Robert G. Ingersoll

In the 19th-century lecture halls of America, he was the "Great Agnostic" whose voice rang out against the "theological nightmare" of hell and damnation. "The time to be happy is now; the place to be happy is here," he preached to thousands, offering a gospel of human joy over divine fear. He defended the right to doubt as a sacred human liberty, mocking the absurdity of ancient scriptures with a humor that disarmed his fiercest critics. He saw the clergy as a shadow over the cradle of the future, a force that preferred the "blessedness of ignorance" to the light of science. His eloquence turned the podium into a secular pulpit for the religion of humanity. He remains the patron saint of the freethinker.