I would never make a lecture at all without attacking this doctrine I did not care what I started out on I was always going to attack this doctrine and in my conclusion I want to draw you a few pictures of the Christian heaven but before I do that I want to say the rest I have to say about Moses I want you to understand that the Bible was never printed until 1488 I want you to know that up to that time it was in manuscript in possession of those who could change it if they wished and they did change it because no two ever agreed much of it was in the waste basket of credulity in the open mouth of tradition and in the dull ear of memory I want you also to know that the Jews themselves never agreed as to what books were inspired and that there were a lot of books written that were not incorporated in the Old Testament I want you to know that two or three years before Christ the Hebrew manuscript was translated into Greek and that the original from which the translation was made has never been seen since some Latin Bibles were found in Africa but no two agreed and then they translated the Septuagint into the languages of Europe and no two agreed Henry the 8th took a little time between murdering his wives to see that the word of God was translated correctly you must recollect that we are indebted to murderers for our Bibles and our creeds Constantine who helped on the good work at its early stage murdered his wife and child mingling their blood with the blood of the Savior the Bible that Henry the 8th got up did not suit and then his daughter the murderers of Mary Queen of Scots got up another edition which also did not suit and finally that philosophical idiot King James prepared the edition which we now have there are at least 100,000 errors in the Old Testament but everybody sees that it is not enough to invalidate its claim to infallibility but these errors are gradually being fixed and here after the prophet will be fed by Arabs instead of ravens and Samson's 300 foxes will be 300 sheaves already bound which were fired and thrown into the standing wheat I want you all to know that there was no contemporaneous literature at the time the Bible was composed and that the Jews were infinitely ignorant in their day and generation that they were isolated by bigotry and wickedness from the rest of the world I want you to know that there are 1400 millions of people in the world and that with all the talk and work of the societies only 120 millions have got Bibles I want you to understand that not one person in 100 in this world ever read the Bible and no two ever understood it alike who did read it and that no one person probably ever understood it right I want you to understand that where this Bible has been man has hated his brother there have been dungeons racks thumb screws and the sword I want you to know that the cross has been in partnership with the sword and that the religion of Jesus Christ was established by murderers tyrants and hypocrites I want you to know that the church carried the black flag then talk about the civilizing influence of this religion now I want to give an idea or two in regard to the Christians heaven of all the selfish things in this world it is one man wanting to get to heaven carrying nothing what becomes of the rest of mankind 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 today we are taught by it that fathers and mothers brothers and sisters can all be happy in heaven no matter who may be in hell that the husband can be happy there with the wife that would have died for him at any moment of his life in hell but they say we don't believe in fire 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 then that you won't care how you used to be don't you see what an infinitely mean belief that is 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 and you meet someone whom you have suckered whose nakedness you have clothed whose famine you have fed the fire will cool up a little according to this christian doctrine when you are in heaven you won't care how mean you were once what must be the social condition of a gentleman in heaven who will admit that he never would have been there if he had not got scared what must be the social position of an angel who will always admit that if another had not pitied him he ought to have been damned is it a compliment to an infinite god to say that every being he ever made deserved to be damned the minute he 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 for instance here is a man seventy years of age who has been a splendid fellow and lived according to the laws of nature he has got about him splendid children whom he has loved and cared for with all his heart he did not happen to believe in this bible he did not believe in the pentateuch he did not believe that because some children made fun of a gentleman who was short of hair god sent two bears and tore the little darlings to pieces he had a tender heart and he thought about the mothers who would take the pieces the bloody fragments of the children and press them to their bosom in a frenzy of grief he thought about their wails and lamentations and could not believe that god was such an infinite monster that was all he thought but he went to hell then there is another man who made a hell on earth for his wife who had to be taken to the insane asylum and his children were driven from home and his children were driven from home and were wanderers and vagrants in the world but just between the last sin and the last breath this fellow got religion and he never did another thing except to take his medicine he never did a solitary human being a favor and he died and went to heaven don't you think he would be astonished to see that other man in hell and say to himself is it possible that such a splendid character should bear such fruit and that all my rascality at last has brought me next