Ingersoll: A Biographical Appreciation ePub download

The Freethinker Library is a collection of books of interest to freethinkers, humanists, atheists, feminists, and political progressives. They were written between 1870 and 1915. The FT Library includes a seven volume collection on religion by Robert G. Ingersoll as well as books by Thomas Paine, Voltairine de Cleyre, M. Ricker, J. McCabe, and others. These works are highly critical of Christianity, the Bible, and sexism. "Robert G. Ingersoll Against Christianity," contains 6 critical volumes on religion by the famous Freethinker and the biography of the orator by Herman E. Kittredge. Kittredge devotes a hundred pages to the biographical facts of the life and death of the famous humanist. He then provides over 150 pages defending Robert G. Ingersoll against various criticisms aimed at the famous freethinker: was he attacking the Christianity of 50 years ago? What he a mere a mere iconoclast? Were his views on women, love, marriage and children superior to the views of his time? Did he practiced what he taught? What were his views on art and intellectual expression? Kittredge closes his biography with an account of the response to the death of Robert G. Ingersoll in 1899. "After he (Ingersoll) barely had started on his agnostic career, fanatics commenced to threaten his life. Many a time he mounted the platform with a letter in his pocket stating that he would never live to finish his address." Such letters were usually written in red ink and signed, "A Lover of Jesus," "A Friend of the Lord," or with some other nom de plume of like import. Typical of these communications was one delivered by special postal delivery, in Chicago, to the secretary of Ingersoll, just before the latter began his lecture. It read, in substance: "If you go on the platform to night and speak against the Bible, you will not live to see your wife and children again." Herman E. Kittredge