A Reply to Rev. Drs. Thomas and Lorimer
McVicker's Theatre, Chicago, Nov. 26, 1882.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1882)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 7.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/a-reply-to-rev-drs-thomas-and-lorimer/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

• Col. Ingersoll filled McVickor's Theatre again yesterday
    afternoon, when he answered the question "What Must We Do to
    Be Saved?" But before doing so he replied to the recent
    criticisms of city clergymen on his "Talmagian Theology"—
    Chicago Tribune, Nov. 27, 1882.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

WHEREVER I lecture, as a rule, some ministers think it their duty to
reply for the purpose of showing either that I am unfair, or that I am
blasphemous, or that I laugh. And laughing has always been considered
by theologians as a crime. Ministers have always said you will have no
respect for our ideas unless you are solemn. Solemnity is a condition
precedent to believing anything without evidence. And if you can only
get a man solemn enough, awed enough, he will believe anything.

In this city the Rev. Dr. Thomas has made a few remarks, and I may say
by way of preface that I have always held him in the highest esteem. He
struggles, according to his statement, with the problem of my sincerity,
and he about half concludes that I am not sincere. There is a little
of the minister left in Dr. Thomas. Ministers always account for a
difference of opinion by attacking the motive. Now, to him, it makes no
difference whether I am sincere or insincere; the question is, Can my
argument be answered? Suppose you could prove that the maker of the
multiplication table held mathematics in contempt; what of it? Ten times
ten would be a hundred still.

My sincerity has nothing to do with the force of the argument—not the
slightest. But this gentleman begins to suspect that I am doing what
I do for the sake of applause. What a commentary on the Christian
religion, that, after they have been preaching it for sixteen or
eighteen hundred years, a man attacks it for the sake of popularity—a
man attacks it for the purpose of winning applause! When I commenced to
speak upon this subject there was no appreciable applause; most of my
fellow-citizens differed with me; and I was denounced as though I had
been a wild beast. But I have lived to see the majority of the men and
women of intellect in the United States on my side; I have lived to see
the church deny her creed; I have lived to see ministers apologize in
public for what they preached; and a great and glorious work is going
on until, in a little while, you will not find one of them, unless it
is some old petrifaction of the red-stone period, who will admit that
he ever believed in the Trinity, in the Atonement, or in the doctrine of
Eternal Agony. The religion preached in the pulpits does not satisfy the
intellect of America, and if Dr. Thomas wishes to know why people go
to hear infidelity it is this: Because they are not satisfied with the
orthodox Christianity of the day. That is the reason. They are beginning
to hold it in contempt.

But this gentleman imagines that I am insincere because I attacked
certain doctrines of the Bible. I attacked the doctrine of eternal pain.
I hold it in infinite and utter abhorrence. And if there be a God in
this universe who made a hell; if there be a God in this universe who
denies to any human being the right of reformation, then that God is not
good, that God is not just, and the future of man is infinitely dark. I
despise that doctrine, and I have done what little I could to get that
horror from the cradle, that horror from the hearts of mothers, that
horror from the hearts of husbands and fathers, and sons, and brothers,
and sisters. It is a doctrine that turns to ashes all the humanities of
life and all the hopes of mankind. I despise it.

And the gentleman also charges that I am wanting in reverence. I admit
here to-day that I have no reverence for a falsehood. I do not care how
old it is, and I do not care who told it, whether the men were inspired
or not. I have no reverence for what I believe to be false, and in
determining what is false I go by my reason. And whenever another man
gives me an argument I examine it. If it is good I follow it. If it is
bad I throw it away. I have no reverence for any book that upholds human
slavery. I despise such a book. I have no reverence for any book that
upholds or palliates the infamous institution of polygamy. I have no
reverence for any book that tells a husband to kill his wife if she
differs with him upon the subject of religion. I have no reverence for
any book that defends wars of conquest and extermination. I have
no reverence for a God that orders his legions to slay the old and
helpless, and to whet the edge of the sword with the blood of mothers
and babes. I have no reverence for such a book; neither have I any
reverence for the author of that book. No matter whether he be God or
man, I have no reverence. I have no reverence for the miracles of the
Bible. I have no reverence for the story that God allowed bears to tear
children in pieces. I have no reverence for the miraculous, but I have
reverence for the truth, for justice, for charity, for humanity, for
intellectual liberty, and for human progress.