to god or let us put another case you were once alone in the desert no provisions no water no hope and just when your life was at its lowest ebb a man appeared gave you water and food and brought you safely out how you would bless that man time rolls on you die and go to heaven and one day you see through the black night of hell the friend who saved your life begging for a drop of water to cool his parched lips he cries to you remember what i did in the desert give me to drink how mean how contemptible you would feel to see his suffering and be unable to relieve him but this is the christian heaven we sit by the fireside and see the flames and the sparks fly up the chimney everybody happy and the cold wind and sleet are beating on the window and out on the doorstep is a mother with a child on her breast freezing how happy it makes a fireside that beautiful contrast and we say god is good and there we sit and she sits and moans not one night but forever or 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 yet 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 i want every one of you to say that you never will directly or indirectly give a dollar to any man to preach that falsehood it has done harm enough it has covered the world with blood it has filled the asylums for the insane it has cast a shadow in the heart in the sunlight of every good and tender man and woman i say let us rid the heavens of this monster and write upon the dome liberty love and law no matter what may come to me or what may come to you let us do exactly what we believe to be right and let us give the exact thought in our brains rather than have this christianity true i would rather all the gods would destroy themselves this morning i would rather the whole universe would go to nothing if such a thing were possible this instant rather than have the glittering dome of pleasure reared on the eternal abyss of pain i would see the utter and eternal destruction of this universe i would rather see the shining fabric of our universe crumble to unmeaning chaos and take itself where oblivion broods and memory forgets i would rather the blind samson of some imprisoned force released by thoughtless chance should so rack and strain this world that man in stress and strain in astonishment and fear should suddenly fall back to savagery and barbarity i would rather that this thrilled and thrilling globe shone of all life should in its cycles rub the wheel the parent star on which the light should fall as fruitlessly as falls the gaze of love on death than to have this infamous doctrine of eternal punishment true rather than have this infamous selfishness of a heaven for a few and a hell for the many established as the word of god one world at a time is my doctrine let us make someone happy here happiness is the interest that a decent action draws and the more decent actions you do the larger your income will be let every man try to make his wife happy his children happy let every man try to make every day a joy and god cannot afford to damn such a man i cannot help god i cannot injure god i can help people i can injure people consequently humanity is the only real religion i cannot better close this lecture than by quoting four lines from robert burns to make a happy fireside climb to weans and wife that's the true pathos and sublime of human life and ingress all's lecture on the mistakes of moses this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain ingress all's lecture on the mistakes of moses is part of the book lectures of colonel robert green ingress all read for you by ted delorm in fort mill south carolina during july 2007 ingress all's lecture on skulls 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 ingress all's lecture on skulls is part of the book lectures of colonel robert green ingress all ladies and gentlemen man advances just in the proportion that he mingles his thoughts with his labor just in the proportion that he takes advantage of the forces of nature just in proportion as he loses superstition and gains confidence in himself man advances as he ceases to fear the gods and learns to love his fellow men it is all in my judgment a question of intellectual development tell me the religion of any man and i will tell you the degree he marks on the intellectual thermometer of the world it is a simple question of the brain those among us who are the nearest barbarism have a barbarian religion those who are nearest civilization have the least superstition it is i say a simple question of brain and i want in the first place to lay the foundation to prove that assertion a little while ago i saw models of nearly everything that man has made i saw models of all the watercraft from the rude dugout in which floated a naked savage one of our ancestors a naked savage with teeth twice as long as his forehead was high with a spoonful of brains in the back of his orthodox head i saw models of all the water craft of the world from that dugout to a man of war that carries a hundred guns and miles of canvas from that dugout to the steamship that turns its brave prow from the port of new york with a compass like a conscience crossing three thousand miles of billows without missing a throb or beat of its mighty iron heart from shore to shore and i saw at the same time the paintings of the world from the rude dob of yellow mud to the landscapes that enrich palaces and adorn houses of what were once called the common people i saw also their sculpture from the rude god with four legs a half dozen arms several noses and two or three rows of ears and one little contemptible brainless head up to the figures of today to the marbles that genius has clad in such a personality that it seems almost impudent to touch them without an introduction i saw their books books written upon the skins of wild beasts upon shoulder blades of sheep books written upon