a few of my favorites:
Heretics And Hericies (1874)http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/heretics_and_hericies.htmlAccording to the theologians, God, the Father of us all, wrote a letter to his children. The children have always differed somewhat as to the meaning of this letter. In consequence of these honest differences, these brothers began to cut out each other's hearts. In every land, where this letter from God has been read, the children to whom and for whom it was written have been filled with hatred and malice. They have imprisoned and murdered each other, and the wives and children of each other. In the name of God every possible crime has been committed, every conceivable outrage has been perpetrated. Brave men, tender and loving women, beautiful girls, and prattling babes have been exterminated in the name of Jesus Christ. For more than fifty generations the church has carried the black flag. Her vengeance has been measured only by her power. During all these years of infamy no heretic has ever been forgiven. With the heart of a fiend she has hated; with the clutch of avarice she has grasped; with the jaws of a dragon she has devoured; pitiless as famine, merciless as fire, with the conscience of a serpent: such is the history of the Church of God.
I do not say, and I do not believe, that Christians are as bad as their creeds. In spite of church and dogma, there have been millions and millions of men and women true to the loftiest and most generous promptings of the human heart. They have been true to their convictions, and, with a self-denial and fortitude excelled by none, have labored and suffered for the salvation of men. Imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, believing that by personal effort they could rescue at least a few souls from the infinite shadow of hell, they have cheerfully endured every hardship and scorned every danger. And yet, notwithstanding all this, they believed that honest error was a crime. They knew that the Bible so declared, and they believed that all unbelievers would be eternally lost. They believed that religion was of God, and all heresy of the devil. They killed heretics in defence of their own souls and the souls of their children. They killed them because, according to their idea, they were the enemies of God, and because the Bible teaches that the blood of the unbeliever is a most acceptable sacrifice to heaven.
Men and women have been burned for thinking there is but one God; that there was none; that the Holy Ghost is younger than God; that God was somewhat older than his son; for insisting that good works will save a man without faith; that faith will do without good works; for declaring that a sweet babe will not be burned eternally, because its parents failed to have its head wet by a priest; for speaking of God as though he had a nose; for denying that Christ was his own father; for contending that three persons, rightly added together, make more than one; for believing in purgatory; for denying the reality of hell; for pretending that priests can forgive sins; for preaching that God is an essence; for denying that witches rode through the air on sticks; for doubting the total depravity of the human heart; for laughing at irresistible grace, predestination and particular redemption; for denying that good bread could be made of the body of a dead man; for pretending that the pope was not managing this world for God, and in the place of God; for disputing the efficacy of a vicarious atonement; for thinking the Virgin Mary was born like other people; for thinking that a man's rib was hardly sufficient to make a good- sized woman; for denying that God used his finger for a pen; for asserting that prayers are not answered, that diseases are not sent to punish unbelief; for denying the authority of the Bible; for having a Bible in their possession; for attending mass, and for refusing to attend; for wearing a surplice; for carrying a cross, and for refusing; for being a Catholic, and for being a Protestant; for being an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Baptist, and for being a Quaker. In short, every virtue has been a crime, and every crime a virtue. The church has burned honesty and rewarded hypocrisy. And all this, because it was commanded by a book -- a book that men had been taught implicitly to believe, long before they knew one word that was in it. They had been taught that to doubt the truth of this book -- to examine it, even -- was a crime of such enormity that it could not be forgiven, either in this world or in the next.
The Bible was the real persecutor. The Bible burned heretics, built dungeons, founded the Inquisition, and trampled upon all the liberties of men. How long, O how long will mankind worship a book? How long will they grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past? How long, O how long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than death?...
Why I Am Agnostichttp://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/why_i_am_agnostic.htmlFor the most part we inherit our opinions. We are the heirs of
habits and mental customs. Our beliefs, like the fashion of our
garments, depend on where we were born. We are molded and fashioned
by our surroundings.
Environment is a sculptor -- a painter.
If we had been born in Constantinople, the most of us would
have said: "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his
prophet." If our parents had lived on the banks of the Ganges, we
would have been worshipers of Siva, longing for the heaven of
Nirvana.
As a rule, children love their parents, believe what they
teach, and take great pride in saying that the religion of mother
is good enough for them.
Most people love peace. They do not like to differ with their
neighbors. They like company. They are social. They enjoy traveling
on the highway with the multitude. They hate to walk alone.
