“Robert Green “Bob” Ingersoll (August 11, 1833 – July 21, 1899) was a Civil War veteran, American political leader, and orator during the Golden Age of Freethought, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism. He was nicknamed “‘The Great Agnostic’”

(Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Ingersoll, Accessed 26 April 2012).

I am always pleased when I come across a thinker or philosophy that I haven’t yet encountered. As I find myself becoming acquainted with Robert Green Ingersoll, I cannot help but ask myself how I have not come across this exceptional gentleman until now?

Ingersoll was admired by two of my favourite 19th Century Americans, Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) and Walt Whitman, with Whitman stating:

“It should not be surprising that I am drawn to Ingersoll, for he is Leaves of Grass… He lives, embodies, the individuality, I preach. I see in Bob [Ingersoll] the noblest specimen—American-flavored—pure out of the soil, spreading, giving, demanding light.”

(Intimate with Walt: Selections from Whitman’s Conversations with Horace Traubel, Gary Schmidgall (Editor), 2001, University of Iowa Press, Page 81.)

One of Ingersoll’s writings, titled “What Would You Substitute for the Bible as a Moral Guide?”, discusses the inadequacies of the biblical text as a moral guide – noting how immoral the text and its deity are – and concludes with the determination that morality must not be based on such an inadequate text, but rather should be based upon intelligence:

What then is, or can be called, a moral guide? The shortest possible answer is one word: Intelligence.

We want the experience of mankind, the true history of the race. We want the history of intellectual development, of the growth of the ethical, of the idea of justice, of conscience, of charity, of self-denial. We want to know the paths and roads that have been traveled by the human mind.

These facts in general, these histories in outline, the results reached, the conclusions formed, the principles evolved, taken together, would form the best conceivable moral guide.

We cannot depend on what are called “inspired books,” or the religions of the world. These religions are based on the supernatural, and according to them we are under obligation to worship and obey some supernatural being, or beings. All these religions are inconsistent with intellectual liberty. They are the enemies of thought, of investigation, of mental honesty. They destroy the manliness of man. They promise eternal rewards for belief, for credulity, for what they call faith.

These religions teach the slave virtues. They make inanimate things holy, and falsehoods sacred. They create artificial crimes. To eat meat on Friday, to enjoy yourself on Sunday, to eat on fast-days, to be happy in Lent, to dispute a priest, to ask for evidence, to deny a creed, to express your sincere thought, all these acts are sins, crimes against some god, To give your honest opinion about Jehovah, Mohammed or Christ, is far worse than to maliciously slander your neighbor. To question or doubt miracles. is far worse than to deny known facts. Only the obedient, the credulous, the cringers, the kneelers, the meek, the unquestioning, the true believers, are regarded as moral, as virtuous. It is not enough to be honest, generous and useful; not enough to be governed by evidence, by facts. In addition to this, you must believe. These things are the foes of morality. They subvert all natural conceptions of virtue.

All “inspired books,” teaching that what the supernatural commands is right, and right because commanded, and that what the supernatural prohibits is wrong, and wrong because prohibited, are absurdly unphilosophic.

And all “inspired books,” teaching that only those who obey the commands of the supernatural are, or can be, truly virtuous, and that unquestioning faith will be rewarded with eternal joy, are grossly immoral.

Again I say: Intelligence is the only moral guide.

(Excerpt from “What Would You Substitute for the Bible as a Moral Guide?”, Robert Green Ingersoll, Accessed 26 April 2012 at http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/bible_substitute.html)

I am looking forward to spending the next few months getting to know Robert G. Ingersoll. It saddens me that the American educational system chooses not to emphasis men such as him, but rather many who are his intellectual inferiors. As I begin to read of him, I realise how much of my own heritage as an American has been hidden from me, whether by intent or apathy.

Ingersoll’s works can be found online at http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/index.html.