Science and Sentiment
Including \"Sowing and Reaping.\"

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1895)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 11.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/science-and-sentiment/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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IT was thought at one time by many that science would do away with
poetry—that it was the enemy of the imagination. We know now that is
not true. We know that science goes hand in hand with imagination. We
know that it is in the highest degree poetic and that the old ideas once
considered so beautiful are flat and stale. Compare Kepler's laws with
the old Greek idea that the planets were boosted or pushed by angels.
The more we know, the more beauty, the more poetry we find. Ignorance is
not the mother of the poetic or artistic.

So, some people imagine that science will do away with sentiment. In my
judgment, science will not only increase sentiment but sense.

A person will be attracted to another for a thousand reasons, and why
a person is attracted to another, may, and in some degree will, depend
upon the intellectual, artistic and ethical development of each.

The handsomest girl in Zululand might not be attractive to Herbert
Spencer, and the fairest girl in England might not be able to hasten the
pulse of a Choctaw brave. This does not prove that there is any lack
of sentiment. Men are influenced according to their capacity, their
temperament, their knowledge.

Some men fall in love with a small waist, an arched instep or curly
hair, without the slightest regard to mind or muscle. This we call
sentiment.

Now, educate such men, develop their brains, enlarge their intellectual
horizon, teach them something of the laws of health, and then they may
fall in love with women because they are developed grandly in body and
mind. The sentiment is still there—still controls—but back of the
sentiment is science.

Sentiment can never be destroyed, and love will forever rule the human
race.

Thousands, millions of people fear that science will destroy not only
poetry, not only sentiment, but religion. This fear is idiotic. Science
will destroy superstition, but it will not injure true religion. Science
is the foundation of real religion. Science teaches us the consequences
of actions, the rights and duties of all. Without science there can be
no real religion.

Only those who live on the labor of the ignorant are the enemies of
science. Real love and real religion are in no danger from science. The
more we know the safer all good things are.

Do I think that the marriage of the sickly and diseased ought to be
prevented by law?

I have not much confidence in law—in law that I know cannot be carried
out. The poor, the sickly, the diseased, as long as they are ignorant,
will marry and help fill the world with wretchedness and want.

We must rely on education instead of legislation.

We must teach the consequences of actions. We must show the sickly and
diseased what their children will be. We must preach the gospel of the
body. I believe the time will come when the public thought will be so
great and grand that it will be looked upon as infamous to perpetuate
disease—to leave a legacy of agony.

I believe the time will come when men will refuse to fill the future
with consumption and insanity. Yes, we shall study ourselves. We shall
understand the conditions of health and then we shall say: We are under
obligation to put the flags of health in the cheeks of our children.

Even if I should get to heaven and have a harp, I know that I could
not bear to see my descendants still on the earth, diseased, deformed,
crazed—all suffering the penalties of my ignorance. Let us have more
science and more sentiment—more knowledge and more conscience—more
liberty and more love.

Sowing and Reaping

I HAVE read the sermon on "Sowing and Reaping," and I now understand Mr.
Moody better than I did before. The other day, in New York, Mr. Moody
said that he implicitly believed the story of Jonah and really thought
that he was in the fish for three days.

When I read it I was surprised that a man living in the century of
Humboldt, Darwin, Huxley, Spencer and Haeckel, should believe such an
absurd and idiotic story.

Now I understand the whole thing. I can account for the amazing
credulity of this man. Mr. Moody never read one of my lectures. That
accounts for it all, and no wonder that he is a hundred years behind the
times. He never read one of my lectures; that is a perfect explanation.

Poor man! He has no idea of what he has lost. He has been living on
miracles and mistakes, on falsehood and foolishness, stuffing his mind
with absurdities when he could have had truth, facts and good, sound
sense.

Poor man!

Probably Mr. Moody has never read one word of Darwin and so he still
believes in the Garden of Eden and the talking snake and really thinks
that Jehovah took some mud, moulded the form of a man, breathed in its
nostrils, stood it up and called it Adam, and that he then took one
of Adam's ribs and some more mud and manufactured Eve. Probably he has
never read a word written by any great geologist and consequently still
believes in the story of the flood. Knowing nothing of astronomy, he
still thinks that Joshua stopped the sun.