The Scotch are Calvinists because their fathers were. The
Irish are Catholics because their fathers were. The English are
Episcopalians because their fathers were, and the Americans are
divided in a hundred sects because their fathers were. This is the
general rule, to which there are many exceptions. Children
sometimes are superior to their parents, modify their ideas, change
their customs, and arrive at different conclusions. But this is
generally so gradual that the departure is scarcely noticed, and
those who change usually insist that they are still following the
fathers...
Some Mistakes of Moses (1879)http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/some_mistakes_of_moses.htmlOf course God knew when he made man, that he would afterwards
regret it. He knew that the people would grow worse and worse until
destruction would be the only remedy. He knew that he would have to
kill all except Noah and his family, and it is hard to see why he
did not make Noah and his family in the first place, and leave Adam
and Eve in the original dust. He knew that they would be tempted,
that he would have to drive them out of the garden to keep them
from eating of the tree of life; that the whole thing would be a
failure; that Satan would defeat his plan; that he could not reform
the people; that his own sons would corrupt them, and that at last
he would have to drown them all except Noah and his family. Why was
the Garden of Eden planted? Why was the experiment made? Why were
Adam and Eve exposed to the seductive arts of the serpent? Why did
God wait until the cool of the day before looking after his
children? Why was he not on hand in the morning? Why did he fill
the world with his own children, knowing that he would have to
destroy them? And why does this same God tell me how to raise my
children when he had to drown his?...
According to Moses, God made up his mind not only to destroy
the people, but the beasts and the creeping things, and the fowls
of the air. What had creeping things, and the fowls of the air
done? What had the beasts, and the birds done to excite the anger
of God? Why did he repent having made them? Will some Christian
give us an explanation of this matter? No good man will inflict
unnecessary pain upon a beast; how then can we worship a god who
cares nothing for the agonies of the dumb creatures that he made?
Why did he make animals that he knew he would destroy? Does
God delight in causing pain? He had the power to make the beasts,
and fowls, and creeping things in his own good time and way, and it
is to be presumed that he made them according to his wish. Why
should he destroy them? They had committed no sin. They had eaten
no forbidden fruit, made no aprons, nor tried to reach the tree of
life. Yet this god, in blind unreasoning wrath destroyed "all flesh
wherein was the breath of life, and every living thing beneath the
sky, and every substance wherein was life that he had made."...
The Gods (1872)http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/gods.htmlEach nation has created a god, and the god has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved, and he was invariably found on the side of those in power. Each god was intensely patriotic, and detested all nations but his own. All these gods demanded praise, flattery, and worship. Most of them were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume. All these gods have insisted upon having a vast number of priests, and the priests have always insisted upon being supported by the people, and the principal business of these priests has been to boast about their god, and to insist that he could easily vanquish all the other gods put together.
These gods have been manufactured after numberless models, and according to the most grotesque fashions. Some have a thousand arms, some a hundred heads, some are adorned with necklaces of living snakes, some are armed with clubs, some with sword and shield, some with bucklers, and some have wings as a cherub; some were invisible, some would show themselves entire, and some would only show their backs; some were jealous, some were foolish, some turned themselves into men, some into swans, some into bulls, some into doves, and some into Holy Ghosts, and made love to the beautiful daughters of men. Some were married -- all ought to have been -- and some were considered as old bachelors from all eternity. Some had children, and the children were turned into gods and worshiped as their fathers had been. Most of these gods were revengeful, savage, lustful, and ignorant. As they generally depended upon their priests for information, their ignorance can hardly excite our astonishment.
These gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had created, but supposed them perfectly flat. Some thought the day could be lengthened by stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw down the walls of a city, and all knew so little of the real nature of the people they had created, that they commanded the people to love them. Some were so ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just as he might desire, or as they might command, and that to be governed by observation, reason, and experience was a most foul and damning sin. None of these gods could give a true account of the creation of this little earth. All were woefully deficient in geology and astronomy. As a rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as executives, they were far inferior to the average of American presidents.
These deities have demanded the most abject and degrading obedience. In order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust. Of course, they have always been partial to the people who created them, and have generally shown their partiality by assisting those people to rob and destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters.
Nothing is so pleasing to these gods as the butchery of unbelievers. Nothing so enrages them, even now, as to have someone deny their existence...
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