"The Great Agnostic"--New book on Robert Ingersoll

[cufflink]

I just heard about a new biography of Robert Ingersoll, the great 19th-century American agnostic, that sounds like must reading.

The segment on NPR (U.S. National Public Radio) is here:

http://www.npr.org/2013/01/06/168638835/...t-religion

The book is available on Amazon for a substantial discount.

Ingersoll should be an icon for all atheists and agnostics, particularly those of us in the States. He was extremely well known in the late 1800's as a powerful orator who spoke out against religion, saying publicly that he didn't believe in a god, debunking the idea that America was a Christian nation, championing the separation of church and state. His beliefs prevented him from running for public office. It's a shame he isn't better known today.

[kim]

I heard it this morning on NPR as well... but I was engrossed in a delicate coffee issue so only just barely listened so thanks for the link!

I can't wait to check out this new book - he was such a cool guy. Many people think that Ingersoll was ahead of his time, but I think no atheist is actually ahead of their time - they just reflect their time more clearly and honestly.

It's great that NPR had a segment on this book and Ingersoll. What with everyone thanking god for sorting out their tragedy of the moment, would it kill NPR to give equal time to more directly secular articles like this? Maybe it's up to us to flood their comment boxes and twitter feeds with positive acknowledgement of this... and request more like it.

[EvolutionKills]

I just got a Nook over the holidays, and the first book I downloaded was a copy of Ingersoll's 'Some Mistakes of Moses', which I'm currently reading whenever I'm not reading Karen Armstrong's 'The History of God'. Good stuff all around, but one anonymous reviewer of Ingersoll's book on the Nook store rated it 1 star and claimed that all of Ingersoll's critiques were outdated and explained by modern 'science' (read: apologetics). So once I'm done reading it, I'll have to write my own review and pick up this book as well. Good find, thanks for the info!