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JL
LECTURE
BY
COLONEL INGERSOLL.
Delivered in the Brooklyn Theatre on February 22, 1885, to
three thousand people.
Price One Penny.
LONDON :
THE PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY
' AU
28 Stonecutter Street.
�LONDON :
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY RAMSEY AND FOOTE,
AT STONECUTTER STREET. E.O.
�827*3
REAL BLASPHEMY.
-------------4-------------
Ladies and Gentlemen ¡—There is an old story of a
missionary trying to convert an Indian. The Indian
made a little circle in the sand and said, “ That is what
the Indian knows.” Then he made another circle a
little larger and said, “ That is what missionary knows,
but outside there the Indian knows just as much as
missionary.” I am going to talk mostly outside that
circle to-night. (Laughter.)
First—What is the origin of the crime known as
blasphemy ? It is the belief in a God who is cruel,
revengeful, quick-tempered and capricious ; a God who
punishes the innocent for the guilty ; a God who listens
with delight to the shrieks of the tortured and gazes
enraptured on their spurting blood. You must hold
this belief before you can believe in the doctrine of
blasphemy. You must believe that this God loves
ceremonies ; that this God knows certain men to whom
he has told all his will. It then follows that, if this
God loves ceremonies and has certain men to teach his
will and perform these ceremonies, these men must
have a place to live in. This place was called a temple,
�4
and it was sacred. (Laughter.) And the pots and
pans and kettles and all in it were sacred, too. No one
but the priests must touch them.
Then this God wrote a book, in which he told his
covenants to men, and he gave this book to priests to
interpret. While it was sacrilege to touch with the
hands the pots and pans of the temple, it was blas
phemy to doubt or question anything in the book. And
then the right to think was gone, and the right to use
the brain that God had given was taken away, and
religion was intrenched behind that citadel called blas
phemy. God was a kind of juggler. He did not wish
man to be impudent or curious about how he did
things. You must sit in audience and watch the tricks
and ask no questions. In front of every fact he has
hung the impenetrable curtain of blasphemy. Now,
then, all the little reason that poor man had is useless.
To say anything against the priests was blasphemy,
and to say anything against God was blasphemy ; to
ask a question was blasphemy. Finally, we sank to the
level of fetishism. We began to worship inanimate
things. If you will read your Bible, you will find that
the Jews had a sacred box. In it were the rod of Aaron
and a piece of manna and the tables of stone. To touch
this box was a crime. You remember that one time,
when a careless Jew thought the box was going to tip,
he held it. God killed him. (Laughter.) What a
warning to baggage smashers of the present day !—
(Great laughter.) We find also that God concocted a
hair-oil, and threatened death to any one who imitated
it. And we see that he also made a certain perfume,
and it was death to make anything that smelt like it.
It seems to me that is carrying protection too far—
(Laughter.)
�5
It has always been blasphemy to say,£< I do not know
whether God exists or not.” In all Catholic countries
it is blasphemy to doubt the Bible, to doubt the sacred
ness of the relics. It always has been blasphemy to
laugh at a priest, to ask questions, to investigate the
Trinity. In a world of superstition, reason is blas
phemy. In a world of ignorance, facts are blasphemy.
In a world of cruelty, sympathy is a crime ; and in a
world of lies, truth is blasphemy.
Who are the real blasphemers ? Webster offers the
definition : “ Blasphemy is an insult offered to God by
attributing to him a nature and qualities differing from
his real nature and qualities and dishonoring him.
A very good definition, if you only know what his
nature and qualities are. (Laughter.) But this is not
revealed ; for, studying him through the medium of
the Bible, we find him illimitably contradictory. He
cammands us not to work on the Sabbath day, because
it is holy. Yet God works himself on the Sabbath day
The sun, moon and stars swing round in their orbits,
and all the creation attributed to this God goes on as
on other days.
He says, Honor thy father and mother ; and yet this
God, in the person of Christ, offered honors and glory
and happiness an hundredfold to any who would desert
their father and mother for him. “ Thou shalt not kill,”
yet God killed the firstborn of Egypt, and he com
manded Joshua to kill all his enemies, not sparing old
or young, man, woman or child—even an unborn child.
