Читать книгу The Essential Works of Robert G. Ingersoll - Robert Green Ingersoll - Страница 258

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IF we cannot thank the orthodox churches—if we cannot thank the unknown, the incomprehensible, the supernatural—if we cannot thank Nature—if we can not kneel to a Guess, or prostrate ourselves before a Perhaps—whom shall we thank?

Let us see what the worldly have done—what has been accomplished by those not "called," not "set apart," not "inspired," not filled with the Holy Ghost—by those who were neglected by all the Gods.

Passing over the Hindus, the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans, their poets, philosophers and metaphysicians—we will come to modern times.

In the 10th century after Christ the Saracens—governors of a vast empire—"established colleges in Mongolia, Tartary, Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, Morocco, Fez and in Spain." The region owned by the Saracens was greater than the Roman Empire. They had not only colleges—but observatories. The sciences were taught. They introduced the ten numerals—taught algebra and trigonometry—understood cubic equations—knew the art of surveying—they made catalogues and maps of the stars—gave the great stars the names they still bear—they ascertained the size of the earth—determined the obliquity of the ecliptic and fixed the length of the year. They calculated eclipses, equinoxes, solstices, conjunctions of planets and occultations of stars. They constructed astronomical instruments. They made clocks of various kinds and were the inventors of the pendulum. They originated chemistry—discovered sulphuric and nitric acid and alcohol.

"They were the first to publish pharmacopoeias and dispensatories.

"In mechanics they determined the laws of falling bodies. They understood the mechanical powers, and the attraction of gravitation.

"They taught hydrostatics and determined the specific gravities of bodies.

"In optics they discovered that a ray of light did not proceed from the eye to an object—but from the object to the eye."

"They were manufacturers of cotton, leather, paper and steel.

"They gave us the game of chess.

"They produced romances and novels and essays on many subjects.

"In their schools they taught the modern doctrines of evolution and development." They anticipated Darwin and Spencer.

These people were not Christians. They were the followers, for the most part, of an impostor—of a pretended prophet of a false God. And yet while the true Christians, the men selected by the true God and filled with the Holy Ghost were tearing out the tongues of heretics, these wretches were irreverently tracing the orbits of the stars. While the true believers were flaying philosophers and extinguishing the eyes of thinkers, these godless followers of Mohammed were founding colleges, collecting manuscripts, investigating the facts of nature and giving their attention to science. Afterward the followers of Mohammed became the enemies of science and hated facts as intensely and honestly as Christians. Whoever has a revelation from God will defend it with all his strength—will abhor reason and deny facts.

But it is well to know that we are indebted to the Moors—to the followers of Mohammed—for having laid the foundations of modern science. It is well to know that we are not indebted to the church, to Christianity, for any useful fact.

It is well to know that the seeds of thought were sown in our minds by the Greeks and Romans, and that our literature came from those seeds. The great literature of our language is Pagan in its thought—Pagan in its beauty—Pagan in its perfection. It is well to know that when Mohammedans were the friends of science, Christians were its enemies. How consoling it is to think that the friends of science—the men who educated their fellows—are now in hell, and that the men who persecuted and killed philosophers are now in heaven! Such is the justice of God.

The Christians of the Middle Ages, the men who were filled with the Holy Ghost, knew all about the worlds beyond the grave, but nothing about the world in which they lived. They thought the earth was flat—a little dishing if anything—that it was about five thousand years old, and that the stars were little sparkles made to beautify the night.

The fact is that Christianity was in existence for fifteen hundred years before there was an astronomer in Christendom. No follower of Christ knew the shape of the earth.

The earth was demonstrated to be a globe, not by a pope or cardinal—not by a collection of clergymen—not by the "called" or the "set apart," but by a sailor. Magellan left Seville, Spain, August 10th, 1519, sailed west and kept sailing west, and the ship reached Seville, the port it left, on Sept. 7th, 1522.

The world had been circumnavigated. The earth was known to be round. There had been a dispute between the Scriptures and a sailor. The fact took the sailor's side.

