The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
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WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC?
1889
PART I.
"With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls."
The same rules or laws of probability must govern in religious
questions as in others. There is no subject -- and can be none --
concerning which any human being is under any obligation to believe
without evidence. Neither is there any intelligent being who can,
by any possibility, be flattered by the exercise of ignorant
credulity. The man who, without prejudice, reads and understands
the Old and New Testaments will cease to be an orthodox Christian.
The intelligent man who investigates the religion of any country
without fear and without prejudice will not and cannot be a
believer.
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Very simplistic logic for a smart man. Let's look at his first sentence.
Does he show to have any prejudice in the first sentence? Yes. Therefore
we can conclude that he did NOT read the Bible with a (supposive) clear
mind. Probability is a human creation not an instinct. My point is NO
one can read anything without prior biases.
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Most people, after arriving at the conclusion that Jehovah is
not God, that the Bible is not an inspired book, and that the
Christian religion, like other religions, is the creation of man,
usually say: "There must be a Supreme Being, but Jehovah is not his
name, and the Bible is not his word. There must be somewhere an
over-ruling Providence or Power."
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Man this guy is full of assumptions. I have not arrived to this so called
"enlightened" conclusion. According to scriptures everyone knows there is
a God, AND they are without excuse. When the athiest stands before the
King's Throne he will have to bow.
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This position is just as untenable as the other. He who cannot
harmonize the cruelties of the Bible with the goodness of Jehovah,
cannot harmonize the cruelties of Nature with the goodness and
wisdom of a supposed Deity. He will find it impossible to account
for pestilence and famine, for earthquake and storm, for slavery,
for the triumph of the strong over the weak, for the countless
victories of injustice. He will find it impossible to account for
martyrs -- for the burning of the good, the noble, the loving, by
the ignorant, the malicious, and the infamous.
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It seems to be the case that if someone does not understand WHY God
allows things to happen the way they do, it means that God is not real.
What kind of logic is that. Let me ask you this: Do you understand how a
satellite works? I will assume it is to highly complex for most of you.
You will say No. Therefore that means that it can not be real.
Know you are most likely say to my last comment that is stupid, BUT there
are things you are ignoring. There ARE more evidences that God is real
from your present situation then there are for the satellite being
real. Let me explain:
1. You have most likely heard about someone speaking to God before.
2. You have heard of and probably read the historical document about
God(Four Gospels, etc.) in human flesh, just as you have heard of read
about Julius Caesar.
3. Since you have probably read about God walking the Earth(Eden, Christ,
etc.) then you know that someone has seen, touched, talked with, heard
about, walked with, been helped by God(in physical form).
4. You probably have heard of people getting healed by God, but you chose
to ignore it because it wasn't worth your time.
5. You probably have never seen a satellite in real life. Most likely
you read about it, or seen a picture of one T.V.
6. You DO have a lot of word of mouth and mass majority that will tell
you it is real or that they have seen it, but do we always believe people?
7. People for some reason always have to follow majority opinion. What
about other proofs?
8. You have probably breathed the same air molecules that Jesus Christ
breathed.
9. Etc.
You probably get what I am talking about now. When you actually look at
what evidences you have, you will see that there are many. Matter of
fact: I think most people come to the conclusion that there is no God
because they don't want to believe, not because there isn't enough proof.
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Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
1
WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC?
How can the Deist satisfactorily account for the sufferings of
women and children? In what way will he justify religious
persecution -- the flame and sword of religious hatred? Why did his
God sit idly on his throne and allow his enemies to wet their
swords in the blood of his friends? Why did he not answer the
prayers of the imprisoned, of the helpless? And when he heard the
lash upon the naked back of the slave, why did he not also hear the
prayer of the slave? And when children were sold from the breasts
of mothers, why was he deaf to the mother's cry?
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It's amazing how God is about the only thing that is dependant on what we
do NOT understand. If I was walking down the road and saw you on the
street and said, " There is going to be a concert in that building over
there to raise charity" you would probably believe me(without any proof).
But when it comes to God, unlike everything else, you stick Him in a test
tube.
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It seems to me that the man who knows the limitations of the
mind, who gives the proper value to human testimony, is necessarily
an Agnostic. He gives up the hope of ascertaining first or final
causes, of comprehending the supernatural, or of conceiving of an
infinite personality. From out the words Creator, Preserver, and
Providence, all meaning falls.
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The first sentence is a false assumption. I am a Christian, and I know
the limitations of the mind and I give proper value to human testimony.
The Agnostic must have a hard time believing anything with the logic
mentioned above. How could he be satisfied with people just telling him
there is a president, or that gravity makes apples fall? Come on, explain
to me why a certain mass M has a gravitational pull.
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The mind of man pursues the path of least resistance, and the
conclusions arrived at by the individual depend upon the nature and
structure of his mind, on his experience, on hereditary drifts and
tendencies, and on the countless things that constitute the
difference in minds. One man, finding himself in the midst of
mysterious phenomena, comes to the conclusion that all is the
result of design; that back of all things is an infinite
personality -- that is to say, an infinite man; and he accounts for
all that is by simply saying that the universe was created and set
in motion by this infinite personality, and that it is miraculously
and supernaturally governed and preserved. This man sees with
perfect clearness that matter could not create itself, and
therefore he imagines a creator of matter. He is perfectly
satisfied that there is design in the world, and that consequently
there must have been a designer. It does not occur to him that it
is necessary to account for the existence of an infinite
personality. He is perfectly certain that there can be no design
without a designer, and he is, equally certain that there can be a
designer who was not designed. The absurdity becomes so great that
it takes the place of a demonstration. He takes it for granted that
matter was created and that its creator was not. He assumes that a
creator existed from eternity, without cause, and created what is
called matter out of nothing; or, whereas there was nothing, this
creator made the something that we call substance.
