The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume VIII Part 26

_Question_. What books would you recommend for the perusal of a young man of limited time and culture with reference to helping him in the development of intellect and good character?

_Answer_. The works of Darwin, Ernst Haeckel, Draper's "Intellectual Development of Europe," Buckle's "History of Civilization in England," Lecky's "History of European Morals," Voltaire's "Philosophical Dictionary," Buchner's "Force and Matter," "The History of the Christian Religion" by Waite; Paine's "Age of Reason,"

D'Holbach's "System of Nature," and, above all, Shakespeare. Do not forget Burns, Sh.e.l.ley, d.i.c.kens and Hugo.

_Question_. Will you lecture the coming winter?

_Answer_. Yes, about the same as usual. Woe is me if I preach not my gospel.

_Question_. Have you been invited to lecture in Europe? If so do you intend to accept the "call"?

_Answer_. Yes, often. The probability is that I shall go to England and Australia. I have not only had invitations but most excellent offers from both countries. There is, however, plenty to do here. This is the best country in the world and our people are eager to hear the other side.

The old kind of preaching is getting superannuated. It lags superfluous in the pulpit. Our people are outgrowing the cruelties and absurdities of the ancient Jews. The idea of h.e.l.l has become shocking and vulgar. Eternal punishment is eternal injustice. It is infinitely infamous. Most ministers are ashamed to preach the doctrine, and the congregations are ashamed to hear it preached.

It is the essence of savagery.

--_Plain Dealer_, Cincinnati, Ohio, September 5, 1885.

MY BELIEF.

_Question_. It is said that in the past four or five years you have changed or modified your views upon the subject of religion; is this so?

_Answer_. It is not so. The only change, if that can be called a change, is, that I am more perfectly satisfied that I am right-- satisfied that what is called orthodox religion is a simple fabrication of mistaken men; satisfied that there is no such thing as an inspired book and never will be; satisfied that a miracle never was and never will be performed; satisfied that no human being knows whether there is a G.o.d or not, whether there is another life or not; satisfied that the scheme of atonement is a mistake, that the innocent cannot, by suffering for the guilty, atone for the guilt; satisfied that the doctrine that salvation depends on belief, is cruel and absurd; satisfied that the doctrine of eternal punishment is infamously false; satisfied that superst.i.tion is of no use to the human race; satisfied that humanity is the only true and real religion.

No, I have not modified my views. I detect new absurdities every day in the popular belief. Every day the whole thing becomes more and more absurd. Of course there are hundreds and thousands of most excellent people who believe in orthodox religion; people for whose good qualities I have the greatest respect; people who have good ideas on most other subjects; good citizens, good fathers, husbands, wives and children--good in spite of their religion. I do not attack people. I attack the mistakes of people. Orthodoxy is getting weaker every day.

_Question_. Do you believe in the existence of a Supreme Being?

_Answer_. I do not believe in any Supreme personality or in any Supreme Being who made the universe and governs nature. I do not say that there is no such Being--all I say is that I do not believe that such a Being exists. I know nothing on the subject, except that I know that I do not know and that n.o.body else knows. But if there is such a Being, he certainly never wrote the Old Testament.

You will understand my position. I do not say that a Supreme Being does not exist, but I do say that I do not believe such a Being exists. The universe--embracing all that is--all atoms, all stars, each grain of sand and all the constellations, each thought and dream of animal and man, all matter and all force, all doubt and all belief, all virtue and all crime, all joy and all pain, all growth and all decay--is all there is. It does not act because it is moved from without. It acts from within. It is actor and subject, means and end.

It is infinite; the infinite could not have been created. It is indestructible and that which cannot be destroyed was not created.

I am a Pantheist.

_Question_. Don't you think the belief of the Agnostic is more satisfactory to the believer than that of the Atheist?

_Answer_. There is no difference. The Agnostic is an Atheist.

The Atheist is an Agnostic. The Agnostic says: "I do not know, but I do not believe there is any G.o.d." The Atheist says the same.

The orthodox Christian says he knows there is a G.o.d; but we know that he does not know. He simply believes. He cannot know. The Atheist cannot know that G.o.d does not exist.

_Question_. Haven't you just the faintest glimmer of a hope that in some future state you will meet and be reunited to those who are dear to you in this?