“ Thou shalt not commit adultery,” he says, and yet
this God gave the wives of defeated enemies to his
soldiers of Joshua’s army. Then again he says, “ Thou
shalt not steal.” By this command he protected the
inanimate property and the cattle of one man against
�6
the hand of another, and yet this God who said “ Thou
shalt not steal,” established human slavery. The pro
ducts of industry were not to be interfered with, but
the producer might be stolen as often as possible.
“ Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
And yet the God who said this said also, “ I have sent
lying spirits unto Ahab.” The only commandment
he really kept was “ Thou shalt have none other gods
but me.”
Is it blasphemous to describe this God as malicious ?
You know that laughter is a good index of the character
of a man. You like and rejoice with the man whose
laugh is free and joyous and full of good will. You
fear and dislike him of the sneering laugh. How does
God laugh ? He says, “ I will laugh at their calamity
and mock at their misfortunes,” speaking of some who
have sinned. Think of the malice and malignity of
that in an infinite God when speaking of the sufferings
he is going to impose upon his children ! You know
that it is said of a Roman emperor that he wrote laws
very finely, and posted them so high on the walls that
no one could read them, and then he punished the people
who disobeyed the laws. That is the acme of tyranny :
to provide a punishment for breach of laws the
existence of which was unknown. Now we all know
that there is a sin against the Holy Ghost which will not
be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come.—
Hundreds of thousands of people have been driven to
the insane asylum by the thought that they had com
mitted this unpardonable sin. Every educated minister
knows that that part of the Bible is an interpolation,
but they all preach it. What that sin against the Holy
Ghost is, is not specified. I say, “ Oh ! but my good
God, tell me what this sin is.” And he answers,—
�“ Maybe, now, asking is the crime. Keep quiet.” So
I keep quiet and go about tortured with the fear that I
have committed that sin.
Is it blasphemy to describe God as needing assistance
from the Legislature ? (Laughter.) Calling for the aid
of a mob to enforce his will here ? Compare that God
with a man—even with Henry Bergh. (Applause.)
See what Mr. Bergh has done to awaken pity in our
people and call sympathy to the rescue of suffering
animals. And yet our God was a torturer of dumb
beasts. Is it blasphemy to say that our God sent the
famine and dried the mother’s breast from her infant’s
withered lips ? Is it blasphemy to say that he is author
of the pestilence ; that he ordered some of his children
to consume others with fire and sword ? Is it blas
phemy to believe what we read in the 109th Psalm ?
If these things are not blasphemy, then there is no
blasphemy. If there be a God, I desire him to write
in the book of judgment opposite to my name that I
denied these lies for him. (Great applause).
Let us take another step ; let us examine the Presby
terian Confession of Faith. If it be possible to commit
blasphemy, then I contend that the Presbyterian creed
is most blasphemous, for, according to that, God is a
cruel, unrelenting, revengeful, malignant, and utterly
unreasonable tyrant. I propose now to pay a little
attention to that creed. First, it confesses that there is
such a thing as a light of Nature. It is sufficient to
make man inexcusable, but not sufficient for salvation;
just light enough to lead men to hell. Now imagine a
man who will put a false light on a hill-top to lure a
ship to destruction. What would we say of that man ?
What can we say of a God who gives this false light
of Nature which, if its lessons are followed, results in
�8
/
hell ? That is the Presbyterian God. I don’t like
him. (Laughter.) Now it occurred to God that the
light of Nature was somewhat weak, and he thought
he’d have another burner. (Great laughter.) There
fore he made his book and gave it to his servants, the
priests, that they might give it to man. It was to be
accepted not on the authority of Moses, or any other
writer, but because it was the word of God. How do
you know it’s the word of God ? You’re not to take
the word of Moses, or David, or Jeremiah, or Isaiah, or
any other man, because the authority of their work
has nothing to do with the matter ; this creed expressly
lets them out. (Laughter.) How are you to know
that it is God’s word ? Because it is God’s word. Why
is it God’s word ? What proof have we that it is God’s
word ? Because it is God’s word.
