Ingersoll, Robert Green -- Lecture (1884-01-20), “Orthodoxy,” Tabor Opera House, Denver, Colorado

Dave — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 18:16:14 +0000

In this world we never will be perfectly civilized as long as a gallows casts its shadow upon the earth. As long as there is a penitentiary, within the walls of which a human being is immured, we are not a perfectly civilized people. We shall never be perfectly civilized until we do away with crime.
And yet, according to this Christian religion, God is to have an eternal penitentiary; he is to be an everlasting jailer, an everlasting turnkey, a warden of an infinite dungeon, and he is going to keep prisoners there forever, not for the purpose of reforming them — because they are never going to get any better, only worse — but for the purpose of purposeless punishment. And for what? For something they failed to believe in this world. Born in ignorance, supported by poverty, caught in the snares of temptation, deformed by toil, stupefied by want — and yet held responsible through the countless ages of eternity! No man can think of a greater horror; no man can dream of a greater absurdity.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Lecture (1884-01-20), “Orthodoxy,” Tabor Opera House, Denver, Colorado
(Source)

Published as its own book in 1884.

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Ingersoll, Robert Green -- Lecture (1884-01-20), “Orthodoxy,” Tabor Opera House, Denver, Colorado