Amazing Quotes 4: Robert Green Ingersoll

Some awesome quotes from Robert Green Ingersoll:

Honest investigation is utterly impossible within the pale of any church, for the reason, that if you think the church is right you will not investigate, and if you think it wrong, the church will investigate you.
--"Individuality" (1873)

Give any orthodox church the power, and to-day they would punish heresy with whip, and chain, and fire. As long as a church deems a certain belief essential to salvation, just so long it will kill and burn if it has the power.
--"Heretics and Herecies" (1874)

All the martyrs in the history of the world are not sufficient to establish the correctness of an opinion. Martyrdom, as a rule, establishes the sincerity of the martyr,-- never the correctness of his thought.
-- The Great infidels (1881)

"This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves."
-- An Interview on Chief Justice Comegys (1881)

Our fathers, some of them, demanded the freedom of religion. We have taken another step. We demand the Religion of Freedom.
--"Myth and Miracle" (1885)

Most of the Christians in his day kept their religion not for every day use but for disaster, as ships carry life boats to be used only in the stress of storm.
--"On Voltaire" (1894)

According to the Bible, God had never revealed himself to these people and he knew that without a revelation they could not know that he was the true God. Whose fault was it then that they were heathen?
-- Why I am an Agnostic (1896)

Ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give.
--"The Truth" (1897)