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The next charge is that I have laughed at holy things. Holy things!
The priest always says: "Now don't laugh; look solemn; this is no
laughing matter." There's nothing a priest hates like mirthfulness. He
despises a smile. I read in the bible that God gave a recipe to Aaron
for making hair-oil and said if anybody made any like it, kill him.
Well, I don't believe it. The penalty for infringing on that patent was
death. Do you believe an infinite God gave a recipe for hair-oil? Is
it possible for absurdity to go beyond that? That's what they call a
holy thing. And water for baptism! Do you believe God will look for
this water-mark on the soul?

The next charge is that I misquote the scriptures. That's because I
don't know Hebrew. Why didn't He write to me in English? If He wishes
to hold a gentleman responsible, why doesn't He address him in his
native tongue? Why write His word in such a way that hundreds of
thousands make their living explaining it? If I'd only understood
Hebrew I would have known God didn't make Eve out of a rib. He made her
out of Adam's side. How did He get it out? Well, I suppose He cut it
out with a kind of a splinter of His omnipotence! Then our mother was
made from a rib. When you consider the material used it was the most
successful job ever done. There's even a serpent in the bible that
knows a language. It won't do. Sin, how did it come into the world?
Where did the serpent come from? He was wicked. Adam's sin did not make
him bad. Then there was sin in the world before Adam. There's no sense
in it--not a particle. Then Talmage touches me upon the flood. His
flood didn't come to America, because America was not discovered then.
He says it was a partial flood. Then why did they have to take any
birds in the ark? How did Noah get the animals in the ark? Talmage
says it was through the instinct to get out of the rain. According to
the bible they went in before the rain began. Dr. Scott says the angels
helped carry them in. Imagine an angel with an animal under each wing.
It must have rained 800 feet a day for forty days. Why does Talmage try
to explain a miracle? The beauty of a miracle is it cannot be
explained. The moment the church begins to explain the church is gone.
All it's got to do is swear it is so. The ark landed on Ararat, which
is 17,000 feet high. There was only one window, twenty-two inches
square. Talmage says the window ran clear around the ark. The bible
doesn't say so. That's Brooklyn; that's no bible.

If the bible account is true the ark must have struck bottom on the top
of a mountain. Would any but a God of mercy and kindness people a
world, and then drown them all? A God cruel enough to drown His own
children ought not to have the impudence to tell me how to bring up
mine. Why did He save eight of the same kind of people to take a fresh
start? Why didn't He make a fresh lot, kill His snake, and give His
children a fair show? It won't do.

Talmage says the bible does not favor polygamy and slavery. There was
room enough on the table of stone for saying man should only have one
wife and no slaves. If not, God might have written it on the other
side. David and Solomon were pursued of God, but they had a pretty good
time of it. Most anybody would be willing to be pursued that way.
There is not a word in the old testament against slavery or polygamy.
Frederick Douglas, a slave in Maryland, is the greatest man that state
ever produced. He was enslaved by Christians. Why did God pay so much
attention to blasphemers, and so little to slaveholders and robbers? I
am opposed to any God that was ever in favor of slavery. The bible
upholds polygamy, and that's the reason I don't uphold the bible. The
most glorious temple ever erected is the home--that's my church. I've
misquoted the story of Jonah, Talmage says. When somebody had been
guilty of blasphemy the winds rose; they tried to get Jonah ashore, but
couldn't do it. The sea waxed. He was swallowed by a whale. The
people of Minerva wrapped all their cattle up in sack-cloth, and if
anything would have pleased God I should think that would. Jonah sat
under a gourd, and God made a worm out of some omnipotence he had left
over, and set it work on the ground. Talmage doesn't think Jonah was in
the whale's belly--he said in his mouth. Well, judging from the
doctor's photograph, that explanation would be quite natural to him. He
says he might have been in the whale's stomach, and avoided the action
of the gastric juice by walking up and down. Imagine Jonah, sitting on
a back tooth, leaning against the upper jaw, longingly looking through
the open mouth for signs of land! But that's scripture and you've got
to believe it or be damned. Let me say his brother preachers will not
thank Talmage for his explanations. I don't believe it, and if I am to
be damned for it, I'll accept it cheerfully.

