by Mark Twain,
Anyone who has read these essays of M.T has in someway pondered over how life would have been for Adam and Eve, had they been the first personages on earth.
Where did the first lion get the meat to eat if all animals were created at the same instant? Or maybe, lions were first vegetarians, just like tigers and leopards and only started to eat meat after the fall. And it is after the fall also that all animals lost their innocence and started copulating.
Have you heard of the law of fluid precipitation? Well, Twain made it up. But imagine the first person to notice that water flows downhill.
Then think about that command of not eating fruit of some tree or else you shall die. They have no idea of what death is. They have not seen any death already. And here, Twain arrives at one of his truisms
a person can’t think when he has no material to think with.
The first pair decide the best way to find our what to die means is to eat the fruit, then they shall die, and will know what it is, and not have any more bother about it. If you believe the bible is true, we are still dying from this desire for knowledge.
It’s morning here, go ponder the rest.
I read “Letters From the Earth” when I was about 17, and “Eve’s Diary” some time after that. This was the first time I had seen anyone doubting, out loud, about religious stuff. It made “Tom Sawyer” look tame, and I loved it.
The first person to notice that water runs downhill must have been closely followed by the first person to wonder “why” and then, “how”…
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I read these works for the first time about 6 years ago, thanks to one of our departed friends. And since then, I have loved M.T.
He asks very interesting questions in these works.
The letters are a masterpiece in satire. And maybe, when you think of it, religion is a grand sarcasm against god.
Thomas Paine argued if there was blasphemy, it could be found on the lips of the parsons
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I have Letters from the Earth. It is fabulous!
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That it is. I don’t know how many times I have read it, since I first came across it a few years ago.
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[…] was reading Mak’s recent post this morning questioning how Adam and Eve could fear a punishment of death without having known death and it […]
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Gotta love Twain.
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It’s impossible not to like him.
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One of the many reasons that I am an avid fan of Mark Twain. He always finds a way to introduce his own philosophy into our chaotic mindset. His version is always – at least, for me – the most realistic than the “official” dogma. Thank you! Naked hugs!
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He was good at his trade.
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Excellent! ๐
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If the Fundamentalists ever succeed in making the bible required reading in school then the rest of us should insist that Mark Twain be added as well.
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That would be interesting.
Imagine reading Numbers and the beatitudes side by side
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I’ve just recently started reading this. Twain certainly is venomous in his humor. I love it!
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You will love it. I hope you have in that collection essays such as the mad philosopher and the damned human race
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