Advocatus Atheist

George William Foote is probably one of the most eloquent, yet underrated, of atheist speakers or writers of the early part of the nineteenth century (1850-1915). While reading Foote, an Englishman by birth, I hear echoes of his contemporary and American counter part Robert G. Ingersoll.  Indeed, both men wrote during the Golden Age of Freethought , so it is no wonder their lectures and written works share a tone and style highlighting the shared values and ideas of the freethought political movement.  Nothing was more sacred to those like Foote and Ingersole than the idea that opinions should be based on science and reason, and not restricted by authority, tradition, or religion. Indeed, it seems the American Freethought movement played a large role in helping Foote to develop his own worldview, and he published many essays against tyranny and the oppressive regimes of religious theocracy. If you have some idle leisure time to read, I highly recommend the wr...

"Freethought is not only useful but laudable. It involves labor and trouble. Ours is not a gospel for those who love the soft pillow of faith. The Freethinker does not let his ship rot away in harbor; he spreads his canvas and sails the seas of thought. What though tempests beat and billows roar? He is undaunted, and leaves the avoidance of danger to the sluggard and the slave. He will not pay their price for ease and safety. Away he sails with Vigilance at the prow and Wisdom at the helm. He not only traverses the ocean highways, but skirts unmapped coasts and ventures on uncharted seas. He gathers spoils in every zone, and returns with a rich freight that compensates for all hazards. Some day or other, you say, he will be shipwrecked and lost. Perhaps. All things end somehow. But if he goes down he will die like a man and not like a coward, and have for his requiem the psalm of the tempest and the anthem of the waves." --G.W. Foote

Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll is fast becoming one of my personal heroes with regard to style and whit. I now must classify him in the same league of extraordinary gentlemen as Mark Twain, Bertrand Russell, and Kurt Vonnegut when it comes to witty rebuttals and savvy critical commentary of religion. In 1878, the revivalist, old Mrs. Van Cott accused Colonel Ingersol of being "a poor barking dog." When asked if he knew her personally, Colonel Ingersol replied, "I have never met or seen her." The Colonel's interviewer asked him, "Do you know the reason she applied the epithet?" Ingersoll's reply was thus: "I suppose it to be the natural result of what is called vital piety; that is to say, universal love breeds individual hatred." The Express , a New York newspaper published out of Buffalo, asked Ingersoll whether he wished to respond to old Mrs. Van Cott's crude accusations. Of course, he had already taken the liberty of doi...

Robert G. Ingersoll was eloquent like you wouldn't believe... the man truly had a way with words. I am currently reading the entire works of Ingersoll, which is why I have been sharing so many of his quotes recently. Today I am going to share a few more which I found really insightful, and as always, perfectly stated. "A few have said, "Think!" The many have said, "Believe!" "The intellectual advancement of man depends upon how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth." "No one infers a god from the simple, from the known, from what is understood, but from the complex, from the unknown and incomprehensible. Our ignorance is God; what we know is science." "If abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. If slaves are freed, man must free them. If new truths are discovered, man must discover them. If the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed; if justice is done; if labor is rewarded; if supersti...

A Christian friend of mine once asked me, and I'm paraphrasing, "As an atheist, what is the most knock down drag out argument against God you can think of?" I initially answered, "Theological noncognitivism."

Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, a Civil War veteran, and Free Thought advocate, was often refereed to as the Great Agnostic, and is one of my favorite thinkers. Like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson (two other men I admire greatly ), Ingersoll made it a point to sponsor the enlightenment values of critical thinking, rationality, and the freedom of speech and free inquiry. Ingersoll was an orator, a speaker, a political leader, and a man of words. Many of his speeches involved a devastatingly eloquent attack on religion, and most of what he said still rings true today. If you ever read Ingersoll, be sure to review his "Lecture on gods" as it is one of the best criticisms of the god concept you'll find past or present.  In fact, my favorite Ingersoll quote comes from this lecture, in which he states: "Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith. Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me e...

"There are many millions of people who believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God--millions who think that this book is staff and guide, counselor and consoler; that it fills the present with peace and the future with hope--millions who believe that it is the fountain of law, Justice and mercy, and that to its wise and benign teachings the world is indebted for its liberty, wealth and civilization--millions who imagine that this book is a revelation from the wisdom and love of God to the brain and heart of man--millions who regard this book as a torch that conquers the darkness of death, and pours its radiance on another world--a world without a tear. They forget its ignorance and savagery, its hatred of liberty, its religious persecution; they remember heaven, but they forget the dungeon of eternal pain. They forget that it imprisons the brain and corrupts the heart. They forget that it is the enemy of intellectual freedom. Liberty is my religion. Liberty of hand and br...