{
  "schema": "tga.work.v1",
  "identifier": "dresden:vol-11:the-agnostic-christmas",
  "slug": "the-agnostic-christmas",
  "title": "The Agnostic Christmas",
  "subtitle": "On keeping Christmas without the supernatural.",
  "excerpt": "Ingersoll's case that the warmth and joy of Christmas do not require the supernatural — and that an agnostic may keep the day as fully as any Christian.",
  "year": 1892,
  "volume": 11,
  "category": "Essay",
  "author": {
    "name": "Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "wikidata": "Q360326",
    "viaf": "44331023"
  },
  "isPartOf": {
    "title": "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "edition": "Dresden Edition",
    "publisher": "C. P. Farrell",
    "year": 1900
  },
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/",
  "url": "https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/the-agnostic-christmas/",
  "wordCount": 293,
  "body": "AGAIN we celebrate the victory of Light over Darkness, of the God of day\nover the hosts of night. Again Samson is victorious over Delilah, and\nHercules triumphs once more over Omphale. In the embrace of Isis, Osiris\nrises from the dead, and the scowling Typhon is defeated once more.\nAgain Apollo, with unerring aim, with his arrow from the quiver of\nlight, destroys the serpent of shadow. This is the festival of Thor,\nof Baldur and of Prometheus. Again Buddha by a miracle escapes from the\ntyrant of Madura, Zoroaster foils the King, Bacchus laughs at the rage\nof Cadmus, and Chrishna eludes the tyrant.\n\nThis is the festival of the sun-god, and as such let its observance be\nuniversal.\n\nThis is the great day of the first religion, the mother of all\nreligions—the worship of the sun.\n\nSun worship is not only the first, but the most natural and most\nreasonable of all. And not only the most natural and the most\nreasonable, but by far the most poetic, the most beautiful.\n\nThe sun is the god of benefits, of growth, of life, of warmth, of\nhappiness, of joy. The sun is the all-seeing, the all-pitying, the\nall-loving.\n\nThis bright God knew no hatred, no malice, never sought for revenge.\n\nAll evil qualities were in the breast of the God of darkness, of shadow,\nof night. And so I say again, this is the festival of Light. This is the\nanniversary of the triumph of the Sun over the hosts of Darkness.\n\nLet us all hope for the triumph of Light—of Right and Reason—for the\nvictory of Fact over Falsehood, of Science over Superstition.\n\nAnd so hoping, let us celebrate the venerable festival of the Sun.—The\nJournal, New York, December 25,1892.\n"
}