The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought

Some critics think of an atheist-agnostic-secular humanist-free thinker and an enlightened and evangelical rationalist as maybe cold and calculating, a little too cerebral and not sufficiently emotional and empathetic to the common person's plight. This revelation of Ingersol as "The Great Agnostic" says otherwise:

* Read his thoughts on love, which was in his lecture "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child": "It is a splendid thing to think that the woman you really love will never grow old to you. Through the wrinkles of time, through the mask of years, if you really love her, you will ALWAYS [emphasis added] see the face you loved and won. And a woman who really loves a man does not see that he grows old; he is not decrepit; she always sees the same gallant gentleman who won her hand and heart" (p. 123).

* With reference to slavery (remember, he lived from 1833-1899), the 1883 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision angered him. It was the foundation of the 1896 "separate but equal" (Jim Crow) doctrine. One of his comments: "The masked wretches who, in the darkness of night, drag the poor negro from his cabin and lacerates with a whip and thong his quivering flesh, will, with bloody hands, applaud the Supreme Court" (p. 111).

Ingersol was an evangelical atheist and national educator. Though both loved and hated by some religious leaders, loved by free-thinkers, and some common folk, he was undeterred in his zeal in "preaching" the no-god gospel. He railed against the quasi-theocracy of the U.S. national government, and advocated strongly for the separation of church and state. And he had company in his beliefs and his disbeliefs: Copernicus, Galileo, Giordano Buno, Spinoza, Voltaire, Paine, Humboldt, and Darwin.

Susan Jacoby's writing is dry in spots, but just when one is ready to lay the book aside, she strikes a cord that keeps the reader going. In this day when politicians are afraid to end a speech without "And God bless..." we need another national, gutsy Robert Ingersol. Where's that PBS special, too?

Ingersoll was a great American and Susan Jacoby is a great writer and scholar. FREETHINKERS by Jacoby is a great book and must read. Ingersoll deserves a longer and more scholarly treatment than this book but if you don't know Robert Ingersoll, this book is an excellent primer.

Why didn't I learn about this man in college? I minored in Philosophy. I feel like I missed something and I am grateful to the author for helping me discover Robert Ingersoll. I am a freethinker and proud of it. I hope that soon it will be acceptable for politicans to be honest about their personal beliefs and not have to tow the fundamentalist line in order to be elected.

First of all this is not a full biography or anything close to it. It is a presentation of Robert G. Ingersoll's ideas and contribution to American secularism. It is an attempt to restore him to his proper place as an American intellectual who did a great deal for secularism, humanism, science, and reason.

As usual Susan Jacoby's writing is excellent and I have very much enjoyed all of her writing even when I didn't agree with her conclusions. In this case I agree with them. Ingersoll was a great speaker with a gift for language that very few every attain and I love reading his beautifully composed thoughts.

People tend to focus on his agnosticism, but he contributed a great deal to many other topics like women's rights, racism, evolution, immigration, and intellectual liberty.

Well done and highly recommended.

I had a great time reading this book! Susan does a great job weaving the story together. The book focuses on the social and religious issues of Ingersoll more so than a biography. There's a lot of interesting information here about him and how much he fought for the cause of liberty. I gave it 4 stars because it's clearly written with a certain audience in mind, namely, agnostic/atheist/nonreligious. That's fine, I just like plain old dry books that don't try to push any agenda. Present the facts and allow the reader to judge for themselves. For what it's worth that's the kind of reading I enjoy. I guess everyone to some extent is selling something even if they make a concerted to be mindful of their bias. Susan knew she was writing to nonreligious people and she let's if fly, if you will. The last chapter is sort of a rally call to the nonreligious to "take up the cross" of Robert Ingersoll, etc. Anyway, good book.

I never heard of Ingersoll in college. Too bad he is not widely discussed in todays era of mega churches and psychic quackery. The author, Susan Jacoby, is indeed a woman with a bee in her bonnet. She pushes us toward a necessary battle with narrow minded fundamentalists. She was able to emphasize Ingersoll's skill to convey ideas using accessible rhetoric, tolerance, and humor. Jacoby has provided us with a gem of a book that is ammunition against those that would overthrow liberty in favor of conformity.