They say I was defeated for Governor of Illinois because I was an
infidel, and that I am an infidel because I was defeated. That's logic.
Now I'll tell you. They asked me whether I was an infidel, and I said I
was! I was defeated. I preserved my manhood and lost an office. If
everybody were as frank as I was, some men now in office would be
private citizens. I would rather be what I am than hold any office in
the world and be a slimy hypocrite.

Next they say I slandered my parents because I do not believe what they
believed. My father at one time believed the bible to be the inspired
word of God. He was an honorable man, and told me to read the bible for
myself and be honest. He lived long enough to believe that the old
testament was not the word of God. He had not in his life as much
happiness as I have in one year. I hope my children will dishonor me by
being nearer right than I am. If I have made a mistake, I want my
children to correct it. My mother died when I was 2 years old. Were she
living tonight, or if she does live, she would say, be absolutely true
to yourself and preserve your manhood. If Talmage had been born in
Constantinople he would have been a dervish. He is what he is because
he can't help it. His head is just that shape. I am taking away the
hope and consolation of the world, he says. His consolation is that
ninety-nine out of every hundred are going to hell. His church was
founded by John Calvin, a murderer. Better have no heaven than a hell.
I would rather God would commit suicide this minute than that a single
soul should go to hell. I want no Presbyterian consolation, I want no
fore-ordination, no consolation, no damnation.

[Col. Ingersoll concluded with a few remarks about the bible women,
saying that women today are as true to the gallows as Mary Magdalene was
to the cross.]

Wherever there are women there are heroines. Shakespeare's women are
vastly superior to the bible women. I am accused of putting out the
light-houses on the shores of the other world. The Christians are
trimming invisible wicks and pouring in allegorical oil. The Christian
is willing wife, children and parents shall burn if only he can sing and
have a harp. Mr. Talmage can see countless millions burn in hell
without decreasing the length of his orthodox smile.

Ingersoll's Lecture on Talmagian Theology (Third lecture)

We must judge people somewhat by their creeds. Mr. Talmage is a
Calvinist, and he therefore regards every human being who has been born
only once as totally depraved. He thinks that God never made a single
creature that didn't deserve to be damned the minute He finished him.
So every one who opposes Mr. Talmage is infamous. The generosity of an
agnostic is meanness, his honesty is larceny and his love is hate.
Talmage is a consistent follower of Calvin and Knox, and a consistent
worshiper of the Jehovah of the ancient Jews. I oppose not him, but his
creed, because it tends to crush out the natural tendencies in men to
joyousness and goodness. There is something good in every human being,
and there is something bad. There are no perfect saints and no totally
bad persons. There is the seed of goodness in every human heart and the
capacity for improvement in every human soul. Isn't it possible for a
man who acts like Christ to be saved, whatever be his belief? Cannot a
soul be infinitely generous? And can any God damn such a soul? If Mr.
Talmage's creed be true, nearly all the great and glorious men of the
past are burning today. If it be true, the greatest man England has
produced in 100 years is in hell. The world is poorer since I spoke
here last, for Darwin has passed away. He was a true child of nature--
one who knew more about his mother than any other child she had. Yet he
was not a Calvinist. He did not get his inspiration from any book, but
from every star in the heavens, from the insect in the sunbeam, from the
flowers in the meadows, and from the everlasting rocks.

If the doctrine of the Calvinists is true, what right had any one to ask
an unbeliever to fight for his country in the civil war? What right has
a believer to buy an unbelieving substitute, when some day he will look
over the edge of heaven, and pointing downward, would say to a friend,
"that is my substitute blistering there"?