In 1543 Copernicus published his book, "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies."

He had some idea of the vastness of the stars—of the astronomical spaces—of the insignificance of this world.

Toward the close of the sixteenth century, Bruno, one of the greatest men this world has produced, gave his thoughts to his fellow-men. He taught the plurality of worlds. He was a Pantheist, an Atheist, an honest man. He called the Catholic Church the "Triumphant Beast." He was imprisoned for many years, tried, convicted, and on the 16th day of February, 1600, burned in Rome by men filled with the Holy Ghost, burned on the spot where now his monument rises. Bruno, the noblest, the greatest of all the martyrs. The only one who suffered death for what he believed to be the truth. The only martyr who had no heaven to gain, no hell to shun, no God to please. He was nobler than inspired men, grander than prophets, greater and purer than apostles. Above all the theologians of the world, above the makers of creeds, above the founders of religions rose this serene, unselfish and intrepid man.

Yet Christians, followers of Christ, murdered this incomparable man. These Christians were true to their creed. They believed that faith would be rewarded with eternal joy, and doubt punished with eternal pain. They were logical. They were pious and pitiless—devout and devilish—meek and malicious—religious and revengeful—Christ-like and cruel—loving with their mouths and hating with their hearts. And yet, honest victims of ignorance and fear.

What have the wordly done?

In 1608, Lippersheim, a Hollander, so arranged lenses that objects were exaggerated.

He invented the telescope.

He gave countless worlds to our eyes, and made us citizens of the Universe.

In 1610, on the night of January 7th, Galileo demonstrated the truth of the Copernican system, and in 1632, published his work on "The System of the World."

What did the church do?

Galileo was arrested, imprisoned, forced to fall upon his knees, put his hand on the Bible, and recant. For ten years he was kept in prison—for ten years until released by the pity of death. Then the church—men filled with the Holy Ghost—denied his body burial in consecrated ground. It was feared that his dust might corrupt the bodies of those who had persecuted him.

In 1609, Kepler published his book "Motions of the Planet Mars." He, too, knew of the attraction of gravitation and that it acted in proportion to mass and distance. Kepler announced his Three Laws. He found and mathematically expressed the relation of distance, mass, and motion. Nothing greater has been accomplished by the human mind.

Astronomy became a science and Christianity a superstition.

Then came Newton, Herscheland Laplace. The astronomy of Joshua and Elijah faded from the minds of intelligent men, and Jehovah became an ignorant tribal god.

Men began to see that the operations of Nature were not subject to interference. That eclipses were not caused by the wrath of God—that comets had nothing to do with the destruction of empires or the death of kings, that the stars wheeled in their orbits without regard to the actions of men. In the sacred East the dawn appeared.

What have the wordly done?

A few years ago a few men became wicked enough to use their senses. They began to look and listen. They began to really see and then they began to reason. They forgot heaven and hell long enough to take some interest in this world. They began to examine soils and rocks. They noticed what had been done by rivers and seas. They found out something about the crust of the earth. They found that most of the rocks had been deposited and stratified in the water—rocks 70,000 feet in thickness. They found that the coal was once vegetable matter. They made the best calculations they could of the time required to make the coal, and concluded that it must have taken at least six or seven millions of years. They examined the chalk cliffs, found that they were composed of the microscopic shells of minute organisms, that is to say, the dust of these shells. This dust settled over areas as large as Europe and in some places the chalk is a mile in depth. This must have required many millions of years.

Lyell, the highest authority on the subject, says that it must have required, to cause the changes that we know, at least two hundred million years. Think of these vast deposits caused by the slow falling of infinitesimal atoms of impalpable dust through the silent depths of ancient seas! Think of the microscopical forms of life, constructing their minute houses of lime, giving life to others, leaving their mansions beneath the waves, and so through countless generations building the foundations of continents and islands.