Now, then, I find the next thing in this wonderful
confession of faith of the Prespyterians is the decree
of predestination.
“ III. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory,
some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and
others foreordained to everlasting death.
“IV. These angels and men, thus predestinated and fore
ordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their
number is so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased
or diminished.
“ V. Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God,
before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his
eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good
pleasure of his will, has chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory,
out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of
faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any
other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him
thereunto ; and all to the praise of his glorious grace.
I am pleased to assure you that it is not necessary to
understand this. (Laughter.) You have only to believe
it. (Laughter.) You see that by the decree of God some
�9
men and angels are predestinated to heaven and others
to eternal hell, and you observe that their number is so
certain and definite that it can neither be changed nor
altered. You are asked to believe that billions of years
ago this God knew the names of all the men aud women
whom he was going to save. Had ’em in his book,
that being the only thing except himself that then
existed. He had chosen the names by the aid of the
secret council. The reason they called it secret was
because they knew all about it. (Laughter.) In making
his choice, God was not all bigoted. He did not choose
John Smith because he foresaw that Smith was to be a
Presbyterian and was to possess a loving nature, was to'
be honest and true and noble in all his ways, doing
good himself and encouraging others in the same. Oh,
no ; he was quite as likely to pick Brown in spite of
the fact that he knew long before that Brown would be
a wicked wretch. You see he was just as apt to send
Smith to the devil and take Brown to heaven—and all
for “ His glory.” This God also blinds and hardens—
Ah ! he’s a peculiar God. If sinners persevere, he will
blind and harden and give them over at last to their
own wickedness instead of trying to reclaim them.
Now we come to the comforting doctrine of the total
depravity of man, and this leads us to consider how he
came that way. Can any person read the first chapters
of Genesis and believe them unless his logic was assas
sinated in the cradle ? We read that our first parents
were placedin a pleasant garden ; that they were given
the full run of the place and only forbidden to meddle
with the orchard ; that they were tempted as God knew
they were to be tempted ; that they fell as God knew
they would fall, and that for this fall, which he knew
would happen before he made them, he fixed the curse
�10
of original sin upon them, to be continued to all their
children. Why didn’t he stop right there ? Why
didn’t he ki-ll Adam and Eve and make another pair
who didn’t like apples ? Then, when he brought his
flood, why did he rescue eight people if their descend
ants were to be totally depraved and wicked ? Why
didn’t he have his flood first and drown the Devil ?
(Laughter.) That would have solved the problem and
he could then have tried experiments unmolested. The
Presbyterian Confession says this corruption was in all
men. It was born with them, it lived through their
life, and after death survived in the children. Well,
can’t man help himself ? No. I’ll show you. God’s
got him. (Laughter.) Listen to this.
Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability
of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a
natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in
sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to pre
pare himself thereunto.
So that a natural man is not only dead in sin and unable
to accomplish salvation, but he is also incapable of
preparing himself therefor. Absolutely incapable of
taking a trick.—(Great laughter.) He is saved, if at all,
by the mercy of God. If that’s the case, then why
doesn’t he convert us all ? Oh! he doesn’t. He
wishes to send the most of us to hell—to show his
justice. (Laughter and applause.) Elect infants dying
in infancy are regenerate. So also are all persons
incapable of unbelief. That includes insane persons
and idiots, because an idiot is incapable of unbelief.
Idiots are the only fellows who’ve got the deadwood on
God. (Laughter and applause.) Then according to
this, the man who has lived according to the light of
Nature, doing the best he knew howto make this earth
�11
haPPy, will be damned by God because he never heard
of his son. Whose fault is it that an infinite God does
not advertise ? (Great laughter.) Something wrong
about that. I am inclined to think that the Presbyterian
Church is wrong. (Applause.) I find here how utterly
unpardonable sin is.
There is no sin so small but it is punished with hell,
and away you go straight to the deepest burning pit
unless your heart has been purified by this confession
of faith—unless this snake has crawled in there and
made itself a nest. Why should we help religion ? I
would like people to ask themselves that question.