I have the right to do my own thinking. I am going to do it. I have
never met any minister that I thought had brain enough to think for
himself and for me too. I do my own. I have no reverence for barbarism,
no matter how ancient it may be, and no reverence for the savagery of
the Old Testament; no reverence for the malice of the New. And let me
tell you here to-night that the Old Testament is a thousand times better
than the New. The Old Testament threatened no vengeance beyond the
grave. God was satisfied when his enemy was? dead. It was reserved for
the New Testament—it was reserved for universal benevolence—to rend
the veil between time and eternity and fix the horrified gaze of man
upon the abyss of hell. The New Testament is just as much worse than the
Old, as hell is worse than sleep. And yet it is the fashion to say that
the Old Testament is bad and that the New Testament is good. I have no
reverence for any book that teaches a doctrine contrary to my reason;
no reverence for any book that teaches a doctrine contrary to my heart;
and, no matter how old it is, no matter how many have believed it, no
matter how many have died on account of it, no matter how many live for
it, I have no reverence for that book, and I am glad of it.

Dr. Thomas seems to think that I should approach these things with
infinite care, that I should not attack slavery, or polygamy,
or religious persecution, but that I should "mildly
suggest"—mildly,—should not hurt anybody's feelings. When I go to
church the ministers tell me I am going to hell. When I meet one I tell
him, "There is no hell," and he says: "What do you want to hurt our
feelings for?" He wishes me mildly to suggest that the sun and moon did
not stop, that may be the bears only frightened the children, and that,
after all, Lot's wife was only scared. Why, there was a minister in this
city of Chicago who imagined that his congregation were progressive,
and, in his pulpit, he said that he did not believe the story of Lot's
wife—said that he did not think that any sensible man would believe
that a woman was changed into salt; and they tried him, and the
congregation thought he was entirely too fresh. And finally he went
before that church and admitted that he was mistaken, and owned up to
the chloride of sodium, and said: "I not only take the Bible _cum grano
salis_, but with a whole barrelful."

My doctrine is, if you do not believe a thing, say so, say so; no need
of going away around the bush and suggesting may be, perhaps, possibly,
peradventure. That is the ministerial way, but I do not like it.

I am also charged with making an onslaught upon the good as well as the
bad. I say here today that never in my life have I said one word against
honesty, one word against liberty, one word against charity, one word
against any institution that is good. I attack the bad, not the good,
and I would like to have some minister point out in some lecture or
speech that I have delivered, one word against the good, against the
highest happiness of the human race.

I have said all I was able to say in favor of justice, in favor of
liberty, in favor of home, in favor of wife and children, in favor of
progress, and in favor of universal kindness; but not one word in favor
of the bad, and I never expect to.

Dr. Thomas also attacks my statement that the brain thinks in spite of
us.

Doesn't it? Can any man tell what he is going to think to-morrow? You
see, you hear, you taste, you feel, you smell—these are the avenues by
which Nature approaches the brain, the consequence of this is thought,
and you cannot by any possibility help thinking.

Neither can you determine what you will think. These impressions are
made independently of your will. "But," says this reverend doctor,
"Whence comes this conception of space?" I can tell him. There is such
a thing as matter. We conceive that matter occupies room—space—and,
in our minds, space is simply the opposite of matter. And it comes
naturally—not supernaturally.

Does the gentleman contend there had to be a revelation of God for us to
conceive of a place where there is nothing? We know there is something.
We can think of the opposite of something, and therefore we say space.
"But," says this gentleman, "Where do we get the idea of good and bad?"
I can tell him; no trouble about that. Every man has the capacity to
enjoy and the capacity to suffer—every man. Whenever a man enjoys
himself he calls that good; whenever he suffers he calls that bad.
The animals that are useful to him he calls good; the poisonous, the
hurtful, he calls bad. The vegetables that he can eat and use he calls
good; those that are of no use except to choke the growth of the good
ones, he calls bad. When the sun shines, when everything in nature is
out that ministers to him, he says "this is good;" when the storm comes
and blows down his hut, when the frost comes and lays down his crop,
he says "this is bad." And all phenomena that affect men well he calls
good; all that affect him ill he calls bad.

