The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 11 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Miscellany

Thirty-fourth. It certainly ought to satisfy God to torment a man for four or five thousand years for insisting that it is but a small thing for an infinite being to vanquish an...

Are they holy? Must a man be honest? Has he the right to be sincere? There are thousands of things in the Scriptures that everybody believes. Everybody believes the Scriptures a...

Thomas Paine had passed the legendary limit of life. One by one most of his old friends and acquaintances had deserted him. Maligned on every side, execrated, shunned and abhorr...

Well, the Bible does say that he repented having made man. Now, is there any blasphemy in saying that the Bible is true? That is the only question. It is a fact that God, accord...

In a little while there came some Unitarians and they said, "The world is going to ruin, sure;"--but the world went on as usual, and the Unitarians produced men like Channing--o...

IF one wishes to know what orthodox religion really is--I mean that religion unsoftened by Infidelity, by doubt--let him read "John Ward, Preacher." This book shows exactly what...

We need not repeat the failures of the old world. To divide lands among successful generals, or among favorites of the crown, to give vast estates for services rendered in war,...

The trouble with this sermon, "Sowing and Reaping," is that he contradicts it. I believe that a man must reap what he sows, that every human being must bear the natural conseque...

WE are told that we have in our possession the inspired will of God. What is meant by the word "inspired" is not exactly known; but whatever else it may mean, certainly it means...

Although I am not a believer in the philosophy of Auguste Comte, I cannot shut my eyes to the value of his thought; neither is it possible for me not to applaud his candor, his...

"It is not for me to take their money and use it for the good of others or for my own glory. It is for me to give what they have earned to them. After I have given them the mone...

A few years ago almost everything spoken against the grossest possible superstition was considered blasphemous. The altar hedged itself about with the sword; the Priest went in...

The truth is, as Mr. Buckle says, that for five hundred years all real advance in legislation has been made by repealing laws. Of one thing we must be satisfied, and that is tha...

It was claimed, among other things, that the defendant circulated this pamphlet among children. There was no such evidence--not the slightest. The only evidence about schools, o...

"In old times women consoled themselves with the belief, The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. They consoled themselves with the th...

We offered to sacrifice the manhood of the North, and the natural rights of the colored man, upon the altar of the Union. The rejection of that offer saved us from infamy. At on...

The Christian is not a supernatural person, filled with supernatural truths. He is a natural person, and all that he knows of value can be naturally imparted. It is within his p...

Take for instance the word "justice." The meaning that is given to that word depends upon the man who uses it--depends for the most part on the age in which he lives, the countr...

It is admitted that where individuals are witnesses of the same transaction, and where they agree upon the vital points and disagree upon details, the disagreement may be consis...

In modern times we have slowly lost confidence in the supernatural and have slowly gained confidence in the natural. We have slowly lost confidence in gods and have slowly gaine...

We not only admit, but we assert, that in the physical world there are causes and effects. We insist that there is and can be no effect without an efficient cause. When anything...

The pulpit has lost its position. It speaks no longer with authority. The pews determine what shall be preached. They pay only for that which they wish to buy--for that which th...

"It was the cause of America that made me an author. The force with which it struck my mind, and the dangerous condition in which the country was in, by courting an impossible a...

The Improved Man will not give his life to the accumulation of wealth. He will find no happiness in exciting the envy of his neighbors. He will not care to live in a palace whil...

Nothing is more sickening than the "spiritual" whine--the pretence that crawls at first and talks about humility and then suddenly becomes arrogant and says: "I am 'spiritual.'...

As Christianity's corner-stone is faith, he rejects Christianity, and argues that all men who are broad enough to know when to narrow their ideas down to fact or demonstrable th...

Most people, after arriving at the conclusion that Jehovah is not God, that the Bible is not an inspired book, and that the Christian religion, like other religions, is the crea...

And all "inspired books," teaching that only those who obey the commands of the supernatural are, or can be, truly virtuous, and that unquestioning faith will be rewarded with e...

According to these poets, happiness was inconsistent with virtue. The sense of infinite obligation should be perpetually present. They assumed an attitude of superiority. They d...

If the Bible is true, certainly Adam was the first man; consequently, we know, if the sacred volume be true, just how long man has lived and labored and suffered on this earth.

Language cannot be stronger; words cannot be clearer. But now this decision has been reversed by the Supreme Court, and Congress is left powerless to protect rights conferred by...

When men knew nothing of mechanics, nothing of the correlation of force, and of its indestructibility, they were believers in perpetual motion. So when chemistry was a kind of s...

"There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it, * * * and he rode upon a cherub and did fly."

ON the 22d of October, 1883, a vast number of citizens met at Lincoln Hall, Washington, D. C., to give expression to their views concerning the decision of the Supreme Court of...

How is "the contrary to appear"? Suppose a person denied equal privileges upon the railway on account of race and color, brings suit and is defeated? And suppose the highest tri...

Twenty-five years ago the people of this country, for the most part, were quite orthodox. The great "fundamental" falsehoods of Christianity were generally accepted. Those who w...

We have entered upon a new epoch. This is the century of man. Every effort to really better the condition of mankind has been opposed by the worshipers of some God. The church i...

At last the question narrows itself to this: Is a citizen of the United States, when denied admission to public inns, railway cars and theatres, on account of his race or color,...

Introduction by Frederick Douglass("Abou Ben Adhem")--Decision of the United States Supreme Court pronouncing the Civil Rights Act Unconstitutional--Limitations of Judges--Illus...

I can not believe that God killed fifty thousand men for looking into a box.1 It seems incredible, after all the Jews had done, after all their wars and victories, even when Sau...