Consciousness

My personal hero is:

Colonel Robert Green Ingersoll (August 11, 1833 – July 21, 1899), a Civil War veteran, American political leader, and orator during the Golden Age of Freethought, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism.

Many of Ingersoll's speeches advocated freethought and humanism, ...

His liberal views of freedom of religion, slavery, woman's suffrage, and other issues of the day effectively prevented him from ever pursuing or holding political offices higher than that of state attorney general.

Illinois Republicans tried to pressure him into running for governor on the condition that he conceal his agnosticism during the campaign, which he refused on the basis that concealing information from the public was immoral.