(Loud applause.) An infinite God, by practising a
reasonable economy, can get along without our assist
ance. Loudly this confession proclaims that salvation
comes from Christ alone. What then becomes of the
savage who, having never known the name of Christ,
has lived according to the light of Nature, kind and
heroic and generous, and possessed of and cultivating
all the natural virtues ? He goes to hell. (Laughter.)
God, you see, loves us. (Laughter.) If he had not
loved us what would he have done ? The light of
Nature then shows that God is good and therefore to
be feared—on account of his goodness—(laughter)—to
be served and honored without ceasing. And yet this
creed says that on the last day God will damn any one
who has walked according to this light. It’s blasphemy
to walk by the light of Nature. (Laughter.)
The next great doctrine is on the preservation of the
saints. Now there are peculiarities about the saints.
(Laughter.) They are saints without their own knowledge or free will; they may even be down on saints—
(laughter)—but it’s no good. God has got a rolling
hitch on them, and they have to come into the kingdom
�12
sooner or later. (Laughter.) It all depends on whether
they have been elected or not. God could have made
me a saint just as easy as not, but he passed me by,
(Laughter.) Now you know the Presbyterians say I
trample on holy things. They believe in hell and I
come and say there is no hell. I hurt their hearts,
they say, and they add that I am going to hell myself.
(Laughter.) I thank them for that, but now let’s see
what these tender Presbyterians say of other churches.
Here it is : This confession of faith calls the Pope of
Rome Antichrist and a son of perdition. Now there are
forty Roman Catholics to one Presbyterian upon this
earth. Do not the Presbyterians rather trample on the
things that are holy to the Roman Catholics, and do
they respect their feelings ? But the Presbyterians have
a Pope themselves, composed of the Presbyters and the
preachers. This confession attributes to them the keys
of heaven and hell and the power to forgive sins.
“ The Lord Jesus, as king and head of his church, hath therein
appointed a government in the hand of church-officers, distinct
from the civil magistrate.
“IL To these officers the keys of the kingdom of heaven are
committed, by virtue whereof they have power respectively, to
retain and remit sins, to shut that kingdom against the impenitent
both by the word and censures; and to open it unto penitent
sinners, by the ministry of the gospel, and by absolution from
censures, as occasion shall require.
Therefore these men must be infallible, for God would
never be so foolish as to trust fallible men with the
keys of heaven and hell. I care nothing for their keys,
nor for any world those keys would open or lock. I
prefer the country. (Applause and laughter,) We
are told by this faith that at the last day all the men
and women and children who have ever lived on the
earth will appear in the self same bodies they have had
�13
when on earth. Every one who knows anything, knows
the constant exchange which is going on between the
vegetable and animal kingdom.
The millions of atoms which compose one of our
bodies have all come from animals and vegetables, and
they in their turn drew them from the animals and
vegetables which preceded them. The same atoms that
are now in our bodies have previously been in the
bodies of our ancestors. The negro from Central Africa
has many times been mahogany, and the mahogany has
many times been negro. (Laughter.) A missionary
goes to the cannibal islands, and a cannibal eats him,
and dies. The atoms which composed the missionary’s
body, may compose in a great part the cannibal’s body.
(Laughter.) To whom will those atoms belong on the
morning of the resurrection ? (Laughter.)
How did the Devil, who had always lived in heaven
among the best society, ever happen to become bad ?—
If a man surrounded by angels could become bad, why
cannot a man surrounded by devils become good ?
Here is the last Presbyterian joy. At the day of
judgment the righteous shall be caught up to heaven,
and shall stand at the right hand of Christ, and share
with him in judging the wicked. Then the Presbyte
rian husband may have the ineffable pleasure of judg
ing his wife and condemning her to eternal hell, and the
boy will say to his mother—echoing the command of
God—“Depart, thou accursed, into everlasting tor
ment !” Here will come a man who has not believed
in God. He was a soldier who took up arms to free the
slave, and who rotted to death in Anderville Prison
rather than accept the offer of his captors to fight against
freedom. He loved his wife and his children, and his
home and his native country and all mankind, and did
�14
all the good he knew. God will say to the Presbyte
rians, “ What shall we say to this man ?” and they
will answer, “ Throw him into hell !” (Laughter.)—
Last night there was a fire in Philadelphia, and at a
window fifty feet above the ground Mr. King stood
amidst flame and smoke, and pressed his children to
his breast one after the other, kissed them, and threw
them to the rescuers with a prayer. That was a man.
At the last day God takes his children with a curse,
and hurls them into eternal fire. That’s your God as
the Presbyterians describe him. Do you believe that
God—if there is one—will ever damn me for thinking
him better than he is ? If this creed be true, God is
the insane keeper of a mad-house.
We have in this city a clergyman who contends that
this creed gives a correct picture of God, and further
more says that God has the right to do with us what
he pleases—because he made us. If I could change
this lamp into a human being, that would not give me
the right to torture him, and if I did torture him, and
he cried out, “ Why torturest thou me ?” and I replied,
“ Because I made you,” he would be right in replying,
“ You made me, therefore you are responsible for my
happiness.” No God has a right to add to the sum of
human misery. And yet this minister believes an
honest thought blashemy ! No doubt he is perfectly
honest; otherwise he would have too much intellectual
pride to take the position he does. He says that the
Bible offers the only restraint to the saving passions of
man. In lands where there has been no Bible, there
have been mild and beneficent philosophers, like
Buddha and Confucius. Is it possible that the Bible
is the only restraint, and yet the nations among whom
these men have lived, have been as moral as we ? In
�15
Brooklyn and New York you have the Bible, yet du
you find that the restraint is a great success ? Is there
a city on the globe which lacks more in certain direc
tions than some in Christendom, or even the United
States ? (Laughter.)
What are the natural virtues of man ? Honesty, hos
pitality, mercy in the hour of victory, generosity. Do
we not find these virtues among some savages ? Do
we find them among all Christians ? (Applause.) I
am also told by these gentlemen that the time will
come when the Infidel will be silenced by society.
Why, that time came long ago. Society gave the hem
lock to Socrates. Society in Jerusalem cried out for
Barrabas, and crucified Jesus. In every Christian
country society has endeavored to crush the Infidel.
Blasphemy is a padlock which hypocrisy tries to put
on the lips of all honest men. At one time Christianity
succeeded in silencing the Infidel, and then came Dark
Ages, when all rule was ecclesiastical; when the air
was filled with devils and spooks ; when birth was a
misfortune, life a prolonged misery of fear and torment,
and death a horrible nightmare. They crushed the
Infidels, Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, Bruno, wherever
a ray of light appeared in ecclesiastical darkness. But
I want to tell this minister to-night, and all others like
him, that that day is past. (Cheers and great applause.)
All the churches in the United States cannot even
crush me. (Renewed cheering.) The day for that has
gone, never to return. If they think they can crush
Freethought in this country, let them try it.
What must this minister think of you and the citzens
of this Republic when he says, “ Take the fear of hell
out of men’s hearts, and a majority of them will become
ungovernably wicked”? Oh! think of an angel in
�lieaven having to allow that he was scared there ! This
minister calls for my arrest. He thinks his God needs
help, and would like to see the police crush the Infidel.
I would advise Mr. Talmage—(hisses)—to furnish his
God with a rattle, so that when he is in danger again,
he can summon the police immediately ! (Laughter.)
I’ll tell you what is blasphemy. It is blasphemy to
live on the fruits of other men’s labor, to prevent the
growth of the human mind, to persecute for opinions’
sake, to abuse your wife and children, to increase in
any manner the sum of human misery. I’ll tell you
what is the true Bible. It is the sum of all the actual
knowledge of man, and every man who discovers a new
fact adds a new verse to this Bible. It is different
from the other Bible, because that is the sum of all that
its writers and readers do not know. (Applause.)
Printed and Published by Ramsey and Foote at 28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Real blasphemy : a lecture, delivered in the Brooklyn Theatre on February 22,1885, to three thousand people
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 20 cm.
Notes: Date of publication from Stein (Item 6). Printed and published by Ramsey and Foote. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Progressive Publishing Company
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[1885]
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N387
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Blasphemy
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Blasphemy
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