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I don't know, do you? cover

I don't know, do you?

Chapter 5: A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER
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About This Book

A series of essays and addresses contest organized religion and creeds, arguing that fixed doctrines obstruct intellectual progress and moral development. The writer recounts encounters with churches, explains reasons for adopting agnosticism, and critiques particular doctrines such as hell, miracles, and special providence. Other pieces analyze religious language and ritual, reassess Christian-based moral claims, and reflect on prominent freethinking figures and literary commentators. The tone blends polemic with reflective argument, urging reliance on reason, individual conscience, and social improvement in place of unquestioned authority.

A LETTER AND THE REJOINDER

Fear paralyzes the brain. Progress is born of courage. Fear believes—courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays—courage stands erect and thinks. Fear retreats—courage advances. Fear is barbarism—courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. Fear is religion—courage is science.

There are real crimes enough without creating artificial ones. All progress in legislation has for centuries consisted in repealing the laws of the ghosts.

Robert Ingersoll.