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It must be assumed according to the writer that accepting something not
fully understood is an absurdity, BUT if you use this so called logic on
other things it falls apart. As I have already mentioned, how can a man
just take it on faith that gravity just works. Do you fully understand
it? If you do you are very smart.
Like I also have said before, if you say God is dependant on what you
understand, then you need to apply it to other things. If you are an
agnostic you should not believe in blackholes, aliens(unless you were
abducted[but then mass opinion says you are a ravening fool]), and
top it off: gravity.
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Is it possible for the human mind to conceive of an infinite
personality? Can it imagine a beginningless being, infinitely
powerful and intelligent? If such a being existed, then there must
have been an eternity during which nothing did exist except this
being; because, if the Universe was created, there must have been
a time when it was not, and back of that there must have been an
eternity during which nothing but an infinite personality existed.
Is it possible to imagine an infinite intelligence dwelling for an
eternity in infinite nothing? How could such a being be
intelligent? What was there to be intelligent about? There was but
one thing to know, namely, that there was nothing except this
being. How could such a being be powerful? There was nothing to
exercise force upon. There was nothing in the universe to suggest
an idea. Relations could not exist -- except the relation between
infinite intelligence and infinite nothing.
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Romans 8:6~ Carnal mindedness is death, spiritual mindness is life and
peace.
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Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
2
WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC?
The next great difficulty is the act of creation. My mind is
so that I cannot conceive of something being created out of
nothing. Neither can I conceive of anything being created without
a cause. Let me go one step further. It is just as difficult to
imagine something being created with, as without a cause.
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Ha, Ha, Ha. That so stupid. That must mean he gets troubled when he
makes a hamburger, house, etc. I have never met anybody so perplexed!?!?
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To
pustulate a cause does not in the least lessen the difficulty.
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Wait.....I guess he is right. I CAAAN'T understand how any one could make
a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
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In
spite of all, this lever remains without a fulcrum. We cannot
conceive of the destruction of substance. The stone can be crushed
to powder, and the powder can be ground to such a fineness that the
atoms can only be distinguished by the most powerful microscope,
and we can then imagine these atoms being divided and subdivided
again and again and again; but it is impossible for us to conceive
of the annihilation of the least possible imaginable fragment of
the least atom of which we can think. Consequently the mind can
imagine neither creation nor destruction. From this point it is
very easy to reach the generalization that the indestructible could
not have been created.
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The second law of thermodynamics tied in with entropy is scientific
evidence that the universe is increasing overall in entropy(one of the
corillaries clearly states this). Thus, any person that states there is a
force in the UNIVERSE that causes evolution(decrease in entropy within
organisms) to come about is wrong, because this is a DIRECT violation
of the second law(corillary). The only thing you can state is that for
some reason there is a force that NO one has seen operating, works on
organisms only(decreasing entropy). According to other THEORIES we see
from scientific proof that anything which increases in entropy has had
something that caused it come about. Usually from observation, there has
to be a mediator(intelligence) bring this about. SO according to
different corillaries and THEORIES we can conclude that this FORCE is very
unlikely t be real, because thus far it has been hype, blind leading the
blind, and majority opinion among our people.
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These questions, however, will be answered by each individual
according to the structure of his mind, according to his
experience, according to his habits of thought, and according to
his intelligence or his ignorance, his prejudice or his genius.
Probably a very large majority of mankind believe in the
existence of supernatural beings, and a majority of what are known
as the civilized nations, in an infinite personality. In the realm
of thought majorities do not determine. Each brain is a kingdom,
each mind is a sovereign.
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Whatever.
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The universality of a belief does not even tend to prove its
truth. A large majority of mankind have believed in what is known
as God, and an equally large majority have as implicitly believed
in what is known as the Devil. These beings have been inferred from
phenomena. They were produced for the most part by ignorance, by
fear, and by selfishness.
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Above he states some of his opinions.
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Man in all ages has endeavored to account
for the mysteries of life and death, of substance, of force, for
the ebb and flow of things, for earth and star. The savage,
dwelling in his cave, subsisting on roots and reptiles, or on
beasts that could be slain with club and stone, surrounded by
countless objects of terror, standing by rivers, so far as he knew,
without source or end, by seas with but one shore, the prey of
beasts mightier than himself, of diseases strange and fierce,
trembling at the voice of thunder, blinded by the lightning,
feeling the earth shake beneath him, seeing the sky lurid with the
volcano's glare, -- fell prostrate and begged for the protection of
the Unknown.
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The above is opinion. He has a good imagination wouldn't you say?
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In the long night of savagery, in the midst of pestilence and
famine, through the long and dreary winters, crouched in dens of
darkness, the seeds of superstition were sown in the brain of man.
The savage believed, and thoroughly believed, that everything
happened in reference to him; that he by his actions could excite
the anger, or by his worship placate the wrath, of the Unseen. He
resorted to flattery and prayer. To the best of his ability he put
in stone, or rudely carved in wood, his idea of this god. For this
idol he built a hut, a hovel, and at last a cathedral. Before these
images he bowed, and at these shrines, whereon he lavished his
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Funny....We don't see air. Prove to me it is real.
This guy has got a good imagination, almost like those evolution movies.
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Well, I have completed a small portion of chastising this mans
free-thinking. I will go now, I had my fun for the day.
Thanks,
Tony Woodcock.