Go back of all life that we now know—back of all the flying lizards, the armored monsters, the hissing serpents, the winged and fanged horrors—back to the Laurentian rocks—to the eozoon, the first of living things that we have found—back of all mountains, seas and rivers—back to the first incrustation of the molten world—back of wave of fire and robe of flame—back to the time when all the substance of the earth blazed in the glowing sun with all the stars that wheel about the central fire.

Think of the days and nights that lie between!—think of the centuries, the withered leaves of time, that strew the desert of the past!

Nature does not hurry. Time cannot be wasted—cannot be lost. The future remains eternal and all the past is as though it had not been—as though it were to be. The infinite knows neither loss nor gain.

We know something of the history of the world—something of the human race; and we know that man has lived and struggled through want and war, through pestilence and famine, through ignorance and crime, through fear and hope, on the old earth for millions and millions of years.

At last we know that infallible popes, and countless priests and clergymen, who had been "called," filled with the Holy Ghost, and presidents of colleges, kings, emperors and executives of nations had mistaken the blundering guesses of ignorant savages for the wisdom of an infinite God.

At last we know that the story of creation, of the beginning of things, as told in the "sacred book," is not only untrue, but utterly absurd and idiotic. Now we know that the inspired writers did not know and that the God who inspired them did not know.

We are no longer misled by myths and legends. We rely upon facts. The world is our witness and the stars testify for us.

What have the worldly done?

They have investigated the religions of the world—have read the sacred books, the prophecies, the commandments, the rules of conduct. They have studied the symbols, the ceremonies, the prayers and sacrifices. And they have shown that all religions are substantially the same—produced by the same causes—that all rest on a misconception of the facts in nature—that all are founded on ignorance and fear, on mistake and mystery.

They have found that Christianity is like the rest—that it was not a revelation, but a natural growth—that its gods and devils, its heavens and hells, were borrowed—that its ceremonies and sacraments were souvenirs of other religions—that no part of it came from heaven, but that it was all made by savage man. They found that Jehovah was a tribal god and that his ancestors had lived on the banks of the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Ganges and the Nile, and these ancestors were traced back to still more savage forms.

They found that all the sacred books were filled with inspired mistake and sacred absurdity.

But, say the Christians, we have the only inspired book. We have the Old Testament and the New. Where did you get the Old Testament? From the Jews?—Yes.

Let me tell you about it.

After the Jews returned from Babylon, about 400 years before Christ, Ezra commenced making the Bible. You will find an account of this in the Bible.

We know that Genesis was written after the Captivity—because it was from the Babylonians that the Jews got the story of the creation—of Adam and Eve, of the Garden—of the serpent, and the tree of life—of the flood—and from them they learned about the Sabbath.

You find nothing about that holy day in Judges, Joshua, Samuel, Kings or Chronicles—nothing in Job, the Psalms, in Esther, Solomon's Song or Ecclesiastes. Only in books written by Ezra after the return from Babylon.

When Ezra finished the inspired book, he placed it in the temple. It was written on the skins of beasts, and, so far as we know, there was but one.

What became of this Bible?

Jerusalem was taken by Titus about 70 years after Christ. The temple was destroyed and, at the request of Josephus, the Holy Bible was sent to Vespasian the Emperor, at Rome.

And this Holy Bible has never been seen or heard of since. So much for that.

Then there was a copy, or rather a translation, called the Septuagint.

How was that made?

It is said that Ptolemy Soter and his son Ptolemy Philadelphus obtained a translation of the Jewish Bible. This translation was made by seventy persons.

At that time the Jewish Bible did not contain Daniel, Ecclesiastes, but few of the Psalms and only a part of Isaiah.

What became of this translation known as the Septuagint?

It was burned in the Bruchium Library forty-seven years before Christ.

Then there was another so-called copy of part of the Bible, known as the Samaritan Roll of the Pentateuch.

But this is not considered of any value.

Have we a true copy of the Bible that was in the temple at Jerusalem—the one sent to Vespasian?

Nobody knows.

Have we a true copy of the Septuagint?

