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A Religious Conversation with Mark Twain
by Charlie Webb
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Q: Mr. Clemens, you are considered to be America's most beloved writer, yet we are told that you have no religion. Is that true? TWAIN: "I have a religion -- but you will call it blasphemy. It is that there is a God for the rich but none for the poor." Q: Seriously, Mr. Clemens, do you consider yourself to be religious? TWAIN: "The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also." "I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious -- except he purposely shut the eyes of his mind & keep them shut by force." Q: Does the fact that the majority of Americans profess belief in some religion prove anything? TWAIN: "One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed it. They also believed the world was flat." "A but-little considered fact in human nature: that the religious folly you are born in you will die in, no matter what apparently reasonabler religious folly may seem to have taken its place meanwhile, and abolished and obliterated it." Q: Do you see any value in retaining religious traditions? TWAIN: "If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be - a Christian." "Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world -- and never will." Q: Don't you think it is reasonable that religious people find comfort in faith? TWAIN: "Many of these people have the reasoning facility, but no one uses it in religious matters." "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." Q: Then do you think that human beings are just naturally religious? TWAIN: "You have noticed that the human being is a curiosity. In times past he has had (and worn out and flung away) hundreds of religions; today he has hundreds and hundreds of religion, and launches not fewer than three new ones every year." "Man is the religious animal. He is the only religious animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion -- several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven." Q: So, do you see any redeeming features in religion? TWAIN: "Yes. Preachers are always pleasant company when they are off duty." Note: The above Mark Twain quotes are all real. |
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