Mark Twain on Religion

• Man is a 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.
  
  
• I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's.
  
  
• If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be -- a Christian.
  
  
• The church is always trying to get other people to reform, it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example
  
  
• I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious -- unless he purposely shut the eyes of his mind & keep them shut by force.
  
  
• Irrevence is another person's disrespect to your god; there isn't any word that tells what your disrespect to his god is.
  
  
• Concentration of power in a political machine is bad; and an Established Church is only a political machine; it was invented for that; it is nursed, cradled, preserved for that; it is an enemy to human liberty, and does no good which it could not better do in a split-up and scattered condition.
  
  
• I purpose publishing these Letters here in the world before I return to you. Two editions. One, unedited, for Bible readers and their children; the other, expurgated, for persons of refinement
  
  
• Blasphemy? No, it is not blasphemy. If God is as vast as that, he is above blasphemy; if he is as little as that, He is beneath it.
  
  
• It was not that Adam ate the apple for the apple's sake, but because it was forbidden. It would have been better for us -- oh infinitely better for us -- if the serpent had been forbidden
  
  
• Surely the ass who invented the first religion ought to be the first ass damned
  
  
• We have to keep our God placated with prayer, and even then we are never sure of him -- how much higher and finer is the Indian's God...Our illogical God is all-powerful in name, but impotent in fact; the Great Spirit is not all-powerful, but does the very best he can for his injun and does it free of charge
  
  
• Conformity -- the natural instinct to passively yield to that vague something recognized as authority
  
  
• I have never seen what to me seemed an atom of proof that there is a future life. And yet -- I am inclined to expect one.
  
  
• I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never inconvenienced me a bit.
  
  
• Faith is believing something you know ain't true.
  
  
• Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of.
  
  
• Man is a marvelous curiosity...he thinks he is the Creator's pet...he even believes the Creator loves him; has passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks he listens. Isn't it a quaint idea.
  
  
• It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bothers me, it is the parts that I do understand.
  
  
• In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.
  
  
• Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in
  
  
• Man is kind enough when he is not excited by religion
  
  
• To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, Our country, right or wrong, and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation.
  
  
• If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time.
  
  
• Our Congresses consist of Christians. In their private life they are true to every obligation of honor; yet in every session they violate them all, and do it without shame. Because honor to party is above honor to themselves.
  
  
• Men are more compassionate/(nobler)/magnanimous/generous than God; for men forgive their dead, but God does not.
  
  
• Dying man couldn't make up his mind which place to go to -- both have their advantages, heaven for the climate, hell for the company!
  
  
• Well, no doubt it's a blessed thing to have an imagination that can always make you satisfied, no matter how you are fixed.
  
  
• One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed it. They have also believed the world was flat.