leaves upon bark up to the splendid volumes that enrich the libraries of our day when i speak of libraries i think of the remark of plato a house that has a library in it has a soul i saw at the same time the offensive weapons that man has made from a club such as was grasped by that same savage when he crawled from his den in the ground and hunted a snake for his dinner from that club to the boomerang to the sword to the crossbow to the blunder bus to the flintlock to the caplock to the needle gun up to a cannon cast by krupp capable of hurling a ball weighing 2000 pounds through 18 inches of solid steel i saw too the armor from the shell of a turtle that one of our brave ancestors lashed upon his breast when he went to fight for his country the skin of a porcupine dried with the quills on which this same savage pulled over his orthodox head up to the shirts of mail that were worn in the middle ages that laughed at the edge of the sword and defied the point of the spear up to a monitor clad in complete steel and i say orthodox not only in the matter of religion but in everything whoever has quit growing he is orthodox whether in art politics religion philosophy no matter what whoever thinks he has found it all out he is orthodox orthodoxy is that which rots and heresy is that which grows forever orthodoxy is the night of the past full of the darkness of superstition and heresy is the eternal coming day the light of which strikes the foreheads of the grand pioneers of the world i saw their implements of agriculture from the plow made of a crooked stick attached to the horn of an ox by some twisted straw with which our ancestors scraped the earth and from that to the agricultural implements of this generation that make it possible for a man to cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus in the old time there was but one crop and when the rain did not come in answer to the prayer of hypocrites a famine came and people fell upon their knees at that time they were full of superstition they were frightened all the time for fear that some god would be enraged at his poor hapless feeble and starving children but now instead of depending upon one crop they have several and if there is not rain enough for one there may be enough for another and if the frosts kill all we have railroads and steamship enough to bring what we need from some other part of the world since man has found out something about agriculture the gods have retired from the business of producing famines i saw at the same time their musical instruments from the tom tom that is a hoop with a couple of strings of rawhide drawn across it from that tom tom up to the instruments we have today that make the common air blossom with melody and i said to myself there is a regular advancement i saw at the same time a row of human skulls from the lowest skull that has been found the neanderthal skull skulls from central africa skulls from the bushmen of australia skulls from the farthest aisles of the pacific sea up to the best skulls of the last generation and i noticed that there was the same difference between those skulls that there was between the products of those skulls and i said to myself after all it is a simple question of intellectual development there was the same difference between those skulls the lowest and highest skulls that there was between the dugout and the man of war and the steamship between the club and the crop gun between the yellow dob and the landscape between the tom tom and an opera by verdi the first and lowest skull in this row was the den in which crawled the base and meaner instincts of mankind and the last was a temple in which dwelt joy liberty and love and i said to myself it is all a question of intellectual development man has advanced just as he has mingled his thought with his labor as he has grown he has taken advantage of the forces of nature first of the moving wind then of the falling water and finally of steam from one step to another he has obtained better houses better clothes and better books and he has done it by holding out every incentive to the ingenious to produce them the world has said give us better clubs and guns and cannons with which to kill our fellow christians and whoever will give us better weapons and better music and better houses to live in we will robe him in wealth crown him in honor and render his name deathless every incentive was held out to every human being to improve these things and that is the reason we have advanced in all mechanical arts but that gentleman in the dugout not only had his ideas about politics mechanics and agriculture he had his ideas also about religion his ideas about politics was might makes right it will be thousands of years maybe before mankind will believe in the saying that right makes might he had his religion that low skull was a devil factory he believed in hell and that belief was a consolation to him he could see the waves of god's wrath dashing against the rocks of dark damnation he could see tossing in the white caps the faces of women and stretching above the crests the dimpled hands of children and he regarded these things as the justice and mercy of god and all today who believe in this eternal punishment are the barbarians of the 19th century that man believed in a devil that had a long tail terminating with a fiery dart that had wings like a bat a devil that had a cheerful habit of breathing brimstone that had a cloven foot such as some orthodox clergyman seemed to think I have and there has not been a patentable improvement made upon that devil in all the years since the moment you drive the devil out of theology there is nothing left words speaking of the moment they drop the devil away goes atonement the moment they kill the devil their whole scheme of salvation has lost all of its interest for mankind you must keep the devil and you must