Happiness is the only good.
The time to be happy is now.
The place to be happy is here.
The way to be happy is to help make others so.
Reason is the highest attribute of man.
The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. . . . It is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do.
Argument cannot be answered with insults. Kindness is strength; anger blows out the lamp of the mind.
Happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest.
Written in 1889, it is a response to the question by three well-known public figures of the time: Archibishop Cardinal Gibbons of Maryland, who naturally condemns the very idea out of hand, holding squarely to Roman Catholic teaching on the sanctity of marriage; Episcopal Bishop Henry C. Potter of New York, who as a good Anglican naturally waffles a good deal about it, pro and con; and finally Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, known as "The Great Agnostic," who ringingly denounces the tyranny and injustice of religious precepts against divorce, which cause so much needless harm to innocent people, though at the same time very warmly and rather poetically defending the sanctity of marital love and the family home.
Somewhere along the line I had heard of Ingersoll's name before, but couldn't remember anything about him. So a little further googling turned up the very interesting facts of his life, and his numerous speeches and writings, which you can browse through at your leisure if you have nothing better to do after brunch. Many of which are quite good, and even amusing at times. "The Most Remarkable American You Never Heard Of" - yes, and I can see why he was never, ever mentioned in the history books down here in the Bible Belt when I was a schoolboy. Or if you don't have time for reading today, at least check out this video, I think you'll be amazed for one reason or another:
[For some strange reason, none of Ingersoll's videos will display here - how odd. But try this link for an overview of his life and work:]
What I Say: Ingersoll was a man of great intelligence, and of great compassion for the human race. It seems to me that he is a more outspoken proponent of Thomas Jefferson's famous vow of "eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the human mind." And I agree wholeheartedly with Ingersoll's great aim of removing the shackles of ignorance and superstition from the human race. Quite an admirable man, who deserves to be better remembered than he is.
Yet from reading a few of his works, I think Ingersoll, in his zeal to bring light and freedom to his audiences, sometimes overstates his case - as all zealots do. Just as Ingersoll inveighs against ever placing "unquestioning faith" in any scripture or supernatural authority, so your Head Trucker would offer a gentle warning against placing the same kind of blind faith in any one remark of Ingersoll's. To take just one example, in one of his writings he heaps great scorn upon the book of Job and condemns it as essentially worthless. Perhaps so, if you think it was written to be taken literally. On the other hand, if you approach it as a work of fiction - moral fiction - to begin with, then you may take an entirely different view of its worth.
Continued after the jump . . .
