Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899), nicknamed "the Great Agnostic", was an American lawyer, writer, and orator during the Golden Age of Free Thought, who campaigned in defense of agnosticism.
On October 30, 1880, Ingersoll was introduced as "the Great Agnostic" by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, before a political speech delivered to a large audience at the Academy of Music in Brooklyn. In a 1881 lecture entitled The Great Infidels, he attacked the doctrine of Hell. The Ingersoll's lecture The Great Infidels, which we propose to our readers today, was finally published in New York in 1921. It remains one of the most important works for understanding the libertarian thought of this great and extraordinary American intellectual.
«Have all the clergymen, monks, friars, ministers, bishops, priests, cardinals and popes, from the day of Pentecost to the last election, done as much for human liberty as Thomas Paine? As much for Science as Charles Darwin? What would the world be if Infidels had never been?».