Ingersoll, Robert Green -- Lecture (1873-12) “Individuality,” Chicago Free Religious Society

Dave — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 15:24:30 +0000

To Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin, are we indebted, more than to all others, for a human government, and for a Constitution in which no God is recognized superior to the legally expressed will of the people.
They knew that to put God in the Constitution was to put man out. They knew that the recognition of a Deity would be seized upon by fanatics and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought. They knew the terrible history of the church too well to place in her keeping, or in the keeping of her God, the sacred rights of man. They intended that all should have the right to worship, or not to worship; that our laws should make no distinction on account of creed. They intended to found and frame a government for man, and for man alone. They wished to preserve the individuality and liberty of all; to prevent the few from governing the many, and the many from persecuting and destroying the few.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Lecture (1873-12) “Individuality,” Chicago Free Religious Society
(Source)

Full title "Arraignment of the Church and a Plea for Individuality." Collected in The Gods and Other Lectures (1876).

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Ingersoll, Robert Green -- Lecture (1873-12) “Individuality,” Chicago Free Religious Society