What has been called Christianity has been a disturber of the public peace in all countries and at all times. Nothing has so alienated nations, nothi… - Robert Green Ingersoll

If you want to find out what a man is to the bottom, give him power. Any man can stand adversity — only a great man can stand prosperity. It is the glory of Abraham Lincoln that he never abused power only on the side of mercy

All the seeds of Christianity — of superstition, were sown in my mind and
cultivated with great diligence and care.

All that time I knew nothing of any science — nothing about the other side — nothing of the objections that had been urged against the blessed Scriptures, or against the perfect Congregational creed. Of course I had heard the ministers speak of blasphemers, of infidel wretches, of scoffers who laughed at holy things. They did not answer their arguments, but they tore their characters into shreds and demonstrated by the fury of assertion that they had done the Devil's work. And yet in spite of all I heard — of all I read. I could not quite believe. My brain and heart said No.

For a time I left the dreams, the insanities, the illusions and delusions, the nightmares of theology. I studied astronomy, just a little — I examined maps of the heavens — learned the names of some of the constellations — of some of the stars — found something of their size and the velocity with which they wheeled in their orbits — obtained a faint conception of astronomical spaces — found that some of the known stars were so far away in the depths of space that their light, traveling at the rate of nearly two hundred thousand miles a second, required many years to reach this little world — found that, compared with the great stars, our earth was but a grain of sand — an atom – found that the old belief that all the hosts of heaven had been created for the benefit of man, was infinitely absurd.

I gave up the Old Testament on account of its mistakes, its absurdities, its ignorance and its cruelty. I gave up the New because it vouched for the truth of the Old. I gave it up on account of its miracles, its contradictions, because Christ and his disciples believed in the existence of devils—talked and made bargains with them, expelled them from people and animals. This, of itself, is enough. We know, if we know anything, that devils do not exist—that Christ never cast them out, and that if he pretended to, he was either ignorant, dishonest or insane. These stories about devils demonstrate the human, the ignorant origin of the New Testament.