On 2009-08-30 bogtrotter, New York City, USA wrote: I´ve read in full only a few things by Twain, including some remarks of his ridiculing Mary Baker Eddy and her ´Christian Science,´ his essay defending the quality of President Grant´s memoirs against an unfavorable British review, and some of his other essays. Complete irreligion was still relatively rare in Twain´s day, and his essay on ´Saint Joan of Arc´ (see another work available on Amazon, his complete essays republished recently in paperback) suggests that he had the good sense to appreciate the Saints, if not the spiritual healers. In fact he would probably have qualified well as an ethical humanist, but also as a closet mystic of idiosyncratic bent (a careful reading of Felix Adler´s ´Life and Destiny´ would reveal that the founder of the Ethical Culture movement was also a mystic, his mysticism was merely not placed by him on the front cover of his appeals to humanity). Twain presumably belonged to no organized church, and these essays of his on the Biible should probably be compared to the critical (or even condemnatory) writings of Tom Paine on the Bible and Christianity (´The Age of Reason´ if I recall the title correctly). But Twain´s rave about Saint Joan, derived from his personal reading of the transcripts of her ecclesiastical trial for witchcraft and heresy, blew away any thoughts of mine that he might be regarded as a mere atheist or irreligious fanatic. . And summed up by saying One window into Twain´s religion.. Currently The Bible According to Mark Twain: Irreverent Writings on Eden, Heaven, and the Flood by America´s Master Satirist has an overall rating of 8 over 10.
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Howard G. Baetzhold claimed Behind the humor of these pieces, readers will see Twain´s serious thoughts on the relationship between God and Man, biblical inconsistencies, Darwinism, science, and the impact of technology on religious beliefs. ´A fascinating panoply of wit, satire, farce, fantasy, lyricism, heresy, the sardonic, and the controversial.´--Patricia Hassler, Booklist.
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