_Answer_. I have no particular desire to be destroyed. I am willing to go to heaven if there be such a place, and enjoy myself for ever and ever. It would give me infinite satisfaction to know that all mankind are to be happy forever. Infidels love their wives and children as well as Christians do theirs. I have never said a word against heaven--never said a word against the idea of immortality. On the contrary, I have said all I could truthfully say in favor of the idea that we shall live again. I most sincerely hope that there is another world, better than this, where all the broken ties of love will be united. It is the other place I have been fighting. Better that all of us should sleep the sleep of death forever than that some should suffer pain forever. If in order to have a heaven there must be a h.e.l.l, then I say away with them both. My doctrine puts the bow of hope over every grave; my doctrine takes from every mother's heart the fear of h.e.l.l. No good man would enjoy himself in heaven with his friends in h.e.l.l. No good G.o.d could enjoy himself in heaven with millions of his poor, helpless mistakes in h.e.l.l. The orthodox idea of heaven--with G.o.d an eternal inquisitor, a few heartless angels and some redeemed orthodox, all enjoying themselves, while the vast mult.i.tude will weep in the rayless gloom of G.o.d's eternal dungeon--is not calculated to make man good or happy. I am doing what I can to civilize the churches, humanize the preachers and get the fear of h.e.l.l out of the human heart. In this business I am meeting with great success.

--_Philadelphia Times_, September 25, 1885.

SOME LIVE TOPICS.

_Question_. Shall you attend the Albany Freethought Convention?

_Answer_. I have agreed to be present not only, but to address the convention, on Sunday, the 13th of September. I am greatly gratified to know that the interest in the question of intellectual liberty is growing from year to year. Everywhere I go it seems to be the topic of conversation. No matter upon what subject people begin to talk, in a little while the discussion takes a religious turn, and people who a few moments before had not the slightest thought of saying a word about the churches, or about the Bible, are giving their opinions in full. I hear discussions of this kind in all the public conveyances, at the hotels, on the piazzas at the seaside--and they are not discussions in which I take any part, because I rarely say anything upon these questions except in public, unless I am directly addressed.

There is a general feeling that the church has ruled the world long enough. People are beginning to see that no amount of eloquence, or faith, or erudition, or authority, can make the records of barbarism satisfactory to the heart and brain of this century.

They have also found that a falsehood in Hebrew in no more credible than in plain English. People at last are beginning to be satisfied that cruel laws were never good laws, no matter whether inspired or uninspired. The Christian religion, like every other religion depending upon inspired writings, is wrecked upon the facts of nature. So long as inspired writers confined themselves to the supernatural world; so long as they talked about angels and G.o.ds and heavens and h.e.l.ls; so long as they described only things that man has never seen, and never will see, they were safe, not from contradiction, but from demonstration. But these writings had to have a foundation, even for their falsehoods, and that foundation was in Nature. The foundation had to be something about which somebody knew something, or supposed they knew something. They told something about this world that agreed with the then general opinion. Had these inspired writers told the truth about Nature-- had they said that the world revolved on its axis, and made a circuit about the sun--they could have gained no credence for their statements about other worlds. They were forced to agree with their contemporaries about this world, and there is where they made the fundamental mistake. Having grown in knowledge, the world has discovered that these inspired men knew nothing about this earth; that the inspired books are filled with mistakes--not only mistakes that we can contradict, but mistakes that we can demonstrate to be mistakes. Had they told the truth in their day, about this earth, they would not have been believed about other worlds, because their contemporaries would have used their own knowledge about this world to test the knowledge of these inspired men. We pursue the same course; and what we know about this world we use as the standard, and by that standard we have found that the inspired men knew nothing about Nature as it is. Finding that they were mistaken about this world, we have no confidence in what they have said about another. Every religion has had its philosophy about this world, and every one has been mistaken. As education becomes general, as scientific modes are adopted, this will become clearer and clearer, until "ignorant as inspiration" will be a comparison.

_Question_. Have you seen the memorial to the New York Legislature, to be presented this winter, asking for the repeal of such laws as practically unite church and state?

_Answer_. I have seen a memorial asking that church property be taxed like other property; that no more money should be appropriated from the public treasury for the support of inst.i.tutions managed by and in the interest of sectarian denominations; for the repeal of all laws compelling the observance of Sunday as a religious day.

Such memorials ought to be addressed to the Legislatures of all the States. The money of the public should only be used for the benefit of the public. Public money should not be used for what a few gentlemen think is for the benefit of the public. Personally, I think it would be for the benefit of the public to have Infidel or scientific--which is the same thing--lectures delivered in every town, in every State, on every Sunday; but knowing that a great many men disagree with me on this point, I do not claim that such lectures ought to be paid for with public money. The Methodist Church ought not to be sustained by taxation, nor the Catholic, nor any other church. To relieve their property from taxation is to appropriate money, to the extent of that tax, for the support of that church. Whenever a burden is lifted from one piece of property, it is distributed over the rest of the property of the State, and to release one kind of property is to increase the tax on all other kinds.

There was a time when people really supposed the churches were saving souls from the eternal wrath of a G.o.d of infinite love.