Poor man! He has neglected Spencer and has no idea of evolution. He
thinks that man has, through all the ages, degenerated, the first pair
having been perfect. He does not believe that man came from lower forms
and has gradually journeyed upward.

He really thinks that the Devil outwitted God and vaccinated the human
race with the virus of total depravity.

Poor man!

He knows nothing of the great scientists—of the great thinkers, of the
emancipators of the human race; knows nothing of Spinoza, of Voltaire,
of Draper, Buckle, of Paine or Renan.

Mr. Moody ought to read something besides the Bible—ought to find
out what the really intelligent have thought. He ought to get some
new ideas—a few facts—and I think that, after he did so, he would be
astonished to find how ignorant and foolish he had been. He is a good
man. His heart is fairly good, but his head is almost useless.

The trouble with this sermon, "Sowing and Reaping," is that he
contradicts it. I believe that a man must reap what he sows, that every
human being must bear the natural consequences of his acts. Actions are
good or bad according to their consequences. That is my doctrine.

There is no forgiveness in nature. But Mr. Moody tells us that a man may
sow thistles and gather figs, that having acted like a fiend tor seventy
years, he can, between his last dose of medicine and his last breath,
repent; that he can be washed clean by the blood of the lamb, and that
myriads of angels will carry his soul to heaven—in other words, that
this man will not reap what he sowed, but what Christ sowed, that this
man's thistles will be changed to figs.

This doctrine, to my mind, is not only absurd, but dishonest and
corrupting.

This is one of the absurdities in Mr. Moody's theology. The other is
that a man can justly be damned for the sin of another.

Nothing can exceed the foolishness of these two ideas—first: "Man can
be justly punished forever for the sin of Adam." Second: "Man can be
justly rewarded with eternal joy for the goodness of Christ."

Yet the man who believes this, preaches a sermon in which he says that
a man must reap what he sows. Orthodox Christians teach exactly the
opposite. They teach that no matter what a man sows, no matter how
wicked his life has been, that he can by repentance change the crop.
That all his sins shall be forgotten and that only the goodness of
Christ will be remembered.

Let us see how this works:

Mr. A. has lived a good and useful life, kept his contracts, paid his
debts, educated his children, loved his wife and made his home a heaven,
but he did not believe in the inspiration of Mr. Moody's Bible. He died
and his soul was sent to hell. Mr. Moody says that as a man sows so
shall he reap.

Mr. B. lived a useless and wicked life. By his cruelty he drove his wife
to insanity, his children became vagrants and beggars, his home was a
perfect hell, he committed many crimes, he was a thief, a burglar, a
murderer. A few minutes before he was hanged he got religion and his
soul went from the scaffold to heaven. And yet Mr. Moody says that as a
man sows so shall he reap.

Mr. Moody ought to have a little philosophy—a little good sense.

So Mr. Moody says that only in this life can a man secure the reward of
repentance.

Just before a man dies, God loves him—loves him as a mother loves her
babe—but a moment after he dies, he sends his soul to hell. In the
other world nothing can be done to reform him. The society of God and
the angels can have no good effect. Nobody can be made better in heaven.
This world is the only place where reform is possible. Here, surrounded
by the wicked in the midst of temptations, in the darkness of ignorance,
a human being may reform if he is fortunate enough to hear the words
of some revival preacher, but when he goes before his maker—before the
Trinity—he has no chance. God can do nothing for his soul except to
send it to hell.

This shows that the power for good is confined to people in this world
and that in the next world God can do nothing to reform his children.
This is theology. This is what they call "Tidings of great joy."

Every orthodox creed is savage, ignorant and idiotic.

In the orthodox heaven there is no mercy, no pity. In the orthodox hell
there is no hope, no reform. God is an eternal jailer, an everlasting
turnkey.

And yet Christians now say that while there may be no fire in hell—no
actual flames—yet the lost souls will feel forever the tortures of
conscience.

What will conscience trouble the people in hell about? They tell us that
they will remember their sins.

