Читать книгу The Essential Works of Robert G. Ingersoll - Robert Green Ingersoll - Страница 82

It gives me immense pleasure to say to this audience that orthodox religion is dying out of the civilized world. It is a sick man. It has been attacked with two diseases—softening of the brain and ossification of the heart. It is a religion that no longer satisfies the intelligence of this country; that no longer satisfies the brain; a religion against which the heart of every civilized man and woman protests. It is a religion that gives hope only to a few; that puts a shadow upon the cradle; that wraps the coffin in darkness and fills the future of mankind with flame and fear. It is a religion that I am going to do what little I can while I live to destroy. In its place I want humanity, I want good fellowship, I want intellectual liberty—free lips, the discoveries and inventions of genius, the demonstrations of science—the religion of art, music and poetry—of good houses, good clothes, good wages—that is to say, the religion of this world.