Mr. Talmage says that my mind is poisoned, and that the reason why all
infidels' minds are poisoned is that they don't believe the Jew bible.
Let us see whether it is worth believing. I deny that an infinitely
merciful God would protect slavery or would uphold polygamy, which
pollutes the sweetest words in language. I will not believe that God
told men to exterminate their fellow-men, to plunge the sword into
women's breasts and into the hearts of tender babes. I am opposed to
the Jew bible because it is bad. I don't deny that there are many good
passages in it, nor that among all the thorns there are some roses. I
admit that many Christians are doing all they can to idealize the
frightful things in the old testament. It is the protest of human
nature. Now, they tell me that this book is inspired. Let us see what
inspired means. If it means anything, it is that the thoughts of God,
through the instrumentality of men, constitute this Jew bible, and that
these thoughts were written. Now just suppose that some voice whispered
in your ear, how would you know it was God's? How did these gentlemen
of old know it was God who was talking to them? If anyone now told you
that God whispered in his ear, you wouldn't believe him. Why? Because
you know him. Why are we asked to believe those ancient gentlemen?
Because we don't know them. Another reason, according to Mr. Talmage,
why the Jew bible is inspired, is that prophecies in it have been
fulfilled. How do we know that the prophecies were not fulfilled before
they were written? They are so vague that you can't tell what was
prophesied. If you will read the Jew bible carefully, you will see that
there was not a line, not a word, prophesying the coming of Christ.
Catholics were right in saying that if the Jew bible was to be kept in
awe it must be kept from the people. Protestants are wrong in letting
the people read it.

Another argument of Mr. Talmage for the inspiration of the bible is that
the Jews have been kept as a wandering, persecuted race to fulfill the
prophecies of the old testament. I don't believe an infinitely merciful
God would persecute a race for thousands of years to use them as
witnesses. Christian hate has not allowed the Jews to earn a [living?]
or at least to practice a profession, and now, by a kind of poetic
justice, the Jews control the money of the world. Emperors go to their
bankers with hats in hand and beg them to discount their notes. This is
because God has cursed the Jews. Only a little while ago Christians
have robbed Hebrews, stripped them naked, turned them into the streets,
and pointed to them as a fulfillment of divine prophecy. If you want to
know the difference between some Jews and some Christians compare the
address of Felix Adler with the sermon of the Rev. Dr. Talmage. Mr.
Talmage thinks that the light of every burning Jewish home in Russia
throws light upon the gospel. Every wound in a Jewish breast is to him
a mouth to proclaim the divine inspiration of the bible. Every Jewish
maiden violated is another fulfillment of God's holy word. What do
these horrid persecutions prove, except the barbarity of Christians?
Next it is said that martyrs prove the truth of the bible. Mr. Talmage
affirms that no man ever died cheerfully for a lie. Why, men have gone
cheerfully to their death for believing that a wafer was God's flesh.
Thousands have died for their belief in Mohammed. Men have died because
they believed in immersion. Either Mr. Talmage is a Catholic, a
Mohammedan, a Baptist, or else he believes that these thousands died for
lies. Every religion has had its martyrs, and every religion cannot be
true. Then it is said that miracles prove the inspiration of the bible.
But it is impossible by the human senses to establish a violation of
nature's laws. When the Hebrews threw down sticks before Pharaoh, and
they became snakes, did he believe? No; because he was there. After
the Jews had been lead through the desert and had been fed with bread
rained from heaven, had been clothed in indestructible pantaloons, and
had quenched their thirst with water that followed them over mountains
and through sands; when they saw Jehovah wrapped in the smoke of Sinai
they still had more faith in a calf that they could make than anything
Jehovah could give them. It was so with the miracles of Christ. Not
twenty people were converted by one of them. In fact, human testimony
cannot substantiate a miracle. Take the miracle about the bears which
ate the children who laughed at the bald-headed old prophet. What do
you suppose Mr. Talmage would say that meant? Why, first, that children
ought to respect preachers, and second, that God is kind to animals.
Nearly every miracle in the old testament is wrought in the interest of
slavery, polygamy, creed or lust. I wish by denying them to rescue the
reputation of Jehovah from the assaults of the bible.

Who are the witnesses to the truth of the narratives of the Jews' bible?
Eusebius was one. He lived in the reign of Constantine, and said that
the tracks of Pharaoh's chariots could be seen--perfectly preserved in
the sands of the Red sea. He was the man who forged the passage in
Josephus which speaks about the coming of Christ. Good witness, isn't
he. Another one was Polycarp. We don't know much about him. He
suffered martyrdom in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and when the fire
wouldn't burn and he looked like gold through it, a heathen was so mad
about it that he ran his sword through Polycarp. The blood gushed out
and quenched the fire, while the martyr's soul flew up to heaven in the
form of a dove. And that's all we know about Polycarp. To know how
much reliance should be placed upon the judgment of such trustworthy
witnesses, we should look at what some of their beliefs were. They
thought that the world was flat; that the phoenix story was true; that
the stars had souls and sinned; and one said there were four gospels
because there were four winds and four corners of the earth. He might
have added that it was also because a donkey has four legs.