keep hell you must keep the devil because with no devil no priest is necessary now all I ask is this the same privilege to improve upon his religion as upon his dugout and that is what I am going to do the best I can no matter what church you belong to or what church belongs to us let us be honor bright and fair I want to ask you suppose the king if there was one and the priest if there was one at that time had told these gentlemen in the dugout that dugout is the best boat that can be built by man the pattern of that came from on high from the great god of storm and flood and any man who says he can improve it by putting a stick in the middle of it and a rag on the stick is an infidel and shall be burned at a stake what in your judgment honor bright would have been the effect upon the circumnavigation of the globe suppose the king if there was one and the priest if there was one and I presume there was a priest because it was a very ignorant age suppose the king and priest had said the tom tom is the most beautiful instrument of music of which any man can conceive that is the kind of music they have in heaven an angel sitting upon the edge of a glorified cloud golden in the setting sun playing upon that tom tom became so enraptured so entranced with their own music that in a kind of ecstasy she dropped it and that is how we obtained it and any man who says it can be improved by putting a back and front to it and four strings and a bridge and getting a bow of hair with rosin is a blaspheming wretch and she'll die the death I ask you what effect would that have had upon music if that course had been pursued would the human ears in your judgment ever have been enriched with the divine symphonies of Beethoven suppose the king if there was one and the priest had said that crooked stick is the best plow that can be invented the pattern of that plow was given to a pious farmer in an exceedingly holy dream and that twisted straw is the neplu ultra of all twisted things and any man who says he can make an improvement upon that plow is an atheist what in your judgment would have been the effect upon the science of agriculture now all I ask is the same privilege to improve upon his religion as upon his mechanical arts why don't we go back to that period to get the telegraph because they were barbarians and shall we go to barbarians to get our religion what is religion religion simply embraces the duty of man to man religion is simply the science of human duty and the duty of man to man that is what it is it is the highest science of all and all other sciences are as nothing except as they contribute to the happiness of man the science of religion is the highest of all embracing all others and shall we go to the barbarians to learn the science of sciences the 19th century knows more about religion than all the centuries dead there is more real charity in the world today than ever before there is more thought today than ever before woman is glorified today as she never was before in the history of the world there are more happy families now than ever before more children treated as though they were tender blossoms than as though they were brutes than in any other time or nation religion is simply the duty a man owes to man and when you fall upon your knees and pray for something you know not of you neither benefit the one you pray for nor yourself one ounce of restitution is worth a million of repentances anywhere and a man will get along faster by helping himself a minute than by praying ten years for somebody to help him suppose you were coming along the street and found a party of men and women on their knees praying to a bank and you asked them have any of you borrowed any money of this bank no but our fathers they too prayed to this bank did they ever get any no not that we ever heard of i would tell them to get up it is easier to earn it and it is far more manly our fathers in the good old times and the best that i can say of the good old times is that they are gone and the best i can say of the good old people that lived in them is that they are gone too believe that you made a man think your way by force well you can't do it there is a splendid something in man that says i won't i won't be driven but our fathers thought men could be driven they tried it in the good old times i used to read about the manner in which the early christians made converts how they impressed upon the world the idea that god loved them i have read it but it didn't burn into my soul i i didn't think much about it i heard so much about being fried forever in hell that it didn't seem so bad to burn a few minutes i love liberty and i hate all persecutions in the name of god i never appreciated the infamies that have been committed in the name of religion until i saw the iron arguments that christians used i saw for instance the thumb screw two little innocent looking pieces of iron armed with some little protuberances on the inner side to keep it from slipping down and through each end a screw and when some man had made some trifling remark for instance that he never believed that god made a fish swallow a man to keep him from drowning or something like that or for instance that he didn't believe in baptism you know that is very wrong you can see for yourself the justice of damning a man if his parents happen to baptize him in the wrong way god cannot afford to break a rule or two to save all the men in the world i happen to be in the company of some baptist ministers once you may wonder how i happen to be in such company as that and one of them asked me what i thought about baptism well i told them i hadn't thought much about it that i had never sat up nights on that question i said baptism with soap is a good institution now when some man had said some trifling thing like that they put this thumb screw on him and in the name of universal