{"id":8240,"date":"2013-01-24T22:56:43","date_gmt":"2013-01-24T22:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=8240"},"modified":"2013-01-24T22:57:27","modified_gmt":"2013-01-24T22:57:27","slug":"the-great-agnostic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/the-great-agnostic\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Agnostic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RobertIngersoll-300x234.jpg\" alt=\"RobertIngersoll\" width=\"300\" height=\"234\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8247\" srcset=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RobertIngersoll-300x234.jpg 300w, https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RobertIngersoll.jpg 455w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Writing in the <em>Weekly Standard<\/em>,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.weeklystandard.com\/articles\/rational-man_696346.html\"> here\u2019s <\/a>Katherine Mangu-Ward with an entertaining review of a new biography of Robert Ingersoll, the Great Agnostic:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>While today\u2019s GOP is associated with public displays of faith, the Republican party of Ingersoll\u2019s day was more likely to be the home of freethinkers, such as the churchless Abraham Lincoln. The American public wasn\u2019t ready for overt atheism in elected or appointed office, but Ingersoll\u2019s talent on the stump made his endorsement valuable. Jacoby persuasively argues that Ingersoll fits into the classical liberal tradition, a thread that remains visible, if controversial, in the fabric of the modern Republican party\u2026<\/p>\n<p>His speeches were studded with jokes that played to American sensibilities: While explaining Charles Darwin\u2019s still-controversial theory of evolution, he speculated how tough it would be for blood-proud European aristocrats to learn they were descended from \u201cthe duke Orang Outang, or the princess Chimpanzee.\u201d Far from finding the prospect of a godless universe depressing, Ingersoll considered the theory of evolution a desirable replacement for the story of the Fall.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I would rather belong to that race that commenced a skull-less vertebrate and produced Shakespeare, a race that has before it an infinite future, with an angel of progress leaning from the far horizon, beckoning men forward, upward, and onward forever\u2014I had rather belong to such a race .\u2009\u2009.\u2009\u2009. than to have sprung from a perfect pair upon which the Lord has lost money every moment from that day to this.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Terrific. <\/p>\n<p>Read the whole thing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Writing in the Weekly Standard, here\u2019s Katherine Mangu-Ward with an entertaining review of a new biography of Robert Ingersoll, the Great Agnostic: While today\u2019s GOP is associated with public displays of faith, the Republican party of Ingersoll\u2019s day was more &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/the-great-agnostic\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[90],"tags":[563,629,991],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8240"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8250,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8240\/revisions\/8250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}