Well, what about the souls in heaven? They committed awful sins, they
made their fellow-men unhappy. They took the lives of others—sent many
to eternal torment. Will they have no conscience? Is hell the only place
where souls regret the evil they have done? Have the angels no regret,
no remorse, no conscience?

If this be so, heaven must be somewhat worse than hell.

In old times, if people wanted to know anything they asked the preacher.
Now they do if they don't.

The Bible has, with intelligent men, lost its authority.

The miracles are now regarded by sensible people as the spawn of
ignorance and credulity. On every hand people are looking for facts—for
truth—and all religions are taking their places in the museum of myths.

Yes, the people are becoming civilized, and so they are putting out the
fires of hell. They are ceasing to believe in a God who seeks eternal
revenge.

The people are becoming sensible. They are asking for evidence. They
care but little for the winged phantoms of the air—for the ghosts and
devils and supposed gods. The people are anxious to be happy here and
they want a little heaven in this life.

Theology is a curse. Science is a blessing. We do not need preachers,
but teachers; not priests, but thinkers; not churches, but schools; not
steeples, but observatories. We want knowledge.

Let us hope that Mr. Moody will read some really useful books.

Should Infidels Send Their Children to Sunday School

SHOULD parents, who are Infidels, unbelievers or Atheists, send their
children to Sunday schools and churches to give them the benefit of
Christian education?

Parents who do not believe the Bible to be an inspired book should
not teach their children that it is. They should be absolutely honest.
Hypocrisy is not a virtue, and, as a rule, lies are less valuable than
facts.

An unbeliever should not allow the mind of his child to be deformed,
stunted and shriveled by superstition. He should not allow the child's
imagination to be polluted. Nothing is more outrageous than to take
advantage of the helplessness of childhood to sow in the brain the seeds
of falsehoods, to imprison the soul in the dungeon of Fear, to teach
dimpled infancy the infamous dogma of eternal pain—filling life with
the glow and glare of hell.

No unbeliever should allow his child to be tortured in the orthodox
inquisitions. He should defend the mind from attack as he would the
body. He should recognize the rights of the soul. In the orthodox Sunday
schools, children are taught that it is a duty to believe—that evidence
is not essential—that faith is independent of facts and that religion
is superior to reason. They are taught not to use their natural
sense—not to tell what they really think—not to entertain a doubt—not
to ask wicked questions, but to accept and believe what their teachers
say. In this way the minds of the children are invaded, corrupted and
conquered. Would an educated man send his child to a school in which
Newton's statement in regard to the attraction of gravitation was
denied—in which the law of falling bodies, as given by Galileo, was
ridiculed—Kepler's three laws declared to be idiotic, and the rotary
motion of the earth held to be utterly absurd?

Why then should an intelligent man allow his child to be taught the
geology and astronomy of the Bible? Children should be taught to seek
for the truth—to be honest, kind, generous, merciful and just. They
should be taught to love liberty and to live to the ideal.

Why then should an unbeliever, an Infidel, send his child to an orthodox
Sunday school where he is taught that he has no right to seek for the
truth—no right to be mentally honest, and that he will be damned for
an honest doubt—where he is taught that God was ferocious,
revengeful, heartless as a wild beast—that he drowned millions of his
children—that he ordered wars of extermination and told his soldiers
to kill gray-haired and trembling age, mothers and children, and to
assassinate with the sword of war the babes unborn?

Why should an unbeliever in the Bible send his child to an orthodox
Sunday school where he is taught that God was in favor of slavery
and told the Jews to buy of the heathen and that they should be their
bondmen and bondwomen forever; where he is taught that God upheld
polygamy and the degradation of women?

Why should an unbeliever, who believes in the uniformity of Nature, in
the unbroken and unbreakable chain of cause and effect, allow his child
to be taught that miracles have been performed; that men have gone
bodily to heaven; that millions have been miraculously fed with manna
and quails; that fire has refused to burn clothes and flesh of men; that
iron has been made to float; that the earth and moon have been stopped
and that the earth has not only been stopped, but made to turn the other
way; that devils inhabit the bodies of men and women; that diseases have
been cured with words, and that the dead, with a touch, have been made
to live again?