Now, then, the foundation of the idea of right and wrong is the effect
in nature that we are capable of enjoying or capable of suffering. That
is the foundation of conscience; and if man could not suffer, if man
could not enjoy, we never would have dreamed of the word conscience; and
the words right and wrong never could have passed human lips. There are
no supernatural fields. We get our ideas from experience—some of them
from our forefathers, many from experience. A man works—food does not
come of itself. A man works to raise it, and, after he has worked in
the sun and heat, do you think it is necessary that he should have a
revelation from heaven before he thinks that he has a better right to it
than the man who did not work? And yet, according to these gentlemen,
we never would have known it was wrong to steal had not the Ten
Commandments been given from Mount Sinai.

You go into a savage country where they never heard of the Bible, and
let a man hunt all day for game, and finally get one little bird, and
the hungry man that staid at home endeavor to take it from him, and you
would see whether he would need a direct revelation from God in order
to make up his mind who had the better right to that bird. Our ideas of
right and wrong are born of our surroundings, and if a man will think
for a moment he will see it. But they deny that the mind thinks in spite
of us. I heard a story of a man who said, "No man can think of one thing
a minute, he will think of something else." Well, there was a little
Methodist preacher. He said he could think of a thing a minute—that he
could say the Lord's Prayer and never think of another thing. "Well,"
said the man, "I'll tell you what I will do. There is the best
road-horse in the country. I will give you that horse if you will just
say the Lord's Prayer, and not think of another thing." And the little
fellow shut up his eyes: "Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be
thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done—I suppose you will throw
in the saddle and bridle?"

I have always insisted, and I shall always insist, until I find some
fact in Nature correcting the statement, that Nature sows the seeds of
thought—that every brain is a kind of field where the seeds are sown,
and that some are very poor, and some are very barren, and some are very
rich. That is my opinion.

Again he asks: "If one is not responsible for his thought, why is any
one blamed for thinking as he does?" It is not a question of blame, it
is a question of who is right—a question of who is wrong. Admit that
every one thinks exactly as he must, that does not show that his thought
is right; that does not show that his thought is the highest thought.
Admit that every piece of land in the world produces what it must; that
does not prove that the land covered with barren rocks and a little moss
is just as good as the land covered with wheat or corn; neither does it
prove that the mind has to act as the wheat or the corn; neither does it
prove that the land had any choice as to what it would produce. I hold
men responsible not for their thoughts; I hold men responsible for their
actions. And I have said a thousand times: Physical liberty is this—the
right to do anything that does not interfere with another—in other
words, to act right; and intellectual liberty is this—the right to
think right, and the right to think wrong, provided you do your best to
think right. I have always said it, and I expect to say it always.

The reverend gentleman is also afflicted with the gradual theory. I
believe in that theory.

If you will leave out inspiration, if you will leave out the direct
interference of an infinite God, the gradual theory is right. It is a
theory of evolution.

I admit that astronomy has been born of astrology, that chemistry came
from the black art; and I also contend that religion will be lost in
science. I believe in evolution. I believe in the budding of the seed,
the shining of the sun, the dropping of the rain; I believe in the
spreading and the growing; and that is as true in every other department
of the world as it is in vegetation. I believe it; but that does not
account for the Bible doctrine. We are told we have a book absolutely
inspired, and it will not do to say God gradually grows. If he is
infinite now, he knows as much as he ever will. If he has been always
infinite, he knew as much at the time he wrote the Bible as he knows
to-day; and, consequently, whatever he said then must be as true now
as it was then. You see they mix up now a little bit of philosophy with
religion—a little bit of science with the shreds and patches of the
supernatural.

