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Atheists & Agnostics
In reply to the discussion: What Do You Mean Atheists Don't Have Morals? [View all]RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)5. Mark Twain on one religion's sacred book
Apparently, not everyone has suffered from moral qualms.
Here's Mark Twain writing about a particular sacred book. I've left off the incriminating details so as not to blatantly offend anyone, although the subject should be fairly obvious.
All men have heard of (this particular sacred book), but few except the "elect" have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from (the religion's key city). 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 (the sect's prophet) composed this book, the act was a miraclekeeping 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.
The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary history, with the Old Testament for a model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint, old-fashioned sound and structure of our King James's translation of the Scriptures; and the result is a mongrelhalf modern glibness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward and constrained; the former natural, but grotesque by the contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too modernwhich was about every sentence or twohe ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as "exceeding sore," "and it came to pass," etc., and made things satisfactory again. "And it came to pass" was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet.
The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary history, with the Old Testament for a model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint, old-fashioned sound and structure of our King James's translation of the Scriptures; and the result is a mongrelhalf modern glibness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward and constrained; the former natural, but grotesque by the contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too modernwhich was about every sentence or twohe ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as "exceeding sore," "and it came to pass," etc., and made things satisfactory again. "And it came to pass" was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet.
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Saying that God is cool has to be sacrilegious. But if you don't believe in God, you can't be
rhett o rick
Aug 2014
#6
I grew up Mormon, so I have no compunctions about posting an unedited version of Twain's missive
EvolveOrConvolve
Aug 2014
#9
Thanks! I saw the thread on the Home page and didn't notice that it was from the A & A group
RufusTFirefly
Aug 2014
#11