Robert Ingersoll was America''s finest orator and foremost leader of freethinkers. Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, Eugene V. Debs, and Elizabeth Cady used to gather to hear the speeches of "the great agnostic."Roger E. Greeley has selected the best from speeches and essays of this iconoclastic orator who labored to destroy the superstition and hypocrisy of fundamentalism in America and who answered the Moral Majority in the last century.One hundred years after he advanced into the national spotlight, Ingersoll''s commentaries still retain their fresh, penetrating, and witty character. His pleas for civil rights, the rights of women and children, responsible and responsive government, and individual freedom of conscience and religious belief have placed him in the vanguard of enlightened thinkers.Today the legacy of Robert Ingersoll, prophet and pioneer, merits the attention of anyone who espouses humane, liberal, rational, or agnostic opinions.

Robert Ingersoll (1833—1899) is one of the great lost figures in United States history, all but forgotten at just the time America needs him most. An outspoken and unapologetic agnostic, fervent champion of the separation of church and state, and tireless advocate of the rights of women and African Americans, he drew enormous audiences in the late nineteenth century with his lectures on “freethought.” His admirers included Mark Twain and Thomas A. Edison, who said Ingersoll had “all the attributes of a perfect man” and went so far as to make an early recording of Ingersoll’s voice. The publication of What’s God Got to Do with It? will return Robert Ingersoll and his ideas to American political discourse. Edited and with a biographical introduction by Pulitzer Prize winner Tim Page, this new popular collection of Ingersoll’s thought – distilled from the twelve-volume set of his works, his copious letters, and various newspaper interviews – promises to put Ingersoll back where he belongs, in the forefront of independent American thought.

Civil War veteran, successful lawyer, persuasive spokesman for the Republican Party, spellbinding orator, and controversial iconoclast, Col. Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899) was one of the best-known intellectuals of the 19th century. He rose to national prominence through his gift for oratory, which he publicly displayed on numerous lecture circuit tours. For almost twenty years this dedicated popularizer of progressive thinking and staunch critic of superstition would regularly address huge audiences, opening their minds to ideas that often provoked guarded whispers in private. Ingersoll was a man far ahead of his time, who advocated agnosticism, birth control, voting rights for women, the advancement of science, and civil rights for all races. Though eloquent on a wide variety of topics, he became most famous, and notorious, for his provocative lectures questioning the traditional, Bible-based Christian worldview of the age. In this volume are collected his best-known lectures on religion, the Bible, and related subjects. Included are "Why I Am an Agnostic"; "The Truth"; "What Is Religion?"; "Superstition"; "What Infidels Have Done"; "What Should You Substitute for the Bible as a Moral Guide?"; "Crumbling Creeds"; "The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child"; and "Love." This outstanding collection is indispensable for freethinkers, humanists, and open-minded people of all persuasions. Note: This volume is available individually or as part of a two-volume set with On the Gods and Other Essays by Robert by Ingersoll: two-volume set (ISBN 1-59102-171-5): $50.

A biography that restores America's foremost 19th-century champion of reason and secularism to the still contested 21st-century public square.

For the most part we inherit our opinions. We are the heirs of habitsand mental customs. Our beliefs, like the fashion of our garments, depend on where we were born. We are moulded and fashioned by oursurroundings. Environment is a sculptor---a painter. If we had been born in Constantinople, the most of us would have said: "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet." If our parentshad lived on the banks of the Ganges, we would have been worshipers ofSiva, longing for the heaven of Nirvana. As a rule, children love their parents, believe what they teach, andtake great pride in saying that the religion of mother is good enoughfor them. Most people love peace. They do not like to differ with their neighbors.They like company. They are social. They enjoy traveling on the highwaywith the multitude. They hate to walk alone. (...) Belief is not subject to the will. Men think as they must. Children donot, and cannot, believe exactly as they were taught. They are notexactly like their parents. They differ in temperament, in experience, in capacity, in surroundings. And so there is a continual, though almostimperceptible change. There is development, conscious and unconsciousgrowth, and by comparing long periods of time we find that the old hasbeen almost abandoned, almost lost in the new. Men cannot remainstationary. The mind cannot be securely anchored. If we do not advance, we go backward. If we do not grow, we decay. If we do not develop, weshrink and shrivel. - Taken from "Why Am I An Agnostic" written by Robert Green Ingersoll

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899) was a complex figure - a brilliant lawyer and orator who courageously advanced the concept of freethought; a magnetic extrovert whose public esteem, eagerly sought, never earned him the private favors he so generously bestowed on others. Ingersoll was a staunch republican in the great tradition of Abraham Lincoln, and he vigorously championed such progressive causes as equal rights for blacks, women, and children; liberal divorce laws; and better wages and conditions for workers. Perhaps Ingersoll's greatest legacy derives from his daring rejection of religious superstition (during an era which saw a tremendous revival of spiritualism and religious fundamentalism) and his ardent belief in humanity: "When I became convinced that the Universe is natural - that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave." Ingersoll is considered one of the most prominent figures of the 19th century. From about 1880 to his death in 1899, he probably spoke to more Americans in person than anyone before or since; he had daily audiences of as many as three thousand people while he was on tour, several months a year for many years. Despite this, Ingersoll's career has not yet received the attention it clearly merits. In this comprehensive work, Frank Smith explores the life and thought of this charismatic figure, using newspaper accounts of the time and extensive quotations from Ingersoll's correspondence. Ingersoll's words provide a vivid portrait of 19th-century America from the stormy antebellum period to the beginnings of modern industrialism. His life reflects the great current of his age and speaks forcefully to the problems of our own.