The thoughtful man knows that there is not the slightest evidence that
these miracles ever were performed. Why should he allow his children to
be stuffed with these foolish and impossible falsehoods? Why should
he give his lambs to the care and keeping of the wolves and hyenas of
superstition?

Children should be taught only what somebody knows. Guesses should not
be palmed off on them as demonstrated facts. If a Christian lived in
Constantinople he would not send his children to the mosque to be taught
that Mohammed was a prophet of God and that the Koran is an inspired
book. Why? Because he does not believe in Mohammed or the Koran. That is
reason enough. So, an Agnostic, living in New York, should not allow his
children to be taught that the Bible is an inspired book. I use the word
"Agnostic" because I prefer it to the word Atheist. As a matter of fact,
no one knows that God exists and no one knows that God does not exist.
To my mind there is no evidence that God exists—that this world is
governed by a being of infinite goodness, wisdom and power, but I do
not pretend to know. What I insist upon is that children should not be
poisoned—should not be taken advantage of—that they should be treated
fairly, honestly—that they should be allowed to develop from the inside
instead of being crammed from the outside—that they should be taught
to reason, not to believe—to think, to investigate and to use their
senses, their minds.

Would a Catholic send his children to a school to be taught that
Catholicism is superstition and that Science is the only savior of
mankind?

Why then should a free and sensible believer in Science, in the
naturalness of the universe, send his child to a Catholic school?

Nothing could be more irrational, foolish and absurd.

My advice to all Agnostics is to keep their children from the orthodox
Sunday schools, from the orthodox churches, from the poison of the
pulpits.

Teach your children the facts you know. If you do not know, say so. Be
as honest as you are ignorant. Do all you can to develop their minds, to
the end that they may live useful and happy lives.

Strangle the serpent of superstition that crawls and hisses about
the cradle. Keep your children from the augurs, the soothsayers, the
medicine-men, the priests of the supernatural. Tell them that all
religions have been made by folks and that all the "sacred books" were
written by ignorant men.

Teach them that the world is natural. Teach them to be absolutely
honest. Do not send them where they will contract diseases of the
mind—the leprosy of the soul. Let us do all we can to make them
intelligent.

What Would You Substitute for the Bible as a Moral Guide
  • Written for The Boston Investigator.

YOU ask me what I would "substitute for the Bible as a moral guide.".

I know that many people regard the Bible as the only moral guide
and believe that in that book only can be found the true and perfect
standard of morality.

There are many good precepts, many wise sayings and many good
regulations and laws in the Bible, and these are mingled with bad
precepts, with foolish sayings, with absurd rules and cruel laws.

But we must remember that the Bible is a collection of many books
written centuries apart, and that it in part represents the growth and
tells in part the history of a people. We must also remember that the
writers treat of many subjects. Many of these writers have nothing to
say about right or wrong, about vice or virtue.

The book of Genesis has nothing about morality. There is not a line in
it calculated to shed light on the path of conduct. No one can call that
book a moral guide. It is made up of myth and miracle, of tradition and
legend.

In Exodus we have an account of the manner in which Jehovah delivered
the Jews from Egyptian bondage.

We now know that the Jews were never enslaved by the Egyptians; that the
entire story is a fiction. We know this, because there is not found in
Hebrew a word of Egyptian origin, and there is not found in the language
of the Egyptians a word of Hebrew origin. This being so, we know that
the Hebrews and Egyptians could not have lived together for hundreds of
years.

Certainly Exodus was not written to teach morality. In that book you
cannot find one word against human slavery. As a matter of fact, Jehovah
was a believer in that institution.

The killing of cattle with disease and hail, the murder of the
first-born, so that in every house was death, because the king refused
to let the Hebrews go, certainly was not moral; it was fiendish. The
writer of that book regarded all the people of Egypt, their children,
their flocks and herds, as the property of Pharaoh, and these people and
these cattle were killed, not because they had done anything wrong, but
simply for the purpose of punishing the king. Is it possible to get any
morality out of this history?

All the laws found in Exodus, including the Ten Commandments, so far as
they are really good and sensible, were at that time in force among all
the peoples of the world.

