Robert G. Ingersoll
1833-1899 · Secular Thought · Known
Ingersoll was an American lawyer and orator known as the Great Agnostic, the most celebrated voice of unbelief in nineteenth-century America. Thousands paid to watch him spend three hours taking apart biblical literalism and the doctrine of hell. He argued that decent behavior needs no threat of damnation standing behind it, that ethics holds without a supernatural sanction, and that a country can run on reason instead of fear.
Signature
The position Ingersoll is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Conviction
- strongly leans Uncertain
- Theology
- Agnosticism
Positions on the 9 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Mechanistic (12 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Individualism (85 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Ground of Being
- leans Immanence (12 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Polity
- leans Liberalism (81 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- War
- mildly leans Militarism (62 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
- Ignorance
- strongly leans Bondage (6 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Conviction
- strongly leans Uncertain (0 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- leans Global (80 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
11 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Ingersoll refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Agnosticism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Representative Democracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Pleasure
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Natural Emergence
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Sense Experience
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Utilitarian Calculation
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Authority
- Consent of the Governed
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Death
- Agnostic
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Evolved Animal
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Humanity
What is your primary bond and loyalty?