Thoughts from Mark Twain

Thoughts from Mark Twain

This is so true and such a great insight. And something that hasn't been noted by anyone else since. By allowing those "words" to remain in place, it leaves the possibility open for the return of that which they promoted in the first place.

During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood.

Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them remain.

~Mark Twain~

"Bible Teaching and Religious Practice," Europe and Elsewhere

1923