WHAT IS RELIGION?
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Ingersoll, Robert Green and Widger, David
* This was Col. Ingersoll's last public address, delivered before the American Free Religious Association, in the Hollis Street Theatre, Boston, June 2, 1899.
IT is asserted that an infinite God created all things, governs all things, and that the creature should be obedient and thankful to the creator; that the creator demands certain things, and that the person who complies with these demands is religious. This kind of religion has been substantially universal.
For many centuries and by many peoples it was believed that this God demanded sacrifices; that he was pleased when parents shed the blood of their babes. Afterward it was supposed that he was satisfied with the blood of oxen, lambs and doves, and that in exchange for or on account of these sacrifices, this God gave rain, sunshine and harvest. It was also believed that if the sacrifices were not made, this God sent pestilence, famine, flood and earthquake.
The last phase of this belief in sacrifice was, according to the Christian doctrine, that God accepted the blood of his son, and that after his son had been murdered, he, God, was satisfied, and wanted no more blood.
During all these years and by all these peoples it was believed that this God heard and answered prayer, that he forgave sins and saved the souls of true believers. This, in a general way, is the definition of religion.
Now, the questions are, Whether religion was founded on any known fact? Whether such a being as God exists? Whether he was the creator of yourself and myself? Whether any prayer was ever answered? Whether any sacrifice of babe or ox secured the favor of this unseen God?
First.—Did an infinite God create the children of men?
Why did he create the intellectually inferior?
Why did he create the deformed and helpless?
Why did he create the criminal, the idiotic, the insane?
Can infinite wisdom and power make any excuse for the creation of failures?
Are the failures under obligation to their creator?
Second.—Is an infinite God the governor of this world?
Is he responsible for all the chiefs, kings, emperors, and queens?
Is he responsible for all the wars that have been waged, for all the innocent blood that has been shed?
Is he responsible for the centuries of slavery, for the backs that have been scarred with the lash, for the babes that have been sold from the breasts of mothers, for the families that have been separated and destroyed?
Is this God responsible for religious persecution, for the Inquisition, for the thumb-screw and rack, and for all the instruments of torture?
Did this God allow the cruel and vile to destroy the brave and virtuous? Did he allow tyrants to shed the blood of patriots?
Did he allow his enemies to torture and burn his friends?
What is such a God worth?
Would a decent man, having the power to prevent it, allow his enemies to torture and burn his friends?
Can we conceive of a devil base enough to prefer his enemies to his friends?
If a good and infinitely powerful God governs this world, how can we account for cyclones, earthquakes, pestilence and famine?
How can we account for cancers, for microbes, for diphtheria and the thousand diseases that prey on infancy?
How can we account for the wild beasts that devour human beings, for the fanged serpents whose bite is death?
How can we account for a world where life feeds on life?
Were beak and claw, tooth and fang, invented and produced by infinite mercy?
Did infinite goodness fashion the wings of the eagles so that their fleeing prey could be overtaken?
Did infinite goodness create the beasts of prey with the intention that they should devour the weak and helpless?
Did infinite goodness create the countless worthless living things that breed within and feed upon the flesh of higher forms?
Did infinite wisdom intentionally produce the microscopic beasts that feed upon the optic nerve?
Think of blinding a man to satisfy the appetite of a microbe!
Think of life feeding on life! Think of the victims! Think of the Niagara of blood pouring over the precipice of cruelty!
In view of these facts, what, after all, is religion?
It is fear.
Fear builds the altar and offers the sacrifice.
Fear erects the cathedral and bows the head of man in worship.
Fear bends the knees and utters the prayer.
Fear pretends to love.
Religion teaches the slave-virtues—obedience, humility, self-denial, forgiveness, non-resistance.