Murder is, and always was, a crime, and always will be, as long as a
majority of people object to being murdered.

Industry always has been and always will be the enemy of larceny.

The nature of man is such that he admires the teller of truth and
despises the liar. Among all tribes, among all people, truth-telling has
been considered a virtue and false swearing or false speaking a vice.

The love of parents for children is natural, and this love is found
among all the animals that live. So the love of children for parents is
natural, and was not and cannot be created by law. Love does not spring
from a sense of duty, nor does it bow in obedience to commands.

So men and women are not virtuous because of anything in books or
creeds.

All the Ten Commandments that are good were old, were the result of
experience. The commandments that were original with Jehovah were
foolish.

The worship of "any other God" could not have been worse than the
worship of Jehovah, and nothing could have been more absurd than the
sacredness of the Sabbath.

If commandments had been given against slavery and polygamy, against
wars of invasion and extermination, against religious persecution in all
its forms, so that the world could be free, so that the brain might be
developed and the heart civilized, then we might, with propriety, call
such commandments a moral guide.

Before we can truthfully say that the Ten Commandments constitute a
moral guide, we must add and subtract. We must throw away some, and
write others in their places.

The commandments that have a known application here, in this world, and
treat of human obligations are good, the others have no basis in fact,
or experience.

Many of the regulations found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and
Deuteronomy, are good. Many are absurd and cruel.

The entire ceremonial of worship is insane.

Most of the punishment for violations of laws are un-philosophic and
brutal.... The fact is that the Pentateuch upholds nearly all crimes,
and to call it a moral guide is as absurd as to say that it is merciful
or true.

Nothing of a moral nature can be found in Joshua or Judges. These books
are filled with crimes, with massacres and murders. They are about the
same as the real history of the Apache Indians.

The story of Ruth is not particularly moral.

In first and second Samuel there is not one word calculated to develop
the brain or conscience.

Jehovah murdered seventy thousand Jews because David took a census of
the people. David, according to the account, was the guilty one, but
only the innocent were killed.

In first and second Kings can be found nothing of ethical value. All
the kings who refused to obey the priests were denounced, and all the
crowned wretches who assisted the priests, were declared to be the
favorites of Jehovah. In these books there cannot be found one word in
favor of liberty.

There are some good Psalms, and there are some that are infamous. Most
of these Psalms are selfish. Many of them, are passionate appeals for
revenge.

The story of Job shocks the heart of every good man. In this book there
is some poetry, some pathos, and some philosophy, but the story of this
drama called Job, is heartless to the last degree. The children of
Job are murdered to settle a little wager between God and the Devil.
Afterward, Job having remained firm, other children are given in the
place of the murdered ones. Nothing, however, is done for the children
who were murdered.

The book of Esther is utterly absurd, and the only redeeming feature in
the book is that the name of Jehovah is not mentioned.

I like the Song of Solomon because it tells of human love, and that is
something I can understand. That book in my judgment, is worth all the
ones that go before it, and is a far better moral guide.

There are some wise and merciful Proverbs. Some are selfish and some are
flat and commonplace.

I like the book of Ecclesiastes because there you find some sense, some
poetry, and some philosophy. Take away the interpolations and it is a
good book.

Of course there is nothing in Nehemiah or Ezra to make men better,
nothing in Jeremiah or Lamentations calculated to lessen vice, and only
a few passages in Isaiah that can be used in a good cause.

In Ezekiel and Daniel we find only ravings of the insane.

In some of the minor prophets there is now and then a good verse, now
and then an elevated thought.

You can, by selecting passages from different books, make a very good
creed, and by selecting passages from different books, you can make a
very bad creed.

The trouble is that the spirit of the Old Testament, its disposition,
its temperament, is bad, selfish and cruel. The most fiendish things are
commanded, commended and applauded.

The stories that are told of Joseph, of Elisha, of Daniel and Gideon,
and of many others, are hideous; hellish.

On the whole, the Old Testament cannot be considered a moral guide.

Jehovah was not a moral God. He had all the vices, and he lacked all the
virtues. He generally carried out his threats, but he never faithfully
kept a promise.

