nderstand me. What we believe in now is remorse."
What will you have remorse for? For the mean things you have done when
you are in hell? Will you have any remorse for the mean things you have
done when you are in heaven? Or will you be so good then that you
won't care how you used to be? I tell you today, that no matter in
what heaven you may be, no matter in what star you are spending the
summer; if you meet another man whom you have wronged, you will drop a
little behind in the tune. And, no matter in what part of hell you
are, you will meet some one who has suffered, whose nakedness you have
clothed, and the fire will cool up a little. According to this
Christian doctrine, you won't care how mean you were once. Is it a
compliment to an infinite God to say that every being He ever made
deserved to be damned the minute He had got him done, and that He will
damn everybody He has not had a chance to make over? Is it possible
that somebody else can be good for me, and that this doctrine of the
atonement is the only anchor for the human soul?

We sit by the fireside and see the flames and sparks fly up the
chimney--everybody happy, and the cold wind and sleet beating on the
window, and out on the doorstep a mother with a child on her breast
freezing. How happy it makes a fire, that beautiful contrast. And we
say God is good, and there we sit, and there she sits and moans, not
one night, but forever. Or we are sitting at the table with our wives
and children, everybody eating, happy and delighted, and Famine comes
and pushes out its shriveled palms, and, with hungry eyes, implores us
for a crust; how that would increase the appetite! And that is the
Christian heaven. Don't you see that these infamous doctrines petrify
the human heart? And I would have every one who hears me swear that he
will never contribute another dollar to build another church, in which
is taught such infamous lies. Let every man try to make every day a
joy, and God cannot afford to damn such a man. Consequently humanity is
the only real religion.

"Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless millions mourn."

Ingersoll's Lecture on the Review of His Reviewers

Ladies and Gentlemen: "What have I said?" "What has been my offense?
I have been spoken of as if I were a wolf endeavoring to devour the
entire fold of sheep in the absence of the shepherd." I believe in the
trinity of observation, reason and science; the trinity of ma