The Great Agnostic

Susan Jacoby

Recently finished reading Susan Jacoby's latest book, "The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought."  I recommend it without reservation.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) was a great man.  He was one of those "bring yourself up by your bootstraps" sort of people who was not born into wealth by any means.  Yet, he educated himself and rose to become the nation's most highly-paid and sought-after public speaker for many years in the late 19th Century.

Robert G. Ingersoll

Ingersoll's oratorial skills were unmatched.  He would draw freethinkers to his speeches, of course, but he had a way of connecting even with the "believers."  Politicians regularly sought his counsel and endorsement, at least until Ingersoll began being more vocal about his non-belief.  Even then, in the flowering of an American freethought movement which seemed headed in a bright direction, his atheism kept him out of elected office.   He was considered unelectable.

It is sad to see what is happening today.  Another rancid resurgence of belief is gripping this country.  (And then there's Islam.)  While "no religion" is the fastest-growing group of Americans today, and it is believed that close to 20% of Americans self-identify as atheist, agnostic, or freethinker, atheists are in sore need of a champion like Ingersoll.

Today's "new atheists" (there is really no such thing) like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris, while entertaining and persuasive to the already freethinking person, are no rhetorical match for someone like a Robert Ingersoll or a Thomas Paine.

Thomas Paine

Indeed, one of the themes of Jacoby's book is that, after Thomas Paine published his scathing critiques of religion and was virtually banished from America's collective memory of our Founding Fathers, it was Robert Ingersoll who almost single-handedly rehabilitated the memory of Thomas Paine for a new generation of Americans.  Had it not been for Ingersoll's admiration of Thomas Paine, Paine might have totally faded from our history books.

And like a deja vu, Robert Ingersoll has been virtually banished from the collective American psyche.  Ingersoll is in sore need of a rehabilitation a la Thomas Paine.  Susan Jacoby is trying, bless her little atheistic heart.  

The American revolution had Thomas Paine.  The next century had Robert Ingersoll.  But the trail seems to be going cold.  With science gaining a stronger than ever foothold in the minds of humanity, atheism is becoming more and more prevalent, and accepted.  The time is really ripe right now for a powerful orator/writer/thinker to capture the imagination of Americans and elevate freethought to heights it has never before reached, and to help propel America into a technological future we can barely imagine today.  

Please.  Evolve.

Here is a good review of the book in the New York Times.

And another from the Humanists.

And a broader view of Ingersoll from Reason.