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| H.L. Mencken on Religion | 
| Author: H. L. Mencken
Creator: S. T. Joshi
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Category: Book
List Price: $32.98
Buy New: $18.40
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 114393
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 330
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.1
ISBN: 1573929824
Dewey Decimal Number: 200
EAN: 9781573929820
ASIN: 1573929824
Publication Date: October 2002
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| Customer Reviews:
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 Not quite what you may have thought December 11, 2006
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Even a cursory reading of this collection reveals interesting nuances to Mencken's views on religion that both fans and foes may have missed. It is soon evident that Mencken was more of a religious skeptic or agnostic than the atheist he was frequently taken to be. He certainly did not believe in a personal god, and believed that positive evidence for the existance of a god is unlikely to appear. Nontheless, he was willing to grant the bare possibility of a god. It would seem that like Sartre's grandmother, Mencken's scepticism kept him from being a thoroughgoing atheist.
What really stirred Mencken's bile was the behavior of much of God's fan club here on Earth, many of whom he experenced as being at least intellectually dishonest (if not worse) and dishonorable. Mixed with this was a kind of bemused wonderment at the gullibility of the bulk of his fellow Americans, who seemed ever eager "to believe that Jonah swallowed the whale, or vice-versa." His early career as a Baltimore newspaper reporter observing the Christian nuisances pestering the skid-row bums (see his "Christmas Story"), 'working girls', saloon habitues, and all-around plain folk seems to have ground his rapier to a permanent sharp edge. Was he fair? I don't think he ever pretended he was. His mission, as he saw it, was to apply the lash of verifiable truth to the backs of pious frauds and their dupes. They were perfectly free to reply (and they did) using whatever sort of arguments or language they pleased.
Still, he was not an "anthopophagous atheist of the sort who goes around scaring old ladies", as he once put it. In tones that curiously echo Santayana, he expresses fulsome admiration for the Catholic Church, finding the 'poetry' of the Mass to be enchantingly beautiful; and Church insistance that doctrine was for Rome to decide to be shrewd policy. More interestingly, for a man reputed to be a sour misanthrope, he formed real and lasting friendships with clergy such as Bishop James Cannon of the United Methodist Church--an ardent Prohibitionist! (Normally Mencken consigned Prohibitionists to the lowest circle of his Inferno.)
If Mencken was neither terribly original nor especially profound on the subject of religion; still he--like Mark Twain--put the case for doubt in a frequently hilarious and unforgettable fashion that still serves to kick open otherwise seemingly-closed arguments and minds. This is probably a greater service to civilization than any number of tomes written by philosophers that fell dead-born from the press.
 Prejudice in a neat little container May 4, 2006
8 out of 61 found this review helpful
If we spoke of blacks and Jews like the other commentators speak of Christians, they would no doubt be blacklisted and widely renounced. As it is, Mencken offers nothing to the intellectual study of religion and philosophy except for an eloquent way to say he "doesn't like it." None the less, it would appear from the reviews of others that if you agree with Mencken's athiest world-view, you will indeed enjoy having him fuel you fire. For me, I like a little more philosophy and a little less rhetoric.
For thinking people only. April 14, 2006
14 out of 17 found this review helpful
Considering most of the articles were written in the 1920s, one is shocked by how timely, fitting and appropriate many of his comments are. The rise of fundie thinking at the turn of last century lasted until the Scopes trial - which is brilliantly covered in this book. (Mencken attended the trial, and covered it with scathing wit) Then, it collapsed. it took the fundies until the late '80s, the 1980s that is, to return to their destructive power that they again hold in our society.
This collection is entertaining, amusing and to some extent, it makes one angry. Why? because we are having to battle with half-wits, nit-wits, baptists, and other witless religions as they try to force their ideas onto others, just as they tried and failed before. Mencken provides an interesting slice of history, as well as a wonderful view of faith healing, the inability of the fundies to hold a rational thought and the dangers of religious leaders impacting political and social policy.
I would strongly recommend this book for anyone thinking about home schooling or considering sending their poor offspring to a religious school. This book will help make up your mind.
A Sane Perspective on Religion September 11, 2005
16 out of 22 found this review helpful
An excellent read if you are looking for confirmation of the fact that all religious extremists are insane. This would, of course, include Muslim as well as Bible Belt loonies. Mr. Mencken was a long ways ahead of his time in recognising this and savages ALL religious dingbats, home grown or imported.
A Jolt of Electricity May 20, 2005
18 out of 20 found this review helpful
I've read numerous Mencken anthologies, and I think this one is the best. His commentaries on fundamentalist attacks on both evolution and the wall between church and state are as relevant now as they were when he wrote them in the 1920s and 1930s. Moreover, as anyone who's ever read Mencken can attest, the man was a brilliant stylist and frequently hysterically funny. Oh, how the man could write! In contrast to the intellectually lazy media hacks of today, Mencken is sound and fury signifying something.
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