Hear this: I said in my lecture the other day that all the clergymen in
the world could not get one drop of rain out of the sky. I insist on it.
All the prayers on earth cannot produce one drop of rain. I also said
all the clergymen of the world could not save one human life. They tried
it last year. They tried it in the United States. The Christian world
upon its knees implored God to save one life, and the man died. The man
died! Had the man recovered the whole church would have claimed that it
was in answer to prayer. The man having died, what does the church say
now? What is the answer to this? The Rev. Dr. Thomas says: "There is
prayer and there is rain." Good. "Can he that is himself or any one else
say there is no possible relation between one and the other?" I do. Let
us put it another way. There is rain and there is infidelity; can any
one say there is no possible relation between the two? How does Dr.
Thomas know that he is not indebted to me for this year's crops? And yet
this gentleman really throws out the idea that there is some possible
relation between prayer and rain, between rain and health; and he tells
us that he would have died twenty-five years ago had it not been for
prayer. I doubt it. Prayer is not a medicine. Life depends upon certain
facts—not upon prayer. All the prayer in the world cannot take the
place of the circulation of the blood. All the prayer in the world is
no substitute for digestion. All the prayer in the world cannot take the
place of food; and whenever a man lives by prayer you will find that he
eats considerable besides. It will not do. Again: This reverend Doctor
says: "Shall we say that all the love of the unseen world"—how does he
know there is any love in the unseen world? "and the love of God"—how
does he know there is any love in God? "heed not the cries and tears of
earth?"

I do not know; but let the gentleman read the history of religious
persecution. Let him read the history of those who were put in dungeons,
of those who lifted their chained hands to God and mingled prayer with
the clank of fetters; men that were in the dungeons simply for loving
this God, simply for worshiping this God. And what did God do? Nothing.
The chains remained upon the limbs of his worshipers. They remained in
the dungeons built by theology, by malice, and hatred; and what did God
do? Nothing. Thousands of men were taken from their homes, fagots were
piled around their bodies; they were consumed to ashes, and what did
God do? Nothing. The sword of extermination was unsheathed, hundreds and
thousands of men, women and children perished. Women lifted their hands
to God and implored him to protect their children, their daughters; and
what did God do?

Nothing. Whole races were enslaved, and the cruel lash was put upon the
naked back of toil. What did God do? Nothing. Children were sold from
the arms of mothers. All the sweet humanities of life were trodden
beneath the brutal foot of creed; and what did God do? Nothing. Human
beings, his children, were tracked through swamps by bloodhounds; and
what did God do? Nothing. Wild storms sweep over the earth and the
shipwrecked go down in the billows; and what does God do? Nothing. There
come plague and pestilence and famine. What does God do? Thousands
and thousands perish. Little children die upon the withered breasts of
mothers; and what does God do? Nothing.

What evidence has Dr. Thomas that the cries and tears of man have ever
touched the heart of God? Let us be honest. I appeal to the history
of the world; I appeal to the tears, and blood, and agony, and
imprisonment, and death of hundreds and millions of the bravest and
best. Have they ever touched the heart of the Infinite? Has the hand of
help ever been reached from heaven? I do not know; but I do not believe
it.

Dr. Thomas tells me that is orthodox Christianity. What right has he
to tell what is orthodox Christianity? He is a heretic. He had too much
brain to remain in the Methodist pulpit. He had a doubt—and a doubt is
born of an idea. And his doctrine has been declared by his own church
to be unorthodox. They have passed on his case and they have found him
unconstitutional. What right has he to state what is orthodox? And here
is what he says: "Christianity"—orthodox Christianity I suppose
he means—"teaches, concerning the future world, that rewards and
punishments are carried over from time to eternity; that the principles
of the government of God are the same there as here; that character, and
not profession determines destiny; and that Humboldt, and Dickens, and
all others who have gone and shall go to that world shall receive their
just rewards; that souls will always be in the place in which for the
time, be it now or a million years hence, they are fitted. That is what
Christianity teaches."

If it does, never will I have another word to say against Christianity.
It never has taught it. Christianity—orthodox Christianity—teaches
that when you draw your last breath you have lost the last opportunity
for reformation. Christianity teaches that this little world is the
eternal line between time and eternity, and if you do not get religion
in this life, you will be eternally damned in the next. That is
Christianity. They say: "Now is the accepted time." If you put it off
until you die, that is too late; and the doctrine of the Christian world
is that there is no opportunity for reformation in another world. The
doctrine of orthodox Christianity is that you must believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ here in this life, and it will not do to believe on him in
the next world. You must believe on him here and that if you fail here,
God in his infinite wisdom will never give you another chance. That
is orthodox Christianity; and according to orthodox Christianity, the
greatest, the best and the sublimest of the world are now in hell. And
why is it that they say it is not orthodox Christianity? I have made
them ashamed of their doctrine. When I called to their attention the
fact that such men as Darwin, such men as Emerson, Dickens, Longfellow,
Laplace, Shakespeare, and Humboldt, were in hell, it struck them all at
once that the company in heaven would not be very interesting with such
men left out.

