Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersoll, vol 1 | Page 6

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ungrateful as to refuse us what we ask.' Hereupon they will pull the god
down and drag him through the filth of the street. If, in the meantime, it
happens that they obtain their request, then with a great deal of
ceremony, they wash him clean, carry him back and place him in his
temple again, where they fall down and make excuses for what they
have done. 'Of a truth,' they say, 'we were a little too hasty, and you
were a little too long in your grant. Why should you bring this beating
on yourself. But what is done cannot be undone.' Let us not think of it
any more. If you will forget what is past, we will gild you over brighter
again than before."
Man has never been at a loss for gods. He has worshiped almost
everything, including the vilest and most disgusting beasts. He has
worshiped fire, earth, air, water, light, stars, and for hundreds of ages,
prostrated himself before enormous snakes. Savage tribes often make
gods of articles they get from civilized people. The Todas worship a
cow-bell. The Kotas worship two silver plates, which they regard as
husband and wife, and another tribe manufactured a god out of a king
of hearts.
Man, having always been the physical superior of woman, accounts for
the fact that most of the high gods have been males. Had woman been
the physical superior, the powers supposed to be the ruler of Nature
would have been woman, and instead of being represented in the
apparel of man, they would have luxuriated in trains, low necked
dresses, laces and back-hair.
Nothing can be plainer than that each nation gives to its god its peculiar
characteristics, and that every individual gives to his God his personal
peculiarities.
Man has no ideas, and can have none, except those suggested by his
surroundings. He cannot conceive of anything utterly unlike what he
has seen or felt. He can exaggerate, diminish, combine, separate,
deform, beautify, improve, multiply and compare what he sees, what he
feels, what he hears, and all of which he takes cognizance through the
medium of the senses; but he cannot create. Having seen exhibitions of
power, he can say, omnipotent. Having lived, he can say, immortality.
Knowing something of time, he can say, eternity. Conceiving
something of intelligence, he can say God. Having seen exhibitions of
malice, he can say, devil. A few gleams of happiness having fallen

athwart the gloom of his life, he can say, heaven. Pain, in its
numberless forms, having been experienced, he can say, hell. Yet all
these ideas have a foundation in fact, and only a foundation. The
superstructure has been reared by exaggerating, diminishing,
combining, separating, deforming, beautifying, improving or
multiplying realities, so that the edifice or fabric is but the incongruous
grouping of what man has perceived through the medium of the senses.
It is as though we should give to a lion the wings of an eagle, the hoofs
of a bison, the tail of a horse, the pouch of a kangaroo, and the trunk of
an elephant. We have in imagination created an impossible monster.
And yet the various parts of this monster really exist. So it is with all
the gods that man has made.
Beyond nature man cannot go even in thought--above nature he cannot
rise--below nature he cannot fall.
Man, in his ignorance, supposed that all phenomena were produced by
some intelligent powers, and with direct reference to him. To preserve
friendly relations with these powers was, and still is, the object of all
religions. Man knelt through fear and to implore assistance, or through
gratitude for some favor which he supposed had been rendered. He
endeavored by supplication to appease some being who, for some
reason, had, as he believed become enraged. The lightning and thunder
terrified him. In the presence of the volcano he sank upon his knees.
The great forests filled with wild and ferocious beasts, the monstrous
serpents crawling in mysterious depths, the boundless sea, the flaming
comets, the sinister eclipses, the awful calmness of the stars, and more
than all, the perpetual presence of death, convinced him that he was the
sport and prey of unseen and malignant powers. The strange and
frightful diseases to which he was subject, the freezings and burnings
of fever, the contortions of epilepsy, the sudden palsies, the darkness of
night, and the wild, terrible and fantastic dreams that filled his brain,
satisfied him that he was haunted and pursued by countless spirits of
evil. For some reason he supposed that these spirits differed in
power--that they were not all alike malevolent--that the higher
controlled the lower, and that his very existence depended upon gaining
the assistance of the more powerful. For this purpose he