Robert G. Ingersoll Quotes

Heaven and hell are something that people create to make some people feel guilty and other people like myself laugh.

I'd rather go to hell than worship a homophobic God.

I do believe in hell. Jesus spoke more about hell than heaven - I trust him as the authority, not you, me or anybody else. If hell is not real, then Jesus was a liar and God has a lot of explaining to do on His justice and things like that.

I don't believe in hell. The idea that a supreme being would make hell is ridiculous. An eternity of pain that results in no learning, reformation or rebirth is a nauseating idea. It's one of the reasons I left Christianity. I simply could not accept that version of God.

I'm going to let God be the judge of who goes to heaven and hell.

In a very Christian way, as far as I’m concerned, he can go to hell.

God's not unjust, he doesn't actually exist. We've been deceived. If God existed, he'd have made the world more just...

There are matters in the Bible, said to be done by the express commandment of God, that are shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of moral justice.

I've never been much to believe that my Creator will judge me or anyone at their final days. I don't really know if I believe in going to Heaven or Hell.

All different religions have laws based on fear, the fear of going to hell.

The vague and tenuous hope that God is too kind to punish the ungodly has become a deadly opiate for the consciences of millions.

I want to believe there's a heaven. But I can't not believe there's a hell.

I believe that no hell will be lacking which would help the just mercy of God to redeem his children.

The declaration which says that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children is contrary to every principle of moral justice.

God cannot send to eternal pain a man who has done something toward improving the condition of his fellow-man. If he can, I had rather go to hell than to heaven and keep company with such a god.

The best minds will tell you that when a man has begotten a child he is morally bound to tenderly care for it, protect it from hurt, shield it from disease, clothe it, feed it, bear with its waywardness, lay no hand upon it save in kindness and for its own good, and never in any case inflict upon it a wanton cruelty. God's treatment of his earthly children, every day and every night, is the exact opposite of all that, yet those best minds warmly justify these crimes, condone them, excuse them, and indignantly refuse to regard them as crimes at all, when he commits them.

I myself will perhaps cry out with all the rest, looking at the mother embracing her child's tormentor: 'Just art thou, O Lord!' but I do not want to cry out with them. While there's still time, I hasten to defend myself against it, and therefore I absolutely renounce all higher harmony. It is not worth one little tear of even that one tormented child who beat her chest with her little fist and prayed to 'dear God' in a stinking outhouse with her unredeemed tears!

My views about hell are very traditional.

Suppose the hellfire of the orthodox really existed! We have no assurance that it does not! It seems incredible, but many incredible things are true. We do not know that God is not as cruel as a Spanish inquisitor. Suppose, then, He is! If, after Death, we wicked ones were shovelled into a furnace of fire- we should have to burn. There would be no redress. It would simply be the Divine Order of things. It is outrageous that we should be so helpless and so dependent on any one- even God.

The whole of theology, in regard to hell no less than to heaven, takes it for granted that Man is what is of most importance in the Universe of created beings. Since all theologians are men, this postulate has met with little opposition.

It's a truly disgusting idea that the creator of the universe - capable of inventing the laws of physics and designing the evolutionary process - that this protégé of supernatural intellect couldn't think of a better way to forgive our sins than to have himself tortured to death.

A Christian telling an atheist they're going to hell is as scary as a child telling an adult they're not getting any presents from Santa.

If there are any souls in hell, it is because that is where they insist on being.

To enter heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth; to enter hell is to be banished from humanity. What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a man: it is 'remains.'

There are no infidels anywhere but on earth: there are none in heaven, and there are none in hell. Atheism is a strange thing. Even the devils never fell into that vice, for the devils believe and tremble. And there are some of the devil's children that have gone beyond their father in sin, but how will it look when they are for ever lost?