So far as the argument drawn from the sufferings of the martyrs is
concerned, the speaker said that thousands upon thousands of men had
died as cheerfully in defense of the koran as Christians had died in
defense of the bible. Their heroic suffering simply proved that they
were sinners in their beliefs, not that those beliefs were true. This
argument, as advanced by Mr. Talmage, proves too much. Every religion
on the face of the globe has had its martyrs, but all religions cannot
be true. Men do die cheerfully for falsehoods when they believe them to
be true.

[The question of miracles was discussed at some length, and Col.
Ingersoll declared it was impossible to establish by any human evidence
that a miracle had ever been performed.]

Pharaoh was not convinced by the alleged miracle performed by Aaron, of
turning a stick into a serpent. Why? Because he was there, and no such
miracle was ever done. No twenty people were convinced by the reported
miracles of Christ, and yet people of the nineteenth century were coolly
asked to be convinced on hearsay by miracles which those who are
supposed to have seen them refuse to credit. It won't do. The laws of
nature never have been interrupted, and they never will be. All the
books in the universe will never convince a thinking man that miracles
have been performed.

[The lecture was sprinkled throughout with the satirical wit for which
Col. Ingersoll is famous, and concluded by the enumeration of a long
list of "unscientific" facts and events recorded in the bible.]

Ingersoll's Lecture on Religious Intolerance

"How anybody ever came to the conclusion that there was any God who
demanded that you should feel sorrowful and miserable and bleak one-
seventh of the time is beyond my comprehension. Neither can I conceive
how they can say that one-seventh of time is holy. That day is the most
sacred day on which the most good has been done for mankind. Now, there
was a time among the Jews, when, if a man violated the Sabbath, they
would kill him. They said God told them to do it. I think they were
mistaken. If not, if any God did tell them to kill him, then I think he
was mistaken. I hope the time will come when every man can spend the
Sabbath just as he pleases, provided he does not interfere with the
happiness of others. I would fight just as earnestly that the Christian
may go to church as that the infidel may have the right to spend the
Sabbath as he wishes. Are the people who go to church the only good
people? Are there not a great many bad people who go to church? Not a
bank in Pittsburgh will lend a dollar to the man who belongs to the
church, without security, quicker than to the man who don't go to
church. Now, I believe that all laws upon the statute-book should be
enforced. I do not blame anybody in this town. I am perfectly willing
that every preacher in this town should preach. They are employed to
preach, and to preach a certain doctrine, and if they don't preach that
doctrine they will be turned out. I have no objection to that. But I
want the same privilege to express my views, and what is the difference
whether the man pays the day he goes in, or pays for it the week before
by subscription.

What would the church people think if the theatrical people should
attempt to suppress the churches? What harm would it do to have an
opera here tonight? It would elevate us more than to hear ten thousand
sermons on the world that never dies. There is more practical wisdom in
one of the plays of Shakespeare than in all the sacred books ever
written. What wrong would there be to see one of those grand plays on
Sunday? There was a time when the church would not allow you to cook on
Sunday. You had to eat your victuals cold. There was a time they
thought the more miserable you feel the better God feels. There are
sixty odd thousand preachers in the United States. Some people regard
them as a necessary evil; some as an unnecessary evil. There are sixty
odd thousand churches in the United States; and it does seem to me that
with all the wealth on their side; with all the good people on their
side; with Providence on their side; with all these advantages they
ought to let us at least have the right to speak our thoughts.

The history of the world shows me that the right has not always
prevailed. When you see innocent men chained to the stake and the
flames licking their flesh, it is natural to ask, why does God permit
this? If you see a man in prison with the chains eating into his flesh
simply for loving God, you've got to ask why does not a just God
interfere? You've got to meet this; it won't do to say that it will
all come out for the best. That may do very well for God, but it's
awful hard on the man. Where was the God that permitted slavery for two
hundred years in these United States? The history of the world shows
that when a mean thing was done, man did it; when a good thing was
done, man did it.

