Quote #98

Does belief depend upon evidence? I think it does somewhat in some cases. How is it when a jury is sworn to try a case, hearing all the evidence, hearing both sides, hearing the charge of the judge, hearing the law, are upon their oaths equally divided, six for the plaintiff and six for the defendant? Evidence does not have the same effect upon all people. Why? Our brains are not alike. They are not the same shape. We have not the same intelligence, or the same experience, the same sense. And yet I am held accountable for my belief. I must believe in the Trinity - three times one is one, once one is three, and my soul is to be eternally damned for failing to guess an arithmetical conundrum. That is the poison part of Christianity - that salvation depends upon belief. That is the accursed part, and until that dogma is discarded Christianity will be nothing but superstition.

More from Robert G. Ingersoll

  1. Do not, I pray you, pluck from the heart the sweet flower of pity and trample it in the bloody dust of superstition.
  2. Each is entitled to the honest opinion of all.
  3. Crowned force has governed ignorance through fear. Hypocrisy and tyranny - two vultures - have fed upon the liberties of man. From all thes…
  4. Each nation has created a god, and the god has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved, and he invariab…
  5. Courage without conscience is a wild beast.
  6. Each soul is crowned. Each soul wears the purple and the tiara; and only those are good citizens of the intellectual world who give to ever…
  7. Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed.
  8. Every brain is a field where Nature sows the seeds of thought, and the crop depends upon the soil.

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