And now they begin to say: "We think the Lord will give those men
another chance." I have succeeded in my mission beyond my most sanguine
expectations. I have made orthodox ministers deny their creeds; I have
made them ashamed of their doctrine—and that is glory enough. They will
let me in, a few years after I am dead. I admit that the doctrine that
God will treat us as we treat others—I admit that is taught by Matthew,
Mark, and Luke; but it is not taught by the Orthodox church. I want that
understood. I admit also that Dr. Thomas is not orthodox, and that he
was driven out of the church because he thought God too good to damn
men forever without giving them the slightest chance. Why, the Catholic
Church is a thousand times better than your Protestant Church upon that
question. The Catholic Church believes in purgatory—that is, a place
where a fellow can get a chance to make a motion for a new trial.

Dr. Thomas, all I ask of you is to tell all that you think. Tell
your congregation whether you believe the Bible was written by divine
inspiration. Have the courage and the grandeur to tell your people
whether, in your judgment, God ever upheld slavery.

Do not shrink. Do not shirk. Tell your people whether God ever upheld
polygamy. Do not shrink. Tell them whether God was ever in favor of
religious persecution. Stand right to it. Then tell your people whether
you honestly believe that a good man can suffer for a bad one and the
bad one get the credit. Be honor bright. Tell what you really think
and there will not be as much difference between you and myself as you
imagine.

The next gentleman, I believe, is the Rev. Dr. Lorimer. He comes to the
rescue, and I have an idea of his mental capacity from the fact that he
is a Baptist. He believes that the infinite God has a choice as to the
manner in which a man or babe shall be dampened. This gentleman
regards modern infidelity as "pitifully shallow" as to its intellectual
conceptions and as to its philosophical views of the universe and of
the problems regarding man's place in it and of his destiny. "Pitifully
shallow!"

What is the modern conception of the universe? The modern conception
is that the universe always has been and forever will be. The modern
conception of the universe is that it embraces within its infinite arms
all matter, all spirit, all forms of force, all that is, all that has
been, all that can be. That is the modern conception of this universe.
And this is called "pitiful."

What is the Christian conception? It is that all the matter in the
universe is dead, inert, and that back of it is a Jewish Jehovah who
made it, and who is now engaged in managing the affairs of this world.
And they even go so far as to say that that Being made experiments in
which he signally failed. That Being made man and woman and put them in
a garden and allowed them to become totally depraved. That Being of
infinite wisdom made hundreds and millions of people when he knew he
would have to drown them. That Being peopled a planet like this with
men, women and children, knowing that he would have to consign most of
them to eternal fire. That is a pitiful conception of the universe. That
is an infamous conception of the universe. Give me rather the conception
of Spinoza, the conception of Humboldt, of Darwin, of Huxley, of Tyndall
and of every other man who has thought. I love to think of the whole
universe together as one eternal fact. I love to think that everything
is alive; that crystallization is itself a step toward joy. I love to
think that when a bud bursts into blossom it feels a thrill. I love to
have the universe full of feeling and full of joy, and not full of
simple dead, inert matter, managed by an old bachelor for all eternity.

Another thing to which this gentleman objects is that I propose
to banish such awful thoughts as the mystery of our origin and our
relations to the present and to the possible future from human thought.

I have never said so. Never. I have said, One world at a time. Why? Do
not make yourself miserable about another. Why? Because I do not know
anything about it, and it may be good. So do not worry. That is all. Y
or do not know where you are going to land. It may be the happy port of
heaven. Wait until you get there. It will be time enough to make trouble
then. This is what I have said. I have said that the golden bridge of
life from gloom emerges, and on shadow rests. I do not know. I admit it.
Life is a shadowy strange and winding road on which we travel for a few
short steps, just a little way from the cradle with its lullaby of love,
to the low and quiet wayside inn where all at last must sleep, and where
the only salutation is "Good-Night!" Whether there is a good morning I
do not know, but I am willing to wait.

