The founder of a religion must be able to turn water into wine, cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a simple touch the dead to life. It was necessary for him to demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he was superior to nature. In times of ignorance this was easy to do. The credulity of the savage was almost boundless. To him the marvelous was the beautiful, the mysterious was the sublime. Consequently, every religion has for its foundation a miracle — that is to say, a violation of nature — that is to say, a falsehood.
Robert Green Ingersoll, The Gods, (1872)
(First posted on June 19, 2007)
Comments
12 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.Man, it would be a kick to have this guy over for dinner.
interesting thought.
Who else would you invite to your dinner? It would be fun to add Ben Franklin to the table with Ingersoll. Maybe Martin Luther would really spice things up to.
Martin Luther would just hammer notes all over your doors.
Ben Franklin, definitely. And certainly, Mr. Ingersoll. And Feynmann, no doubt. Carl Sagan. I dunno about Martin Luther, but if there was an actual, historical Jesus, it’d be fun to have him around too, just to observe his horror of what he wrought.
Kurt Vonnegut. It was cool.
im not quite sure if all forms of miracles are a statement of superiority to nature. in eastern religion, miracles are used as demonstrations of skill in flowing WITH the currents of nature. e.g. zen buddhism, chinese kung fu. i dont think this concept was compleatly unknown to the writers of the gospels.
but yes, true. this is one way to lure the ignorant masses. thank you christianity…
and i think i’d like to have bukowski over for dinner. irrational behaviour is quality entertainment.
Oh, and Hunter S. Thompson, the patron saint of motorcycling, for irrational behavior. Stock up on the booze.
Meh, I’d invite my musical heroes. So much for intellect
I got my wife the Jefferson Bible as a gift a few years ago. With all the miracles and crap cut out of it, the book is really very slim. It’s funny though – without the “magic”, I find it more interesting.
As far as dinner guests, I’d suggest Charles Fort, Buddha and John Lennon.
Doesn’t anybody want some WOMEN over for dinner? Oh, oh, I guess we should be COOKING for you and your dead genius friends?! HERE! (Throws saucepan of creamed corn against the wall).
@Abbi
How bout the Buddha’s wife Yasodhara, Ada Lovelace, and Julia Child to do the cooking and Plato, Darwin, and Arya Nagarjuna to do the dishes.
To the point about miracles equaling falsehood, I would ask: How do you describe epiphany? How do you describe to another person an internal insight that simultaneously reveals an obscuration and removes it? Can very personal, subjective processes be described in plain language?