Being engaged in such a philanthropic work, and at the time n.o.body having the courage to deny it--the church being all-powerful--all other property was taxed to support the church; but now the more civilized part of the community, being satisfied that a G.o.d of infinite love will not be eternally unjust, feel as though the church should support herself. To exempt the church from taxation is to pay a part of the priest's salary. The Catholic now objects to being taxed to support a school in which his religion is not taught. He is not satisfied with the school that says nothing on the subject of religion. He insists that it is an outrage to tax him to support a school where the teacher simply teaches what he knows. And yet this same Catholic wants his church exempted from taxation, and the tax of an Atheist or of a Jew increased, when he teaches in his untaxed church that the Atheist and Jew will both be eternally d.a.m.ned! Is it possible for impudence to go further?

I insist that no religion should be taught in any school supported by public money; and by religion I mean superst.i.tion. Only that should be taught in a school that somebody can learn and that somebody can know. In my judgment, every church should be taxed precisely the same as other property. The church may claim that it is one of the instruments of civilization and therefore should be exempt. If you exempt that which is useful, you exempt every trade and every profession. In my judgment, theatres have done more to civilize mankind than churches; that is to say, theatres have done something to civilize mankind--churches nothing. The effect of all superst.i.tion has been to render men barbarous. I do not believe in the civilizing effects of falsehood.

There was a time when ministers were supposed to be in the employ of G.o.d, and it was thought that G.o.d selected them with great care --that their profession had something sacred about it. These ideas are no longer entertained by sensible people. Ministers should be paid like other professional men, and those who like their preaching should pay for the preach. They should depend, as actors do, upon their popularity, upon the amount of sense, or nonsense, that they have for sale. They should depend upon the market like other people, and if people do not want to hear sermons badly enough to build churches and pay for them, and pay the taxes on them, and hire the preacher, let the money be diverted to some other use.

The pulpit should no longer be a pauper. I do not believe in carrying on any business with the contribution box. All the sectarian inst.i.tutions ought to support themselves. These should be no Methodist or Catholic or Presbyterian hospitals or orphan asylums. All these should be supported by the State. There is no such thing as Catholic charity, or Methodist charity. Charity belongs to humanity, not to any particular form of faith or religion.

You will find as charitable people who never heard of religion, as you can find in the church. The State should provide for those who ought to be provided for. A few Methodists beg of everybody they meet--send women with subscription papers, asking money from all cla.s.ses of people, and nearly everybody gives something from politeness, or to keep from being annoyed; and when the inst.i.tution is finished, it is pointed at as the result of Methodism.

Probably a majority of the people in this country suppose that there was no charity in the world until the Christian religion was founded. Great men have repeated this falsehood, until ignorance and thoughtlessness believe it. There were orphan asylums in China, in India, and in Egypt thousands of years before Christ was born; and there certainly never was a time in the history of the whole world when there was less charity in Europe than during the centuries when the Church of Christ had absolute power. There were hundreds of Mohammedan asylums before Christianity had built ten in the entire world.

All inst.i.tutions for the care of unfortunate people should be secular--should be supported by the State. The money for the purpose should be raised by taxation, to the end that the burden may be borne by those able to bear it. As it is now, most of the money is paid, not by the rich, but by the generous, and those most able to help their needy fellow citizens are the very ones who do nothing. If the money is raised by taxation, then the burden will fall where it ought to fall, and these inst.i.tutions will no longer be supported by the generous and emotional, and the rich and stingy will no longer be able to evade the duties of citizenship and of humanity.

Now, as to the Sunday laws, we know that they are only spasmodically enforced. Now and then a few people are arrested for selling papers or cigars. Some unfortunate barber is grabbed by a policeman because he has been caught shaving a Christian, Sunday morning.

Now and then some poor fellow with a hack, trying to make a dollar or two to feed his horses, or to take care of his wife and children, is arrested as though he were a murderer. But in a few days the public are inconvenienced to that degree that the arrests stop and business goes on in its accustomed channels, Sunday and all.

Now and then society becomes so pious, so virtuous, that people are compelled to enter saloons by the back door; others are compelled to drink beer with the front shutters up; but otherwise the stream that goes down the thirsty throats is unbroken. The ministers have done their best to prevent all recreation on the Sabbath. They would like to stop all the boats on the Hudson, and on the sea-- stop all the excursion trains. They would like to compel every human being that lives in the city of New York to remain within its limits twenty-four hours every Sunday. They hate the parks; they hate music; they hate anything that keeps a man away from church. Most of the churches are empty during the summer, and now most of the ministers leave themselves, and give over the entire city to the Devil and his emissaries. And yet if the ministers had their way, there would be no form of human enjoyment except prayer, signing subscription papers, putting money in contribution boxes, listening to sermons, reading the cheerful histories of the Old Testament, imagining the joys of heaven and the torments of h.e.l.l.

