Mistakes of Moses
Here’s a brief excerpt from the essay “Some Mistakes of Moses” by Robert Ingersoll. It’s a sad but true fact that it seems that this passage is as relevant today as it was when he wrote it over 100 years ago. Some recent events - the Mohammed Teddy Bear incident, the NY Subway beatings, the Pope’s recent encyclical, and the hullabaloo surrounding The Golden Compass - prompted me to pull this up and re-read it. I have a number of thoughts on this passage, but on reflection it seems best just to let it stand for itself.
Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book, and creed, and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free. Mankind will be enslaved until there is mental grandeur enough to allow each man to have his thought and say. This earth will be a paradise when men can, upon all these questions differ, and yet grasp each other’s hands as friends. It is amazing to me that a difference of opinion upon subjects that we know nothing with certainty about, should make us hate, persecute, and despise each other. Why a difference of opinion upon predestination, or the Trinity, should make people imprison and burn each other seems beyond the comprehension of man; and yet in all countries where Christians have existed, they have destroyed each other to the exact extent of their power. Why should a believer in God hate an atheist? Surely the atheist has not injured God, and surely he is human, capable of joy and pain, and entitled to all the rights of man. Would it not be far better to treat this atheist, at least, as well as he treats us?