At the same time, we must remember that the Old Testament is a natural
production, that it was written by savages who were slowly crawling
toward the light. We must give them credit for the noble things they
said, and we must be charitable enough to excuse their faults and even
their crimes.

I know that many Christians regard the Old Testament as the foundation
and the New as the superstructure, and while many admit that there are
faults and mistakes in the Old Testament, they insist that the New is
the flower and perfect fruit.

I admit that there are many good things in the New Testament, and if we
take from that book the dogmas of eternal pain, of infinite revenge, of
the atonement, of human sacrifice, of the necessity of shedding blood;
if we throw away the doctrine of non-resistance, of loving enemies,
the idea that prosperity is the result of wickedness, that poverty is a
preparation for Paradise, if we throw all these away and take the good,
sensible passages, applicable to conduct, then we can make a fairly good
moral guide,—narrow, but moral.

Of course, many important things would be left out. You would have
nothing about human rights, nothing in favor of the family, nothing for
education, nothing for investigation, for thought and reason, but still
you would have a fairly good moral guide.

On the other hand, if you would take the foolish passages, the extreme
ones, you could make a creed that would satisfy an insane asylum.

If you take the cruel passages, the verses that inculcate eternal
hatred, verses that writhe and hiss like serpents, you can make a creed
that would shock the heart of a hyena.

It may be that no book contains better passages than the New Testament,
but certainly no book contains worse.

Below the blossom of love you find the thorn of hatred; on the lips that
kiss, you find the poison of the cobra.

The Bible is not a moral guide.

Any man who follows faithfully all its teachings is an enemy of society
and will probably end his days in a prison or an asylum.

What is morality?

In this world we need certain things. We have many wants. We are exposed
to many dangers. We need food, fuel, raiment and shelter, and besides
these wants, there is, what may be called, the hunger of the mind.

We are conditioned beings, and our happiness depends upon conditions.
There are certain things that diminish, certain things that increase,
well-being. There are certain things that destroy and there are others
that preserve.

Happiness, including its highest forms, is after all the only good, and
everything, the result of which is to produce or secure happiness, is
good, that is to say, moral. Everything that destroys or diminishes
well-being is bad, that is to say, immoral. In other words, all that is
good is moral, and all that is bad is immoral.

What then is, or can be called, a moral guide? The shortest possible
answer is one word: Intelligence.

We want the experience of mankind, the true history of the race. We want
the history of intellectual development, of the growth of the ethical,
of the idea of justice, of conscience, of charity, of self-denial. We
want to know the paths and roads that have been traveled by the human
mind.

These facts in general, these histories in outline, the results reached,
the conclusions formed, the principles evolved, taken together, would
form the best conceivable moral guide.

We cannot depend on what are called "inspired books," or the religions
of the world. These religions are based on the supernatural, and
according to them we are under obligation to worship and obey some
supernatural being, or beings. All these religions are inconsistent with
intellectual liberty. They are the enemies of thought, of investigation,
of mental honesty. They destroy the manliness of man. They promise
eternal rewards for belief, for credulity, for what they call faith.

This is not only absurd, but it is immoral.

These religions teach the slave virtues. They make inanimate things
holy, and falsehoods sacred. They create artificial crimes. To eat meat
on Friday, to enjoy yourself on Sunday, to eat on fast-days, to be happy
in Lent, to dispute a priest, to ask for evidence, to deny a creed, to
express your sincere thought, all these acts are sins, crimes against
some god. To give your honest opinion about Jehovah, Mohammed or Christ,
is far worse than to maliciously slander your neighbor. To question
or doubt miracles, is far worse than to deny known facts. Only the
obedient, the credulous, the cringers, the kneelers, the meek, the
unquestioning, the true believers, are regarded as moral, as virtuous.
It is not enough to be honest, generous and useful; not enough to be
governed by evidence, by facts. In addition to this, you must believe.
These things are the foes of morality. They subvert all natural
conceptions of virtue.

All "inspired books," teaching that what the supernatural commands
is right, and right because commanded, and that what the supernatural
prohibits is wrong, and wrong because prohibited, are absurdly
unphilosophic.

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

Again I say: Intelligence is the only moral guide.