But there was a time when there was a drought, and this tribe of savages
with their false notions of religion says somebody has been wicked.
Somebody has been lecturing on Sunday. Then the tribe hunted out the
wicked man. They said you've got to stop. We cannot allow you to
continue your wickedness, which brings punishment upon the whole of us.
What is the reason they allow me to speak tonight. Because the
Christians are not as firm in their belief now as they were a thousand
years ago. The luke warmness and hypocrisy of Christians now permit me
to speak tonight. If they felt as they did a thousand years ago they
would kill me. So religious persecution was born of the instinct of
self-defense. Is there any duty we owe to God? Can we help him, can we
add to his glory or happiness? They tell me this God is infinitely
wise, I cannot add to his wisdom; infinitely happy--I cannot add to his
happiness. What can I do? Maybe he wants me to make prayers that won't
be answered. I cannot see any relation that can exist between the
finite and the infinite. I acknowledge that I am under obligations to my
fellow man. We owe duties to our fellow man. And what? Simply to make
them happy.

The only good, is happiness; and the only evil, is misery, or
unhappiness. Only those things are right that tend to increase the
happiness of man; only those things are wrong which tend to increase
the misery of man. That is the basis of right and wrong. There never
would have been the idea of wrong except that man can inflict sufferings
upon others. Utility, then, is the basis of the idea of right and
wrong.

The church tells us that this world is a school to prepare us for
another, that it is a place to build up character. Well, if that is the
only way character can be developed it is bad for children who die
before they get any character. What would you think of a school-master
who would kill half his pupils the first day?

Now, I read the bible, and I find that God so loved this world that He
made up His mind to damn the most of us. I have read this book, and
what shall I say of it? I believe it is generally better to be honest.
Now, I don't believe the bible. Had I not better say so? They say that
if you do you will regret it when you come to die. If that be true, I
know a great many religious people who will have no cause to regret it--
they don't tell their honest convictions about the bible. There are two
great arguments of the church--the great man argument and the death-bed.
They say the religion of your fathers is good enough. Why should your
father object to your inventing a better plow than he had. They say to
one, do you know more than all the theologians dead? Being a perfectly
modest man I say I think I do. Now we have come to the conclusion that
every man has a right to think. Would God give a bird wings and make it
a crime to fly? Would he give me brains and make it a crime to think?
Any God that would damn one of his children for the expression of his
honest thought wouldn't make a decent thief. When I read a book and
don't believe it, I ought to say so. I will do so and take the
consequence like a man. And so I object to paying for the support of
another man's belief. I am in favor of the taxation of all church
property. If that property belongs to God, He is able to pay the tax.
If we exempt anything, let us exempt the home of the widow and orphan.

[A voice here interrupted the speaker.

Col. Ingersoll--What did the gentleman say? A voice--O, he's drunk.

Col. Ingersoll--I didn't think any Christian ought to get drunk and come
here to disturb us.

The speaker resumed:]

The church has today $600,000,000 or $700,000,000 of property in this
country. It must cost $2,000,000 a week, that is to say $500 a minute,
to run these churches. You give me this money and if I don't do more
good with it than four times as many churches I'll resign. Let them
make the churches attractive and they'll get more hearers. They will
have less empty pews if they have less empty heads in the pulpit. The
time will come when the preacher will become a teacher.

Admitting that the bible is the book of God, is that His only good job?
Will not a man be damned as quick for denying the equator as denying the
bible? Will he not be damned as quick for denying geology as for
denying the scheme of salvation? When the bible was first written it
was not believed. Had they known as much about science as we know now
that bible would not have been written.

Col. Ingersoll next gave his views of the Puritans, declared they left
Holland to escape persecution and came came here to persecute others.
He referred to the persecutions heaped upon those of other religious
belief by the Puritans, paid the Catholics the compliment to say that
Maryland, which they ruled, was the first colony to enact a law
tolerating religious views not held by themselves, and went on to
explain that God was never mentioned in the constitution of the United
States because each colony had a different religious belief, and each
sect preferred to have God not mentioned at all than to having another
religious belief than their own recognized.

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