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Thomas Paine From 'The Gods and Other Lectures'
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22 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 31, 2005
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About the author
Robert G. Ingersoll
1,004 books326 followers"On August 11, 1833, was born the greatest and noblest of the Western World; an immense personality, -- unique, lovable, sublime; the peerless orator of all time, and as true a poet as Nature ever held in tender clasp upon her loving breast, and, in words coined for the chosen few, told of the joys and sorrows, hopes, dreams, and fears of universal life; a patriot whose golden words and deathless deeds were worthy of the Great Republic; a philanthropist, real and genuine; a philosopher whose central theme was human love, -- who placed 'the holy hearth of home' higher than the altar of any god; an iconoclast, a builder -- a reformer, perfectly poised, absolutely honest, and as fearless as truth itself -- the most aggressive and formidable foe of superstition -- the most valiant champion of reason -- Robert G. Ingersoll." - Herman E. Kittredge
Robert Green Ingersoll, who became the best known advocate of freethought in the 19th-century, was born in Dresden, N.Y. The son of an impoverished itinerant pastor, he later recalled his formative church experiences: "The minister asked us if we knew that we all deserved to go to hell, and we all answered 'yes.' Then we were asked if we would be willing to go to hell if it was God's will, and every little liar shouted 'Yes!'" He became an attorney by apprenticeship, and a colonel in the Civil War, fighting in the Battle of Shiloh. In 1867, Ingersoll was appointed Illinois' first Attorney General. His political career was cut short by his refusal to halt his controversial lectures, but he achieved national political fame for his thrilling nomination speech for James G. Blaine for president at the national convention of the Republican Party in 1876. Ingersoll was good friends with three U.S. presidents. The distinguished attorney was known and admired by most of the leading progressives and thinkers of his day.
Ingersoll traveled the continent for 30 years, speaking to capacity audiences, once attracting 50,000 people to a lecture in Chicago—40,000 too many for the Exposition Center. His repertoire included 3 to 4-hour lectures on Shakespeare, Voltaire and Burns, but the largest crowds turned out to hear him denounce the bible and religion. He initially settled in Peoria, Illinois, then in Washington, D.C., where he successfully defended falsely accused men in the "Star Route" scandal, the most famous political trial of the 19th century. Religious rumors against Ingersoll abounded. One had it that Ingersoll's son was a drunkard who more than once had to be carried away from the table. Ingersoll wrote: "It is not true that intoxicating beverages are served at my table. It is not true that my son ever was drunk. It is not true that he had to be carried away from the table. Besides, I have no son!"
During the Civil War he was commissioned as Colonel and commander of the 11th Illinois Volunteer Cavalry, and was captured near Corinth, Mississippi. Although soon released, he still made time to treat his Confederate captors to a rousing anti slavery speech.
He hoped for but was never awarded a Cabinet post. The Republicans were afraid of his unorthodox religious views. He was told that he could progress politically if he hid his religious views, but Ingersoll refused on the charge that withholding information from the public would be immoral.
He strongly advocated equal rights for blacks and women. He defended Susan B. Anthony from hecklers when she spoke in Peoria; when every hotel in the city refused to house Frederick Douglass, he welcomed him into his home.
More: https://ffrf.org/news/day/dayitems/it...
http://infidels.org/library/historica...
http://www.robertgreeningersoll.org/8-2/
http://www.positiveatheism.org/tochin...
http://www.philosopedia.org/index.php...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G...
Robert Green Ingersoll, who became the best known advocate of freethought in the 19th-century, was born in Dresden, N.Y. The son of an impoverished itinerant pastor, he later recalled his formative church experiences: "The minister asked us if we knew that we all deserved to go to hell, and we all answered 'yes.' Then we were asked if we would be willing to go to hell if it was God's will, and every little liar shouted 'Yes!'" He became an attorney by apprenticeship, and a colonel in the Civil War, fighting in the Battle of Shiloh. In 1867, Ingersoll was appointed Illinois' first Attorney General. His political career was cut short by his refusal to halt his controversial lectures, but he achieved national political fame for his thrilling nomination speech for James G. Blaine for president at the national convention of the Republican Party in 1876. Ingersoll was good friends with three U.S. presidents. The distinguished attorney was known and admired by most of the leading progressives and thinkers of his day.
Ingersoll traveled the continent for 30 years, speaking to capacity audiences, once attracting 50,000 people to a lecture in Chicago—40,000 too many for the Exposition Center. His repertoire included 3 to 4-hour lectures on Shakespeare, Voltaire and Burns, but the largest crowds turned out to hear him denounce the bible and religion. He initially settled in Peoria, Illinois, then in Washington, D.C., where he successfully defended falsely accused men in the "Star Route" scandal, the most famous political trial of the 19th century. Religious rumors against Ingersoll abounded. One had it that Ingersoll's son was a drunkard who more than once had to be carried away from the table. Ingersoll wrote: "It is not true that intoxicating beverages are served at my table. It is not true that my son ever was drunk. It is not true that he had to be carried away from the table. Besides, I have no son!"
During the Civil War he was commissioned as Colonel and commander of the 11th Illinois Volunteer Cavalry, and was captured near Corinth, Mississippi. Although soon released, he still made time to treat his Confederate captors to a rousing anti slavery speech.
He hoped for but was never awarded a Cabinet post. The Republicans were afraid of his unorthodox religious views. He was told that he could progress politically if he hid his religious views, but Ingersoll refused on the charge that withholding information from the public would be immoral.
