Robert G. Ingersoll Quotes

If you look at any religious description of hell, it is the same as human society, the way we dream. Hell is a place of suffering, a place of fear, a place of war and violence, a place of judgment and no justice, a place of punishment that never ends.

The Old and New Testaments contain but one scheme of religion. Neither part of this scheme can be understood without the other.

Hell is God's Absence.

The two Testaments are interesting, each in its own way. The Old one gives us a picture of these people's Deity as he was before he got religion, the other one gives us a picture of him as he appeared afterward.

Even as in the blessed in heaven there will be most perfect charity, so in the damned there will be the most perfect hate. Wherefore as the saints will rejoice in all goods, so will the damned grieve for all goods. Consequently the sight of the happiness of the saints will give them very great pain.

I've seen the hell these people go through.

Death is softer by far than tyranny.

As for us, during twenty years' reign, we have known much bitterness.

Give the peasants neither life nor death.

The God of the Old Testament is the depiction of evil.

Why doesn't that Devil take me with him? It would be much better with him than it is here.

In a free country there is much clamor with little suffering; in a despotic state there is little complaint, but much suffering.

God works in mysterious, inefficient, and breathtakingly cruel ways.

That's what 'Hell On Earth' was about: we felt that we were living in hell.

At Westboro, the depictions of hell are extremely vivid. The only thing that changes in hell, according to the church, is your capacity to feel pain. As the capacity to feel pain increases, so does the pain. It's absolutely terrifying. I believed God was going to curse me for having left this group of people.

People ask why God allows suffering. You could just as well ask the Minister of Transport why he allows accidents on Britain's roads.

A dungeon horrible, on all sides round, As one great furnace, flamed; yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible Serv'd only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all; but torture without end.

When I pastored a country church, a farmer didn't like the sermons I preached on hell. He said, Preach about the meek and lowly Jesus. I said, That's where I got my information about hell.

The bodies of the damned shall be crowded together in hell, like grapes in a wine-press, which press one another till they burst; every distinct sense and organ shall be assailed with its own appropriate and most exquisite sufferings.

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!

The SF [Supreme Fascist, i.e. God] created us to enjoy our suffering. The sooner we die, the sooner we defy His plans.

If there are gods, why is the world so full of pain and injustice?' 'Because of men like you.

If our view is limited to mortal life, some things become unbearable because they seem so unfair and so permanent.

It's not fair to show someone the sun and then banish him from it. Even the devil may cry when he looks around hell and realizes that he's there alone. -Acheron

The New Testament is a commentary on the Old Testament, in the light of the new revelation given by Christ and the Holy Spirit.