What They Think of Us: Mark Twain

"It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand. ...
I believe in God the Almighty. I do not believe He has ever sent a message to man by anybody, or delivered one to him by word of mouth, or made Himself visible to mortal eyes at any time or in any place." Mark Twain (pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835 - 1910)


Mark Twain was a very complicated and conflicted man.  Though he held strong views against organized religion, he was obsessed, according to his daughter Clara, with the afterlife and was a lifelong Presbyterian.  He raised the modern equivalent of $2200 for the completion of a Presbyterian church attended by his brother, Orion, in Carson City, Nevada.