The church is opposed to the theatre, is the enemy of the opera, looks upon dancing as a crime, hates billiards, despises cards, opposes roller-skating, and even entertains a certain kind of prejudice against croquet.

_Question_. Do you think that the orthodox church gets its ideas of the Sabbath from the teachings of Christ?

_Answer_. I do not hold Christ responsible for these idiotic ideas concerning the Sabbath. He regarded the Sabbath as something made for man--which was a very sensible view. The holiest day is the happiest day. The most sacred day is the one in which have been done the most good deeds. There are two reasons given in the Bible for keeping the Sabbath. One is that G.o.d made the world in six days, and rested on the seventh. Now that all the ministers admit that he did not make the world in six days, but that he made it in six "periods," this reason is no longer applicable. The other reason is that he brought the Jews out of Egypt with a "mighty hand." This may be a very good reason still for the observance of the Sabbath by the Jews, but the real Sabbath, that is to say, the day to be commemorated, is our Sat.u.r.day, and why should we commemorate the wrong day? That disposes of the second reason.

Nothing can be more inconsistent than the theories and practice of the churches about the Sabbath. The cars run Sundays, and out of the profits hundreds of ministers are supported. The great iron and steel works fill with smoke and fire the Sabbath air, and the proprietors divide the profits with the churches. The printers of the city are busy Sunday afternoons and evenings, and the presses during the nights, so that the sermons of Sunday can reach the heathen on Monday. The servants of the rich are denied the privileges of the sanctuary. The coachman sits on the box out-doors, while his employer kneels in church preparing himself for the heavenly chariot. The iceman goes about on the holy day, keeping believers cool, they knowing at the same time that he is making it hot for himself in the world to come. Christians cross the Atlantic, knowing that the ship will pursue its way on the Sabbath. They write letters to their friends knowing that they will be carried in violation of Jehovah's law, by wicked men. Yet they hate to see a pale-faced sewing girl enjoying a few hours by the sea; a poor mechanic walking in the fields; or a tired mother watching her children playing on the gra.s.s. Nothing ever was, nothing ever will be, more utterly absurd and disgusting than a Puritan Sunday.

Nothing ever did make a home more hateful than the strict observance of the Sabbath. It fills the house with hypocrisy and the meanest kind of petty tyranny. The parents look sour and stern, the children sad and sulky. They are compelled to talk upon subjects about which they feel no interest, or to read books that are thought good only because they are so stupid.

_Question_. What have you to say about the growth of Catholicism, the activity of the Salvation Army, and the success of revivalists like the Rev. Samuel Jones? Is Christianity really gaining a strong hold on the ma.s.ses?

_Answer_. Catholicism is growing in this country, and it is the only country on earth in which it is growing. Its growth here depends entirely upon immigration, not upon intellectual conquest.

Catholic emigrants who leave their homes in the Old World because they have never had any liberty, and who are Catholics for the same reason, add to the number of Catholics here, but their children's children will not be Catholics. Their children will not be very good Catholics, and even these immigrants themselves, in a few years, will not grovel quite so low in the presence of a priest.

The Catholic Church is gaining no ground in Catholic countries.

The Salvation Army is the result of two things--the general belief in what are known as the fundamentals of Christianity, and the heartlessness of the church. The church in England--that is to say, the Church of England--having succeeded--that is to say, being supported by general taxation--that is to say, being a successful, well-fed parasite--naturally neglected those who did not in any way contribute to its support. It became aristocratic. Splendid churches were built; younger sons with good voices were put in the pulpits; the pulpit became the asylum for aristocratic mediocrity, and in this way the Church of England lost interest in the ma.s.ses and the ma.s.ses lost interest in the Church of England. The neglected poor, who really had some belief in religion, and who had not been absolutely petrified by form and patronage, were ready for the Salvation Army. They were not at home in the church. They could not pay. They preferred the freedom of the street. They preferred to attend a church where rags were no objection. Had the church loved and labored with the poor the Salvation Army never would have existed. These people are simply giving their idea of Christianity, and in their way endeavoring to do what they consider good. I don't suppose the Salvation Army will accomplish much. To improve mankind you must change conditions. It is not enough to work simply upon the emotional nature. The surroundings must be such as naturally produce virtuous actions. If we are to believe recent reports from London, the Church of England, even with the a.s.sistance of the Salvation Army, has accomplished but little. It would be hard to find any country with less morality. You would search long in the jungles of Africa to find greater depravity.