He strongly advocated equal rights for blacks and women. He defended Susan B. Anthony from hecklers when she spoke in Peoria; when every hotel in the city refused to house Frederick Douglass, he welcomed him into his home.
More: https://ffrf.org/news/day/dayitems/it...
http://infidels.org/library/historica...
http://www.robertgreeningersoll.org/8-2/
http://www.positiveatheism.org/tochin...
http://www.philosopedia.org/index.php...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G...
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 9, 2024
”The World is my country, and to do good my religion.”
Thomas Paine
With his name left out the history of liberty cannot be written.
In this lecture, Robert Ingersoll, the Great Agnostic, pays tribute to Thomas Paine, America’s Infidel Founder. When Ingersoll gave this lecture, Paine was still infamous in the country he did so much for. (Teddy Roosevelt, Ingersoll’s contemporary, contemptuously referred to Paine as “that dirty little atheist.”) Paine had become persona non grata in America after the publications of The Age of Reason, and his memory was still scorned in the late 19th century. Ingersoll reminded his audience not just of what Paine had done for the liberty of America (his pamphlets Common Sense and The Crisis were so influential that John Adams claimed that without Paine’s pen, Washington’s sword would have been drawn in vain) but also what Paine accomplished for the liberty of men’s minds. He wrote:
He had made it impossible to write the history of political freedom with his name left out. He hated tyranny in the name of kings, and in the name of God, with every drop of his noble blood. He believed in liberty and justice, and in the sacred doctrine of human equality…
Paine attacked the Bible precisely in the same spirit in which he had attacked the pretensions of kings. He used the same weapons. All the pomp in the world could not make him cower. His reason knew no “Holy of Holies” except the abode of truth.
Yet this piece isn’t really a panegyric to Paine so much as it invokes him as an avatar of Reason against superstition, of free though against mental slavery. Paine was a warrior and a martyr in that cause — a man who willingly sacrificed his reputation, his friendships, and the comfort of his old age in the cause of combating religious superstition. And that, as always with Ingersoll, is the true theme of this piece. About reason vs religion Ingersoll wrote:
In all ages reason has been regarded as the enemy of religion. Nothing has been considered so pleasing to the Deity as the total denial of the authority of your own mind. The idea of living and dying without the aid and consultation of superstition has always horrified the Church. All religions have been based upon the idea that God will forever reward the true believer, and eternally damn the man who doubts or denies. To practice justice, to love mercy is not enough. You must believe in some incomprehensible creed. Nothing so outrages the feelings of the Church as a moral unbeliever — nothing so horrible as a charitable Atheist.
Thomas Paine personified the moral unbeliever. He rejected creeds and the authority of scripture. He express in simplest terms his yardstick —
”Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system.”
Thomas Paine
Ingersoll did not rehabilitate Paine, as he saw nothing in the man that needed rehabilitation. Rather he reminded his audience the great debt they owed his memory, and shamed those who wouldn’t acknowledge this.
Thomas Paine
With his name left out the history of liberty cannot be written.
In this lecture, Robert Ingersoll, the Great Agnostic, pays tribute to Thomas Paine, America’s Infidel Founder. When Ingersoll gave this lecture, Paine was still infamous in the country he did so much for. (Teddy Roosevelt, Ingersoll’s contemporary, contemptuously referred to Paine as “that dirty little atheist.”) Paine had become persona non grata in America after the publications of The Age of Reason, and his memory was still scorned in the late 19th century. Ingersoll reminded his audience not just of what Paine had done for the liberty of America (his pamphlets Common Sense and The Crisis were so influential that John Adams claimed that without Paine’s pen, Washington’s sword would have been drawn in vain) but also what Paine accomplished for the liberty of men’s minds. He wrote:
He had made it impossible to write the history of political freedom with his name left out. He hated tyranny in the name of kings, and in the name of God, with every drop of his noble blood. He believed in liberty and justice, and in the sacred doctrine of human equality…
Paine attacked the Bible precisely in the same spirit in which he had attacked the pretensions of kings. He used the same weapons. All the pomp in the world could not make him cower. His reason knew no “Holy of Holies” except the abode of truth.
Yet this piece isn’t really a panegyric to Paine so much as it invokes him as an avatar of Reason against superstition, of free though against mental slavery. Paine was a warrior and a martyr in that cause — a man who willingly sacrificed his reputation, his friendships, and the comfort of his old age in the cause of combating religious superstition. And that, as always with Ingersoll, is the true theme of this piece. About reason vs religion Ingersoll wrote:
In all ages reason has been regarded as the enemy of religion. Nothing has been considered so pleasing to the Deity as the total denial of the authority of your own mind. The idea of living and dying without the aid and consultation of superstition has always horrified the Church. All religions have been based upon the idea that God will forever reward the true believer, and eternally damn the man who doubts or denies. To practice justice, to love mercy is not enough. You must believe in some incomprehensible creed. Nothing so outrages the feelings of the Church as a moral unbeliever — nothing so horrible as a charitable Atheist.
Thomas Paine personified the moral unbeliever. He rejected creeds and the authority of scripture. He express in simplest terms his yardstick —
”Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system.”
Thomas Paine
Ingersoll did not rehabilitate Paine, as he saw nothing in the man that needed rehabilitation. Rather he reminded his audience the great debt they owed his memory, and shamed those who wouldn’t acknowledge this.
April 27, 2017
Wonderful, stirring and thought-provoking commentary by one pioneer of freethought of another. As meaningful today as when it was given nearly 150 years ago. This short read is time more than well-spent.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews