THE DEVIL.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Ingersoll, Robert Green and Widger, David
No man has genius enough to describe the agonies that have been inflicted on innocent men and women because of this absurd belief. How it darkened the mind, hardened the heart, and poisoned life! It made the Universe a madhouse presided over by an insane God.
Think! Why would a merciful God allow his children to be the victims of devils? Why would a decent God allow his worshipers to believe in devils, and by reason of that belief to persecute, torture and burn their fellow-men?
Christians did not ask these questions. They believed the Bible; they had confidence in the words of Christ.
V. PERSONIFICATIONS OF EVIL.
The Orthodox Ostrich Thrusts His Head into the Sand.
Many of the clergy are now ashamed to say that they believe in devils. The belief has become ignorant and vulgar. They are ashamed of the lake of fire and brimstone. It is too savage.
At the same time they do not wish to give up the inspiration of the Bible. They give new meanings to the inspired words. Now they say that devils were only personifications of evil. If the devils were only personifications of evil, what were the angels? Was the angel who told Joseph who the father of Christ was, a personification? Was the Holy Ghost only the personification of a father? Was the angel who told Joseph that Herod was dead a personification of news?
Were the angels who rolled away the stone and sat clothed in shining garments in the empty sepulcher of Christ a couple of personifications? Were all the angels described in the Old Testament imaginary shadows—bodiless personifications? If the angels of the Bible are real angels, the devils are real devils.
Let us be honest with ourselves and each other and give to the Bible its natural, obvious meaning. Let us admit that the writers believed what they wrote. If we believe that they were mistaken, let us have the honesty and courage to say so. Certainly we have no right to change or avoid their meaning, or to dishonestly correct their mistakes. Timid preachers sully their own souls when they change what the writers of the Bible believed to be facts to allegories, parables, poems and myths.
It is impossible for any man who believes in the inspiration of the Bible to explain away the Devil.
If the Bible is true the Devil exists. There is no escape from this.
If the Devil does not exist the Bible is not true. There is no escape from this.
I admit that the Devil of the Bible is an impossible contradiction; an impossible being.
This Devil is the enemy of God and God is his. Now, why should this Devil, in another world, torment sinners, who are his friends, to please God, his enemy?
If the Devil is a personification, so is hell and the lake of fire and brimstone. All these horrors fade into allegories; into ignorant lies.
Any clergyman who can read the Bible and then say that devils are personifications of evil is himself a personification of stupidity or hypocrisy.
VI.
Does any intelligent man now, whose brain has not been deformed by superstition, believe in the existence of the Devil? What evidence have we that he exists? Where does this Devil live? What does he do for a livelihood? What does he eat? If he does not eat, he cannot think. He cannot think without the expenditure of force. He cannot create force; he must borrow it—that is to say, he must eat. How does lie move from place to place? Does he walk or does he fly, or has he invented some machine? What object has he in life? What idea of success? This Devil, according to the Bible, knows that he is to be defeated; knows that the end is absolute and eternal failure; knows that every step he takes leads to the infinite catastrophe. Why does he act as he does?
Our fathers thought that everything in this world came from some other realm; that all ideas of right and wrong came from above; that conscience dropped from the clouds; that the darkness was filled with imps from perdition, and the day with angels from heaven; that souls had been breathed into man by Jehovah.
What there is in this world that lives and breathes was produced here. Life was not imported. Mind is not an exotic. Of this planet man is a native. This world is his mother. The maker did not descend from the heavens. The maker was and is here. Matter and force in their countless forms, affinities and repulsions produced the living, breathing world.
How can we account for devils? Is it possible that they creep into the bodies of men and swine? Do they stay in the stomach or brain, in the heart or liver?
Are these devils immortal or do they multiply and die? Were they all created at the same time or did they spring from a single pair? If they are subject to death what becomes of them after death? Do they go to some other world, are they annihilated, or can they get to heaven by believing on Christ?
In the brain of science the devils have never lived. There you will find no goblins, ghosts, wraiths or imps—no witches, spooks or sorcerers. There the supernatural does not exist. No man of sense in the whole world believes in devils any more than he does in mermaids, vampires, gorgons, hydras, naiads, dryads, nymphs, fairies or the anthropophagi—any more than he does in the Fountain of Youth, the Philosopher's Stone, Perpetual Motion or Fiat Money.
There is the same difference between religion and science that there is between a madhouse and a university—between a fortune teller and a mathematician—between emotion and philosophy—between guess and demonstration.
The devils have gone, and with them they have taken the miracles of Christ. They have carried away our Lord. They have taken away the inspiration of the Bible, and we are left in the darkness of nature without the consolation of hell.
But let me ask the clergy a few questions:
How did your Devil, who was at one time an angel of light, come to sin? There was no other devil to tempt him. He was in perfectly good society—in the company of God—of the Trinity. All of his associates were perfect. How did he fall? He knew that God was infinite, and yet he waged war against him and induced about a third of the angels to volunteer. He knew that he could not succeed; knew that he would be defeated and cast out; knew that he was fighting for failure.
Why was God so unpopular? Why were the angels so bad?
According to the Christians, these angels were spirits. They had never been corrupted by flesh—by the passion of love. Why were they so wicked?
Why did God create those angels, knowing that they would rebel? Why did he deliberately sow the seeds of discord in heaven, knowing that he would cast them into the lake of eternal fire—knowing that for them he would create the eternal prison, whose dungeons would echo forever the sobs and shrieks of endless pain?
How foolish is infinite wisdom!
How malicious is mercy!
How revengeful is boundless love!
Again, I say that no sensible man in all the world believes in devils.
Why does God allow these devils to enjoy themselves at the expense of his ignorant children? Why does he allow them to leave their prison? Does he give them furloughs or tickets-of-leave?
Does he want his children misled and corrupted so that he can have the pleasure of damning their souls?
VII. THE MAN OF STRAW.
Some of the preachers who have answered me say that I am fighting a man of straw.
I am fighting the supernatural—the dogma of inspiration—the belief in devils—the atonement, salvation by faith—the forgiveness of sins and the savagery of eternal pain. I am fighting the absurd,-the monstrous, the cruel.
The ministers pretend that they have advanced—that they do not believe the things that I attack. In this they are not honest.