Books: Lectures Of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Vol. I

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You will find by reading that second chapter that God tried to palm off
on Adam a beast as his helpmeet. 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 twenty-third 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 helpmeet 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 helpmeet, 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 a man were you?" "Well, I don't like
to talk about myself." "But you have to. What kind of a man were you?"
"Well, I was a good fellow; I loved my wife, I loved my children. My
home was my heaven; my fire-side 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 a man I am." "Did you belong to any church?"
"I did not. They were too narrow for me. They were always expecting to
be happy simply because somebody else was to be damned."

"Well, did you believe that rib story?" "What rib story--Do 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." "To hell 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
house-keeping, and a few minutes afterward 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 A. B. C. 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 animalcule, 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 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, 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 apt to drown us at any moment. 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 thereupon 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 any one 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 man first-
born children there were. They found they had twenty-thousand two
hundred and seventy-three first-born males. It is reasonable to suppose
there was about the same number of first-born girls, or forty-five
thousand first-born children. There must have been about as many
mothers as first-born children. Dividing three millions by forty-five
thousand mothers, and you will find that the women in Israel had to have
on the average sixty-eight children apiece. 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 priests 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
apiece 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 baled
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 marque 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
beasts 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 of Egypt, and they said: "Our
souls abhorreth 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 abhorreth hash!" What would
you say if she let a basketful of rattlesnakes upon 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 things? 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 was, 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 tithes, 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 Hermann, 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' 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 rained hail 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 fanes?" 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. The 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 that 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
the 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 and steal. Suppose a man planted an acre of
potatoes, hoed 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 have 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.

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