SHOULD INFIDELS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO SUNDAY SCHOOL? by Robert G. Ingersoll Reproduced fr

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      SHOULD INFIDELS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO SUNDAY SCHOOL?

                     by Robert G. Ingersoll


Reproduced from the "Master of Atheist" feature in the "American
Atheist" magazine, vol. 31, no. 10, pp. 31-32.

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     The following essay is reprinted from volume 11 of the New
Dresden Edition of _The Works of Ingersoll_ (New York City: The
Ingersoll Publishers, Inc., 1900).

     Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899) was the most prominent
spokesperson for the position of unbelief in the United States
during the nineteenth century. A lawyer who once had a promising
career in politics, he traveled the country giving lectures
against superstition and orthodox belief. His eloquence was
recognized even by those who opposed him.


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     Should parents, who are Infidels, unbelievers or Atheists,
send their children to Sunday schools and churches to give them
the benefit of Christian education?


     Parents who do not believe the Bible to be an inspired book
should not teach their children that it is. They should be
absolutely honest. Hypocrisy is not a virtue and, as a rule, lies
are less valuable than facts.


     An unbeliever should not allow the mind of his child to be
deformed, stunted and shriveled by superstition. He should not
allow the child's imagination to be polluted. Nothing is more
outrageous than to take advantage of the helplessness of childhood
to sow in the brain the seeds of falsehoods, to imprison the soul
in the dungeon of Fear, to teach dimpled infancy the infamous
dogma of eternal pain -- filling life with the glow and glare of
hell.


     No unbeliever should allow his child to be tortured in the
orthodox inquisitions. He should defend the mind from attack as he
would the body. He should recognize the rights of the soul. In the
orthodox Sunday schools, children are taught that it is a duty to
believe -- that evidence is not essential -- that faith is
independent of facts and that religion is superior to reason. They
are taught not to use their natural sense -- not to tell what they
really think -- not to entertain a doubt  -- not to ask wicked
questions, but to accept and believe what their teachers say. In
this way the minds of the children are invaded, corrupted and
conquered. Would an educated man send his child to a school in
which Newton's statement in regard to the attraction of
gravitation was denied -- in which the law of falling bodies, as
given by Galileo, was ridiculed -- Kepler's three laws declared to
be idiotic, and the rotary motion of the earth held to be utterly
absurd?


     Why then should an intelligent man allow his child to be
taught the geology and astronomy of the Bible? Children should be
taught to seek for the truth -- to be honest, kind, generous,
merciful and just. They should be taught to love liberty and to
live to the ideal.


     Why then should an unbeliever, an Infidel, send his child to
an orthodox Sunday school where he is taught that he has no right
to seek for the truth -- no right to be mentally honest, and that
he will be damned for an honest doubt -- where he is taught that
God was ferocious, revengeful, heartless as a wild beast -- that
he drowned millions of his children -- that he ordered wars of
extermination and told his soldiers to kill gray-haired and
trembling age, mothers and children, and to assassinate with the
sword of war the babes unborn?


     Why should an unbeliever in the Bible send his child to an
orthodox Sunday school where he is taught that God was in favor of
slavery and told the Jews to buy of the heathen and that they
should be their bondmen and bondwomen forever; where he is taught
that God upheld polygamy and the degradation of women?


     Why should an unbeliever, who believes in the uniformity of
Nature, in the unbroken and unbreakable chain of cause and effect,
allow his child to be taught that miracles have been performed;
that men have gone bodily to heaven; that millions have been
miraculously fed with manna and quails; that fire has refused to
burn clothes and flesh of men; that iron has been made to float;
that the earth and moon have been stopped and that the earth has
not only been stopped, but made to turn the other way; that devils
inhabit the bodies of men and women; that diseases have been cured
with words, and that the dead, with a touch, have been made to
live again?


     The thoughtful man knows that there is not the slightest
evidence that these miracles ever were performed. Why should he
allow his children to be stuffed with these foolish and impossible
falsehoods? Why should he give his lambs to the care and keeping
of the wolves and hyenas of superstition?


     Children should be taught only what somebody knows. Guesses
should not be palmed off on them as demonstrated facts. If a
Christian lived in Constantinople he would not send his children
to the mosque to be taught that Mohammed was a prophet of God and
that the Koran is an inspired book. Why? Because he does not
believe in Mohammed or the Koran. That is reason enough. So, an
Agnostic, living in New York, should not allow his children to be
taught that the Bible is an inspired book. I use the word
"Agnostic" because I prefer it to the word Atheist. As a matter of
fact, no one knows that God exists and no one knows that God  does
not exist. To my mind there is no evidence that God exists -- that
this world is governed by a being of infinite goodness, wisdom and
power, but I do not pretend to know. What I insist upon is that
children should not be poisoned -- should not be taken advantage
of -- that they should be treated fairly, honestly -- that they
should be allowed to develop from the inside instead of being
crammed from the outside -- that they should be taught to reason,
not to believe -- to think, to investigate and to use their
senses, their minds.


     Would a Catholic send his children to a school to be taught
that Catholicism is superstition and that Science is the only
savior of mankind?


     Why then should a free and sensible believer in Science, in
the naturalness of the universe, send his child to a Catholic
school?


     Nothing could be more irrational, foolish and absurd.


     My advice to all Agnostics is to keep their children from the
orthodox Sunday schools, from the orthodox churches, from the
poison of the pulpits.


     Teach your children the facts you know. If you do not know,
say so. Be as honest as you are ignorant. Do all you can to
develop their minds, to the end that they may live useful and
happy lives.


     Strangle the serpent of superstition that crawls and hisses
about the cradle. Keep your children from the augurs, the
soothsayers, the medicine-men, the priests of the supernatural.
Tell them that all religions have been made by folks and that all
the "sacred books" were written by ignorant men.


     Teach them that the world is natural. Teach them to be
absolutely honest. Do not send them where they will contract
diseases of the mind -- the leprosy of the soul. Let us do all we
can to make them intelligent.


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