Atheist Hall of Fame

[Cyberman]

Robert Green Ingersoll:

Ingersoll is my favourite. An eminently quotable man.

"The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know."

"The doctrine of eternal punishment is the infamy of infamies. As I have often said, the man who believes in eternal torment, in the justice of endless pain, is suffering from at least two diseases petrifaction of the heart and putrefaction of the brain."

And I want this read at my funeral:

"Suppose after all that death does end all. Next to eternal joy, next to being forever with those we love and those who have loved us, next to that, is to be wrapt in the dreamless drapery of eternal peace. Next to eternal life is eternal sleep.

    Upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained by the everlasting dark, will never know again the burning touch of tears. Lips touched by eternal silence will never speak again the broken words of grief. Hearts of dust do not break. The dead do not weep. Within the tomb no veiled and weeping sorrow sits, and in the rayless gloom is crouched no shuddering fear.

    I had rather think of those I have loved, and lost, as having returned to earth, as having become a part of the elemental wealth of the world – I would rather think of them as unconscious dust, I would rather dream of them as gurgling in the streams, floating in the clouds, bursting in the foam of light upon the shores of worlds, I would rather think of them as the lost visions of a forgotten night, than to have even the faintest fear that their naked souls have been clutched by an orthodox god.

    I will leave my dead where nature leaves them. Whatever flower of hope springs up in my heart I will cherish, I will give it breath of sighs and rain of tears. But I cannot believe that there is any being in this universe who has created a human soul for eternal pain. I would rather that every god would destroy himself; I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony.

    I have made up my mind that if there is a God, he will be merciful to the merciful.
    Upon that rock I stand. –

    That he will not torture the forgiving. –
    Upon that rock I stand. –

    That every man should be true to himself, and that there is no world, no star, in which honesty is a crime.
    Upon that rock I stand.

    The honest man, the good woman, the happy child, have nothing to fear, either in this world or the world to come.
    Upon that rock I stand.

. . .

 They who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave, need have no fear. The larger and the nobler faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest ... The dead do not suffer."