|
|
|
"There are many millions of people who believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God – millions who think that this book is staff and guide, counsellor and consoler; that it fills the present with peace and the future with hope – millions who believe that it is the fountain of law, justice and mercy, and that to its wise and benign teachings the world is indebted for its liberty, wealth and civilization – millions who imagine that this book is a revelation from the wisdom and love of god to the brain and heart of man – millions who regard this book as a torch that conquers the darkness of death, and pours its radiance on another world – a world without a tear. They forget its ignorance and savagery, its hatred of liberty, its religious persecution; they remember heaven but they forget the dungeon of eternal pain. They forget that it imprisons the brain and corrupts the heart. They forget that it is the enemy of intellectual freedom." Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1889) US Congressman, Orator, Voice of Reason "All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention – of barbarian invention – is to read it. Read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition – then read the Holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity." Robert G. Ingersoll
|