“For hundreds of years it was contended by all Christians that the earth was made in six days, literal days of twenty-four hours each, and that on the seventh day the Lord rested from his labor. Geologists have driven the church from this position, and it is now claimed that the days mentioned in the Bible are periods of time. This is a simple evasion, not in any way supported by the Scriptures. The Bible distinctly and clearly says that the world was created in six days. There is not within its lids a clearer statement.”

My Reviewers Reviewed (lecture from June 27, 1877, San Francisco, CA)

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Robert G. Ingersoll 439
Union United States Army officer 1833–1899

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“One hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

As quoted in Hefley What's so great about the Bible (1969), p. 30
George Sweeting Living in a Dying World (1972), p. 59
Related: "...only 50 years after his death the Geneva Bible Society used his press and house to produce stacks of Bibles."
Geisler, Norman L. and Nix, William E., A General Introduction to the Bible (Chicago, Moody Press, 1968), p. 123-124. See also McDowell The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict http://www.gracechapelsomd.org/books/The_New_Evidence_That_Demands_A_Verdict.pdf (1999).
According to The Open Society, Vol. 77 (Autumn 2004) Voltaire's House and The Bible Society http://www.nzarh.org.nz/journal/2004v77n1aut.pdf, p. 14: "The myth seems to have originated from an 1849 Annual Report of the American Bible Society where the relevant section reads: Voltaire... predicted that in the nineteenth century the Bible would be known only as a relic of antiquity. He could say, while on this topic, that the Hotel Gibbon (so-called from that celebrated infidel) is now become the very depository of the Bible Society, and the individual who superintends the building is an agent for the sale and receipt of the books. The very ground this illustrious scoffer often paced, has now become the scene of the operation and success of an institution established for the diffusion of the very book against which his efforts were directed."
Sidney Collett, in The Scripture of Truth (1905), apparently misrepresents this report by stating: "Voltaire, the noted French infidel who died in 1778, said that in one hundred years from his time Christianity would be swept into history. But what has happened? Only twenty-five years after his death the [British & Foreign Bible] Society was founded. His printing press, with which he printed his infidel literature, has since been used to print copies of the Word of God; and the very house in which he lived has been stacked with Bibles of the Geneva Bible Society."
Regarding Bible-printing in Voltaire's homes, Theodore Besterman (former director of the "Institut et Muse Voltaire" in Geneva) stated, "None of Voltaire's homes is or ever has been connected in any way with any Bible Society. This applies to all Voltaire's homes, whether in France, Germany, Switzerland, or anywhere else". http://www.nzarh.org.nz/journal/2004v77n1aut.pdf.
Misattributed
Variant: "Another century and there will not be a Bible on earth!"

Ambrose Bierce photo

“Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

“Western ideology believed that the world was good because it was made by God in six days and that at the end of each day He looked at His work and said that it was good.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 10, Western Civilization, p. 337

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“If you say six periods, instead of six days, what becomes of your Sabbath?”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

My Reviewers Reviewed (lecture from June 27, 1877, San Francisco, CA)
Context: And the reason why they were to keep the Sabbath was because the Creator rested on the seventh day—not period. If you say six periods, instead of six days, what becomes of your Sabbath? The only reason given in the Bible for observing the Sabbath is that God observed it—that he rested from his work that day and was refreshed. Take this reason away and the sacredness of that day has no foundation in the Scriptures.

“Cotton Mather was grateful to the Lord that "on this day we have sent six hundred heathen souls to hell."”

Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer

Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Context: When the Pequots resisted the migration of settlers into the Connecticut Valley in 1637, a party of Puritans surrounded the Pequot village and set fire to it. About five hundred Indians were burned to death or shot while trying to escape... The woods were then combed for any Pequots who had managed to survive, and these were sold into slavery. Cotton Mather was grateful to the Lord that "on this day we have sent six hundred heathen souls to hell."

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