benevolence and for the love of god man has never persecuted man for the love of man man has never persecuted another for the love of charity it is always for the love of something he calls god and every man's idea of god is his own idea if there is an infinite god and there may be i don't know there may be a million for all i know i hope there is more than one one seems so lonesome they keep turning this down and when this was done most men would say i will recant i think i would there is not much of the martyr about me i would have told them now you write it down and i will sign it you may have one god or a million one hell or a million you stop that i am tired do you know sometimes i have thought that all the hypocrites in the world are not worth one drop of honest blood i am sorry that any good man ever died for religion i would rather let them advance a little easier it is too bad to see a good man sacrificed for a lot of wild beasts and cattle but there is now and then a man who would not swerve the breadth of a hair there was now and then a sublime heart willing to die for an intellectual conviction and had it not been for these men we would have been wild beasts and savages today there were some men who would not take it back and had it not been for a few such brave heroic souls in every age we would have been cannibals with pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our breasts dancing around some dried snake fetish and so they turned it down to the last thread of agony and threw the victim into some dungeon where in the throbbing silence and darkness he might suffer the agonies of the fabled damned this was done in the name of love in the name of mercy in the name of the compassionate christ and the men that did it are the men that made our bible for us i saw too at the same time the collar of torture imagine a circle of iron and on the inside a hundred points almost as sharp as needles this argument was fastened about the throat of the sufferer then he could not walk nor sit down nor stir without the neck being punctured by these points in a little while the throat would begin to swell and suffocation would end the agonies of that man this man it may be had committed the crime of saying with tears upon his cheeks i do not believe that god the father of us all will damn to eternal perdition any of the children of men and that was done to convince the world that god so loved the world that he died for us that was an order that people might hear the glad tidings of great joy to all people i saw another instrument called the scavengers daughter imagine a pair of shears with handles not only where they are now but at the points as well and just above the pivot that unites the blades a circle of iron in the upper handles the hand would be placed in the lower the feet and through the iron ring at the center the head of the victim would be forced and in that position the man would be thrown upon the earth and the strain upon the muscle would produce such agony that insanity took pity and this was done to keep people from going to hell to convince that man that he had made a mistake in his logic and it was done too by Protestants Protestants that persecuted to the extent of their power and that is as much as Catholicism ever did they would persecute now if they had the power there is not a man in this vast audience who will say that the church should have temporal power there is not one of you but what believes in the eternal divorce of church and state is it possible that the only people who are fit to go to heaven are the only people not fit to rule mankind i saw at the same time the rack this was a box like the bed of a wagon with a windlass at each end and ratchet to prevent slipping over each windlass went chains and when some man had for instance denied the doctrine of the trinity a doctrine it is necessary to believe in order to get to heaven but thank the lord you don't have to understand it this man merely denied that three times one was one or maybe he denied that there was ever any son in the world exactly as old as his father or that there ever was a boy eternally older than his mother then they put that man on the rack nobody had ever been persecuted for calling god bad it has always been for calling him good when i stand here to say that if there is a hell god is a fiend they say that is very bad they say i am trying to tear down the institutions of public virtue but let me tell you one thing there is no reformation in fear you can scare a man so that he won't do it sometimes but i will swear you can't scare him so bad that he won't want to do it then they put this man on the rack and priests began turning these levers and kept turning until the ankles the hips the shoulders the elbows the wrists and all the joints of the victim were dislocated and he was wet with agony and standing by was a physician to feel his pulse what for to save his life yes in mercy no but in order that they might have the pleasure of racking him once more and this was the christian spirit this was done in the name of civilization in the name of religion and all these wretches who did it died in peace there is not an orthodox preacher in the city that has not a respect for every one of them as for instance for john calvin who was a murderer and nothing but a murderer who would have disgraced an ordinary gallows by being hanged upon it these men when they came to die were not frightened god did not send any devils into their death rooms to make mouths at them he reserved them for valtaire who brought religious liberty to france he reserved them for thomas pain who did more for liberty than all the churches but all the inquisitors died with the white hands of peace folded over the breast of piety and when they died the room was filled with the rustle of the wings of angels waiting to bear the wretches to heaven when i