I was "enlightened" by the Enlightenment Period in history. I felt it was the catalyst for America's venture into the formulation of our constitution and thus, the miracle our form of government. Recognizing that authoritarian religion as well as monarchies and the many horrendous dictatorships that fashioned our world needed another approach. Since freedom was such a desired condition for almost all peoples, they concentrated on it being the hallmark of our nation. So it wasn't just the genius of the founders, but their through understanding of the real problems that had not been addressed, or corrected in society. My family dates back to the early 1700's in America, so our conversations were heavily concentrated on the forward looking government that had to be slowly fashioned by the citizens of our country. To be sure, mistakes were made, but recognized as we went along. It took people like Ingersoll and Thomas
Paine to speak out and articulated our obligation to practice open minds, open hearts and above all integrity if we were going to be the beacon of liberty for the world.

Susan Jacoby has put together a wonderful short monograph about Robert Green Ingersoll, but readers should know that, as something of a counterpoint to her comprehensive history of the American freethought movement published a few years ago, [[ASIN:0805077766 Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism]], this present work is no exhaustive treatment of Ingersoll's life and times. She actually admits as much, referring interested readers to the Great Agnostic's most recently published biography, Frank Smith's [[ASIN:0879755881 Robert G. Ingersoll: A Life]]. The work here under consideration is rather more of a set of essays on various aspects of Ingersoll's thought, with biographical tidbits included for background and clarity, and with the bluntly stated purpose of encouraging contemporary atheist activists to look to Ingersoll's own brand of activism as a positive example of patience, manners, and moderation. Admittedly, some of the "New Atheists" need this kind of advice: they can be so rabidly evangelistic about their own convictions, even to the point of using any propaganda whether true or false to back them up, that they often appear as mere angry mirror images of the angry fundamentalists and evangelicals against whom they wage word wars.

But, then again, I suppose there is nothing new under the sun. Ingersoll had this sort of freethought compatriot to deal with in his own day more than a hundred years ago, and he was occasionally as roundly criticized by rabid activists as Madalyn Murray O'Hair ever vilified anybody she perceived as less committed to the atheist cause than she herself was (Murray O'Hair was also dismissive of Ingersoll, by the way). A prime example in Ingersoll's own life was the Kentucky atheist Charles Chilton Moore (1837-1906), who, at the height of the Bluegrass State's Congressman W.C.P. Breckinridge's sexual scandal with Madeleine Pollard, dared to write in his Lexington, Kentucky newspaper that the idea of the Virgin Birth meant nothing more than that Jesus Christ "was a Breckinridge-Pollard hyphenation between God and a Jew woman." Moore was subsequently arrested on a "nuisance warrant" for an extremely nebulous charge of blasphemy, and although several local liberal businessmen offered to pay his bond he refused them, preferring to demonstrate that freethinkers like himself were still being persecuted in America--but never considering that he had brought some of his neighbors' fury upon himself by his rash choice of words at a time when most Kentuckians were already extremely embarrassed by their congressman's sexual antics. Even Josephine Henry, who of all Kentucky freethinkers knew better, enthusiastically gave out the propaganda that Moore was being persecuted merely for suggesting that Jesus was a man born of two human parents like any other.

To cap the whole incident off, Moore got the idea that he could persuade Robert Green Ingersoll to come to Kentucky and defend him at his trial in Lexington, much like Ingersoll had done for C. B. Reynolds at his blasphemy trial in New Jersey (discussed in the work here under consideration , pp.129-155). But to the Kentucky editor's complete surprise (and extreme outrage), Ingersoll turned him down flat, correctly perceiving and advising Moore that his major transgression was a lack of courtesy. As it played out, Judge Watts Parker in Kentucky threw the case out of court on the grounds that Kentucky had no real anti-blasphemy law, Moore blasted Ingersoll in his Lexington "Blue Grass Blade" newspaper for his supposed disloyalty to him, and life went on. Moore even got to take the moral high ground, as it were, after Ingersoll's death, by "forgiving" him publicly. But the need for cool, level heads, intelligent speech, and patience and moderation goes on in the freethought cause, and one hopes that modern activists will hearken to Ingersoll's example and Susan Jacoby's reasoned plea for a renewal of his methods.

Susan Jacoby is a truly great writer and this is a truly great book. This is the third book of hers that I have read and I heartily recommend them all. Robert Ingersoll, the subject of this book, is a great American who deserves far more credit and publicity than he has gotten. Read this book and be amazed at how much of his writings and speeches you recognize.

Well-written short celebration of an American hero. R.I. was born about 50 years after the Constitution was adopted, in a section of the nation that had seen so many religious movements it was called the "burned-over" district, son of a Presbyterian minister, grew up to light the fire of freedom promised by the Constitution's separation of church and state. His life and thought are relevant to today's religious and political contentions.