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A review by kevin_shepherd
Why I Am An Agnostic by Robert G. Ingersoll
5.0
The Great Agnostic
Ingersoll doesn’t touch on all that is wrong with the Old and New Testaments, but he crams as many fallacies as possible in his allotment of 78 pages.
on godly benevolence
“They knew all about the flood. They knew that God, with the exception of about eight people, drowned all his children - the old and young - the bowed patriarch and the dimpled babe - the young man and the merry maiden - the loving mother and the laughing child.”
on hell
Ingersoll, reflecting on the Christian concept of eternal damnation as a tool to indoctrinate neophytes and terrorize children, stated that “if it is a lie then I hate your religion and if it is true I hate your God.”
on biblical inerrancy
“In every way the clergy sought to evade the facts, to dodge the truth, to preserve the creed. At first they flatly denied the facts - then they belittled them - then they harmonized them - then they denied they had denied them - then they changed the meaning of the inspired book to fit the facts . . . Anything they could not dodge they swallowed and anything they could not swallow they dodged.”
There’s a faux marble bust of Robert Ingersoll sitting proudly on a shelf in my library. After reading this I feel compelled to splurge on the bronze one.
Ingersoll doesn’t touch on all that is wrong with the Old and New Testaments, but he crams as many fallacies as possible in his allotment of 78 pages.
on godly benevolence
“They knew all about the flood. They knew that God, with the exception of about eight people, drowned all his children - the old and young - the bowed patriarch and the dimpled babe - the young man and the merry maiden - the loving mother and the laughing child.”
on hell
Ingersoll, reflecting on the Christian concept of eternal damnation as a tool to indoctrinate neophytes and terrorize children, stated that “if it is a lie then I hate your religion and if it is true I hate your God.”
on biblical inerrancy
“In every way the clergy sought to evade the facts, to dodge the truth, to preserve the creed. At first they flatly denied the facts - then they belittled them - then they harmonized them - then they denied they had denied them - then they changed the meaning of the inspired book to fit the facts . . . Anything they could not dodge they swallowed and anything they could not swallow they dodged.”
There’s a faux marble bust of Robert Ingersoll sitting proudly on a shelf in my library. After reading this I feel compelled to splurge on the bronze one.