Robert Ingersoll

I'm still reading "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll," a 12-volume collection of some of the best writing I have encountered.  This man was brilliant.  It's no wonder Ingersoll (1833-1899) isn't a household name, or that he is not treasured as a great American writer, dissecting religion as he does.  I cannot recommend these books highly enough.  Every freethinker should be familiar with his prose.

These volumes were first published in 1929.  They're not on the regular shelves of the Houston Public Library.  No, they place them in the out-of-print "Stacks" section, and they must be specially requested.  This guy was quite prolific. 

Here's a striking passage I just read from "Myth and Miracle."

"Whenever the spiritual have had power, art has died, learning has languished, science has been despised, liberty destroyed, the thinkers have been imprisoned, the intelligent and honest have been outcasts, and the brave have been murdered."

No shit.  Which reminds me, a lot of present-day Christians would like to see the U.S. be much less secular than it is and put under a religious persuasion, Jesus Christ-dominant, of course, as if that might produce a more-perfect union!

Anything but.  

Our Founding Fathers were quite right and bold to separate church and state as much as they did, and this nation would be wise to maintain and solidify that wall.  This is no time to backslide into barbarity, and that's what most religion is.

You want to see an example of a theocracy?  Look at modern-day Iran, or other Muslim-dominated governments.  A "Christian government" would not be much better.  Indeed, there have been religion-dominated governments throughout history, and the record is not pretty.  The sooner we can clean out the superstitious from our governments, the better we all will be.