read these frightful books it seems to me sometimes as though i had suffered all these things myself it seems sometimes as though i had stood upon the shore of exile and gazed with tearful eyes toward home and native land it seems to me as though i had been staked out upon the sands of the sea and drowned by the inexorable advancing tide as though my nails had been torn from my hands and into the bleeding quick needles had been thrust as though my feet had been crushed in iron boots as though i had been chained in the cell of inquisition and listened with dying ears for the coming footsteps of release as though i had stood upon the scaffold and saw the glittering acts fall upon me as though i had been upon the rack and had seen bending above me the white faces of hypocrite priests as though i had been taken from my fireside from my wife and children taken to the public square chained as though faggots had been piled about me as though the flames had climbed around my limbs and scorched my eyes to blindness and as though my ashes had been scattered to the four winds by all the countless hands of fate and while i so feel i swear that while i live i will do what little i can to augment the liberties of man woman and child i denounce slavery and superstition everywhere i believe in liberty and happiness and love and joy in this world i am amazed that any man ever had the impudence to try and do another man's thinking i have just as good a right to talk theology as a minister if they all agreed i might admit it was a science but as all disagree and the more they study the wider they get apart i may be permitted to suggest it is not a science when no two will tell you the road to heaven that is giving you the same route and if you would inquire of them all you would just give up trying to go there and say i may as well stay where i am and let the lord come to me do you know that this world has not been fit for a lady and gentleman to live in for twenty five years just on account of slavery it was not until the year 1808 that great britain abolished the slave trade and up to that time her judges her priests occupying her pulpits the members of the royal family owned stock in slave ships and luxuriated upon the profits of piracy and murder it was not until the same year that the united states abolished the slave trade between this and other countries but carefully preserved it as between the states it was not until the 28th day of august 1833 that great britain abolished human slavery in her colonies and it was not until the first day of january 1863 that abraham lincoln sustained by the sublime and heroic north rendered our flag pure as the sky in which it floats abraham lincoln was in my judgment in many respects the grandest man ever president of the united states upon his monument these words should be written here sleeps the only man in the history of the world who having been clothed with almost absolute power never abused it except upon the side of mercy for 200 years the christians of the united states deliberately turned the cross of christ into a whipping post christians bred hounds to catch other christians let me show you what the bible has done for mankind servants be obedient to your masters the only word coming from that sweet heaven was servants obey your masters frederick douglas told me that he had lectured upon the subject of freedom 20 years before he was permitted to set his foot in a church i tell you the world has not been fit to live in for 25 years then all the people used to cringe and crawl to preachers mr buccal in his history of civilization shows that men were even struck dead for speaking impolitely to a priest god would not stand it see how they used to crawl before cardinals bishops and popes it is not so now before wealth they bowed to the very earth and in the presence of titles they became abject all this is slowly but surely changing we no longer bow to men simply because they are rich our fathers worship the golden calf the worst you can say of an american now is he worships the gold of the calf even the calf is beginning to see this distinction the time will come when no matter how much money a man has he will not be respected unless he is using it for the benefit of his fellow men it will soon be here it no longer satisfies the ambition of a great man to be king or emperor the last napoleon was not satisfied with being the emperor of the french he was not satisfied with having a circlet of gold about his head he wanted some evidence that he had something of value within his head so he wrote the life of julius caesar that he might become a member of the french academy the emperors the kings the popes no longer tower above their fellows compare for instance king william and helmholz the king is one of the anointed by the most high as they claim one upon whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority compare this king with helmholz who towers an intellectual colossus above the crowned mediocrity compare george elliot with queen victoria the queen is clothed in garments given her by blind fortune an unreasoning chance while george elliot wears robes of glory woven in the loom of her own genius and so it is the world over the time is coming when a man will be rated at his real worth and that by his brain and heart we care nothing now about an officer unless he fills his place no matter if he is president if he rattles in the place nobody cares anything about him i might give you an instance in point but i won't the world is getting better and grander and nobler every day end of part one of ingersaw's lecture on skulls this lecture will conclude on the next file this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain ingersaw's lecture on skulls from the book lectures of colonel robert green ingersaw read for you by ted delorm in fort mill south carolina during july 2007