Home > Work > Hell Warm Words on the Cheerful and Comforting Doctrine of Eternal Damnation
1 " It is in the very nature of things that torments inflicted have no tendency to bring a wicked man to repentance. Then why torment him if it will not do him good? It is simply unadulterated revenge. All the punishment in the world will not reform a man, unless he knows that he who inflicts it upon him does it for the sake of reformation, and really and truly loves him, and has his good at heart. "
― Robert G. Ingersoll , Hell Warm Words on the Cheerful and Comforting Doctrine of Eternal Damnation
2 " I say here to-night that you cannot commit a sin against an infinite being. I can sin against my brother or my neighbour, because I can injure them. There can be no sin where there is no injury. Neither can a finite being commit infinite sin. "
3 " For my part, I am willing to give up heaven to get rid of hell. I had rather there should be no heaven than that any solitary soul should be condemned to suffer for ever and ever. "
4 " Now this doctrine of hell, that has been such a comfort to my race, which so many ministers are pleading for, has been defended for ages-by the fathers of the church. Your preacher says that the sovereignty of God implies that he has an absolute, unlimited, and independent right to dispose of his creatures as he will, because he made them. Has he? Suppose I take this book and change it immediately into a servient human being. Would I have a right to torture it because I made it? No; on the contrary. I would say, having brought you into existence, it is my duty to do the best for you I can. They say God has a right to damn me because he made me. I deny it. "