Nobody knows.

What is the oldest manuscript of the Bible we have in Hebrew?

The oldest manuscript we have in Hebrew was written in the 10th century after Christ. The oldest pretended copy we have of the Septuagint written in Greek was made in the 5th century after Christ.

If the Bible was divinely inspired, if it was the actual word of God, we have no authenticated copy. The original has been lost and we are left in the darkness of Nature.

It is impossible for us to show that our Bible is correct. We have no standard. Many of the books in our Bible contradict each other. Many chapters appear to be incomplete and parts of different books are written in the same words, showing that both could not have been original. The 19th and 20th chapters of 2nd Kings and the 37th and 38th chapters of Isaiah are exactly the same. So is the 36th chapter of Isaiah from the 2nd verse the same as the 18th chapter of 2nd Kings from the 2nd verse.

So, it is perfectly apparent that there could have been no possible propriety in inspiring the writers of Kings and the writers of Chronicles. The books are substantially the same, differing in a few mistakes—in a few falsehoods. The same is true of Leviticus and Numbers. The books do not agree either in facts or philosophy. They differ as the men differed who wrote them.

What have the worldly done?

They have investigated the phenomena of nature. They have invented ways to use the forces of the world, the weight of falling water—of moving air. They have changed water to steam, invented engines—the tireless giants that work for man. They have made lightning a messenger and slave. They invented movable type, taught us the art of printing and made it possible to save and transmit the intellectual wealth of the world. They connected continents with cables, cities and towns with the telegraph—brought the world into one family—made intelligence independent of distance. They taught us how to build homes, to obtain food, to weave cloth. They covered the seas with iron ships and the land with roads and steeds of steel. They gave us the tools of all the trades—the implements of labor. They chiseled statues, painted pictures and "witched the world" with form and color. They have found the cause of and the cure for many maladies that afflict the flesh and minds of men. They have given us the instruments of music and the great composers and performers have changed the common air to tones and harmonies that intoxicate, exalt and purify the soul.

They have rescued us from the prisons of fear, and snatched our souls from the fangs and claws of superstition's loathsome, crawling, flying beasts. They have given us the liberty to think and the courage to express our thoughts. They have changed the frightened, the enslaved, the kneeling, the prostrate into men and women—clothed them in their right minds and made them truly free. They have uncrowned the phantoms, wrested the scepters from the ghosts and given this world to the children of men. They have driven from the heart the fiends of fear and extinguished the flames of hell.

They have read a few leaves of the great volume—deciphered some of the records written on stone by the tireless hands of time in the dim past. They have told us something of what has been done by wind and wave, by fire and frost, by life and death, the ceaseless workers, the pauseless forces of the world.

They have enlarged the horizon of the known, changed the glittering specks that shine above us to wheeling worlds, and filled all space with countless suns.

They have found the qualities of substances, the nature of things—how to analyze, separate and combine, and have enabled us to use the good and avoid the hurtful.

They have given us mathematics in the higher forms, by means of which we measure the astronomical spaces, the distances to stars, the velocity at which the heavenly bodies move, their density and weight, and by which the mariner navigates the waste and trackless seas. They have given us all we have of knowledge, of literature and art. They have made life worth living. They have filled the world with conveniences, comforts and luxuries.

All this has been done by the worldly—by those, who were not "called" or "set apart" or filled with the Holy Ghost or had the slightest claim to "apostolic succession." The men who accomplished these things were not "inspired." They had no revelation—no supernatural aid. They were not clad in sacred vestments, and tiaras were not upon their brows. They were not even ordained. They used their senses, observed and recorded facts. They had confidence in reason. They were patient searchers for the truth. They turned their attention to the affairs of this world. They were not saints. They were sensible men. They worked for themselves, for wife and child and for the benefit of all.

To these men we are indebted for all we are, for all we know, for all we have. They were the creators of civilization—the founders of free states—the saviors of liberty—the destroyers of superstition and the great captains in the army of progress.