Hell: Warm Words on the Cheerful and Comforting Doctrine of Eternal Damnation — Inside the Classic

Produced by David Widger

WARM WORDS ON THE CHEERFUL AND COMFORTING DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL DAMNATION

COL. INGERSOLL'S AMERICAN SECULAR LECTURES

By Col. Robert G. Ingersoll

Minister Of The Gospel Of Free Thought In America

Rev. HENRY WARD BEECHER says:--"I admire Ingersoll because he is not afraid to speak what he honestly thinks, and I am only sorry he does not think as I do. I never heard so much brilliancy and pith put into a two hours' Speech as I did on that night. I wish my whole Congregation had been there to hear it. I regard him as one of the greatest Men of the Age."--New York Herald.

THE idea of a hell was born of revenge and brutality on the one side, and cowardice on the other. In my judgment the American people are too brave, too charitable, too generous, too magnanimous, to believe in the infamous dogma of an eternal hell. I have no respect for any human being who believes in it. I have no respect for any man who preaches it. I have no respect for the man who will pollute the imagination of childhood with that infamous lie. I have no respect for the man who will add to the sorrows of this world with the frightful dogma. I have no respect for any man who endeavours to put that infinite cloud, that infinite shadow, over the heart of humanity.

For a good many years the learned intellects of Christendom have been examining into the religions of other countries in the world, the religions of the thousands that have passed away. They examined into the religions of Egypt, the religion of Greece, the religion of Rome and of the Scandinavian countries. In the presence of the ruins of those religions the learned men of Christendom insisted that those religions were baseless, that they were fraudulent. But they have all passed away. While this was being done the Christianity of our day applauded, and when the learned men got through with the religions of other countries they turned their attention to our religion. By the same mode of reasoning, by the same methods, by the same arguments that they used with the old religions, they were overturning the religion of our day. Why? Every religion in this world is the work of man. Every book has been written by man. Men existed before the books. If books had existed before man, I might admit there was such a thing as a sacred volume. Man never had an idea--man will never have an idea, except those supplied to him by his surroundings. Every idea in the world that man has came to him by nature. You can imagine an animal with the hoof of a bison, with the pouch of the kangaroo, with the wings of an eagle, with the beak of a bird, and with the tail of the lion; and yet every point of this monster you borrowed from nature. Every thing you can think of, every thing you can dream of, is borrowed from your surroundings. And there is nothing on this earth coming from any other sphere whatever. Man has produced every religion in the world. And why? Because each religion bodes forth the knowledge and the belief of the people at the time it was made, and in no book is there any knowledge found, except that of the people who wrote it. In no book is there found any knowledge, except that of the time in which it was written. Barbarians have produced, and always will produce barbarian religions; barbarians have produced and always will produce ideas in harmony with their surroundings, and all the religions of the past were produced by barbarians. We are making religions to-day. That is to say, we are changing them, and the religion of to-day is not the religion of one year ago. What changed it? Science has done it; education and the growing heart of man has done it. And just to the extent that we become civilized ourselves, will we improve the religion of our fathers. If the religion of one hundred years ago, compared with the religion of to-day is so low, what will it be in one thousand years?