Mark Twain on religion

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Mark Twain was a brilliant humorist. I recently read a piece on the Book of Mormon that is attributed to him. Hillarious.

Do any of you know if he wrote anything about Catholicism or the Catholilc Church? I would love to read anything he wrote.

Are there any other Twain fans here?

I’ll post the quote on the Book of Mormon if the LDS members here promise not to take it to heart. It’s just typtical Twain humor.
 
kalt said:
Mark Twain was a brilliant humorist. I recently read a piece on the Book of Mormon that is attributed to him. Hillarious.

Do any of you know if he wrote anything about Catholicism or the Catholilc Church? I would love to read anything he wrote.

Are there any other Twain fans here?

I’ll post the quote on the Book of Mormon if the LDS members here promise not to take it to heart. It’s just typtical Twain humor.
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He did some very funny stuff on Christian Science, too.

Overall, he was cynical to religion in general. The posthumous collection LETTERS FROM THE EARTH is a sample of that.

GKC
 
kalt said:
Mark Twain was a brilliant humorist. I recently read a piece on the Book of Mormon that is attributed to him. Hillarious.

Do any of you know if he wrote anything about Catholicism or the Catholilc Church? I would love to read anything he wrote.

Are there any other Twain fans here?

I’ll post the quote on the Book of Mormon if the LDS members here promise not to take it to heart. It’s just typtical Twain humor.
Click to expand...
He was pretty anti-Catholic from what I recall. In Innocents Abroad he recounts stopping in Italy or Portugal & goes on about how ignorant the people have been kept by their priests, praying to statues, &c. There are other examples I can’t think of right now.
 
didymus said:
He was pretty anti-Catholic from what I recall. In Innocents Abroad he recounts stopping in Italy or Portugal & goes on about how ignorant the people have been kept by their priests, praying to statues, &c. There are other examples I can’t think of right now.
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Yet this same man wrote a tremendously reverent and respectful biography of Joan of Arc. You can’t pigeonhole Mark Twain
 
kalt said:
Mark Twain was a brilliant humorist. I recently read a piece on the Book of Mormon that is attributed to him. Hillarious.

Do any of you know if he wrote anything about Catholicism or the Catholilc Church? I would love to read anything he wrote.

Are there any other Twain fans here?

I’ll post the quote on the Book of Mormon if the LDS members here promise not to take it to heart. It’s just typtical Twain humor.
Click to expand...

He can’t hold a candle to Ambrose Bierce or H.L. Mencken - just MO.​

 
Leopard said:
Yet this same man wrote a tremendously reverent and respectful biography of Joan of Arc. You can’t pigeonhole Mark Twain
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It is interesting that two of the best writings on Joan of Arc are by Mark Twain and George Bernard Shaw, neither of whom could be considered pro-Catholic.
 
Someplace I saw a quotation from Mark Twain to the effect that many people are disturbed by the passages that they can’t understand in the Bible. He found the most difficulty with the ones he did understand.😃
 
I love Mark Twain!

He did have a marvelous satiric dry wit about him. Ever read The War Prayer?
 
Gottle_of_Geer said:

He can’t hold a candle to Ambrose Bierce or H.L. Mencken - just MO.​

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Mencken was good, but he seemed meaner to me. His writing seemed to have less honest, people-do-the-darndest-things humor and more mean-spirited ridicule.

Twain seemed to understand human nature and wonder at the profound stupidity all around him, but didn’t hate it. Mencken was funny, but didn’t seem to have the sympathetic ( to humanity in general) wit that Twain had.

I’ve never read Beirce.

Well, that’s how I see it anyway. 🙂
 
I do enjoy Twain, but in my mind, he was passed by Lewis Grizzard.

Just find his article about Georgia vs Notre Dame…
 
All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the “elect” have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so “slow,” so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason.
  • On the Book of Mormon, Roughing It (published 1872), pp. 58-59.
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The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
  • Christian Science (1907)
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Mark Twaine quotes
 
kalt said:
Mencken was good, but he seemed meaner to me. His writing seemed to have less honest, people-do-the-darndest-things humor and more mean-spirited ridicule.

Twain seemed to understand human nature and wonder at the profound stupidity all around him, but didn’t hate it. Mencken was funny, but didn’t seem to have the sympathetic ( to humanity in general) wit that Twain had.

I’ve never read Beirce.

Well, that’s how I see it anyway. 🙂
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Bierce is great but perhaps even more cynical than Mencken. For pure humor, I’ll take Twain ; “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses”, or parts of INNOCENTS ABROAD.

GKC
 
GKC said:
Bierce is great but perhaps even more cynical than Mencken. For pure humor, I’ll take Twain ; “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses”, or parts of INNOCENTS ABROAD.

GKC
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I like Bierce, but he was properly nicknamed Bitter Bierce.
 
Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain became very bitter after the death of his daughter. That is when he started making social commentaries on many subjects. I remember doing a report on him in high school. My personal favorite of his was the Battle Hymn of the Republic (brought down to date). I used to have a framed copy of it on my wall in college.
 
HolyInnocent said:
Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain became very bitter after the death of his daughter. That is when he started making social commentaries on many subjects. I remember doing a report on him in high school. My personal favorite of his was the Battle Hymn of the Republic (brought down to date). I used to have a framed copy of it on my wall in college.
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He blamed himself, to a great extent, for her death. And his business loses had already embittered him, to a degree. Most of what we read as his polemics against religion he did not, in fact, expect to be published. And they were withheld from the public, until the early 60s, after the death of his other daughter.

GKC
 
Mark Twain wrote numerous satiric commentaries on world affairs, history etc.

I think one book is called “Mark Twain on the Damned Human Race.”
Another might be “A Pen Warmed-up in Hell.”
Whatever his views on religion, he did have a conscience.

I don’t think he was esp anti catholic toward the end of his like; “Innocents Abroad” was written in the 1860s-1870s.

“Joan of Arc” was his favorite book, tho not a commercial or literary success.

Perhaps Joan snuck him in by the back door. I certainly hope so.

Ambrose Bierce was quite bitter, wrote “The Devil’s Dictionary.”
 
An atheist’s opinions on religion will be as useful as hearing Mrs. Ciconne-Ritchey (Madonna) expounding upon chastity.
 
I do think athiests can point out the limitations of religion in its practice vs. its principles.

They offer us an opportunity to examine and learn more about our own faith, so we can answer their objections.

The most prominent ones nowadays (Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens) often extoll Reason vs. Religion. But they are quite unreasonable insofar as they get emotionally bent out of shape on the topic.

Sam Harris says he studied religion, but doesn’t mention ever taking a field trip to a house of worship to find out about religious faith in practice.
 
didymus said:
I love Cooper’s Literary Offenses – have you ever read The Awful German Language?
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Yes. It’s superb.

I took a college course on Twain, in which we read a book of his a week, covering all the major works, and a good selection of the short humorous pieces and posthumous stuff. Most fun I had in college. In class, anyway.

GKC
 
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