Let us think these high and splendid thoughts. Let us build palaces for
the future, but do not let us spend time making dungeons for men who
happen to differ from us. I am willing to take the conceptions of
Humboldt and Darwin, of Haeckel and Spinoza, and I am willing to compare
their splendid conceptions with the doctrine embraced in the Baptist
creed. This gentleman has his ideas upon a variety of questions, and he
tells me that, "No one has a right to say that Dickens, Longfellow, and
Darwin are castaways!" Why not? They were not Christians. They did
not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. They did not believe in the
inspiration of the Scriptures. And, if orthodox religion be true, they
are castaways. But he says: "No one has the right to say that orthodoxy
condemns to perdition any man who has struggled toward the right, and
who has tried to bless the earth he is raised on." That is what I say,
but that is not what orthodoxy says. Orthodoxy says that the best man
in the world, if he fails to believe in the existence of God, or in the
divinity of Christ, will be eternally lost. Does it not say it? Is there
an orthodox minister in this town now who will stand up and say that an
honest atheist can be saved? He will not. Let any preacher say it, and
he will be tried for heresy.

I will tell you what orthodoxy is. A man goes to the day of judgment,
and they cross-examine him, and they say to him:

"Did you believe the Bible?"

"No."

"Did you belong to the church?"

"No."

"Did you take care of your wife and children?"

"Yes?"

"Pay your debts?"

"Yes."

"Love your country?"

"Yes."

"Love the whole world?"

"Yes."

"Never made anybody unhappy?"

"Not that I know of. If there is any man or woman that I ever wronged
let them stand up and say so. That is the kind of man I am; but," said
he, "I did not believe the Bible. I did not believe in the divinity
of Jesus Christ, and, to tell you the truth, I did not believe in the
existence of God. I now find I was mistaken; but that was my doctrine."
Now, I want to know what, according to the orthodox church, is done with
that man?

He is sent to hell.

That is their doctrine.

Then the next fellow comes. He says:

"Where did you come from?"

And he looks off kind of stiffly, with his head on one side and he says:

"I came from the gallows. I was just hung."

"What were you hung for?"

"Murdering my wife. She wasn't a Christian either, she got left. The day
I was hung I was washed in the blood of the Lamb."

That is Christianity. And they say to him: "Come in! Let the band play!"

That is orthodox Christianity. Every man that is hanged—there is a
minister there, and the minister tells him he is all right. All he has
to do is just to believe on the Lord.

Another objection this gentleman has, and that is that I am scurrilous.
Scurrilous! And the gentleman, in order to show that he is not
scurrilous, calls infidels, "donkeys, serpents, buzzards." That is
simply to show that he is not scurrilous.

Dr. Lorimer is also of the opinion that the mind thinks independently of
the will; and I propose to prove by him that it does. He is the last
man in the world to controvert that doctrine—the last man. In spite of
himself his mind absorbed the sermon of another man, and he repeated it
as his own. I am satisfied he is an honest man; consequently his mind
acted independently of his will, and he furnishes the strongest evidence
in favor of my position that it is possible to conceive. I am infinitely
obliged to him for the testimony he has unconsciously offered.

He also takes the ground that infidelity debases a man and renders him
unfit for the discharge of the highest duties pertaining to life, and
that we show the greatest shallowness when we endeavor to overthrow
Calvinism. What is Calvinism? It is the doctrine that an infinite God
made millions of people, knowing that they would be damned. I have
answered that a thousand times. I answer it again. No God has a right to
make a mistake, and then damn the mistake. No God has a right to make
a failure, and a man who is to be eternally damned is not a conspicuous
success. No God has a right to make an investment that will not finally
pay a dividend.

The world is getting better, and the ministers, all your life and all
mine, have been crying out from the pulpit that we are all going wrong,
that immorality was stalking through the land, that crime was about to
engulf the world, and yet, in spite of all their prophecies, the world
has steadily grown better, and there is more justice, more charity, more
kindness, more goodness, and more liberty in the world to-day than
ever before. And there is more infidelity in the world to-day than ever
before.
