Llwellyn Posted July 12, 2009 Share Posted July 12, 2009 There is a passage from Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" that I really identify with, because I too have decided to follow my conscience and be cursed by Yahweh rather than defy my conscience and be pardoned by him. Please take a look at a similar choice tha Huckleberry Finn makes: So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter - and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote: "Miss Watson, your runaway slave Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send. Huck Finn." <P dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking - thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and suchlike times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he's got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: "All right, then, I'll go to hell" - and tore it up. - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thackerie Posted July 12, 2009 Share Posted July 12, 2009 I, too, like Mark Twain quotes pertaining to religion. My favorite is the one where he explained that he had no fear of death "because I was dead for billions of years before I was born and it never inconvenienced me." There's a whole bunch of them at the following URL (and elsewhere on the Internet). Enjoy! http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/twain.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted July 12, 2009 Share Posted July 12, 2009 Mark Twain is great. "The Mysterious Stranger" had a great effect on me when I read it many years ago. I could never again see the Christian god in the same way after reading it. I agree, I would also be willing to go to hell. I reached that point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wendybabe Posted July 12, 2009 Share Posted July 12, 2009 I've always enjoyed this passage from Huck Finn. This book has been called the greatest American Novel. It is great entertainment. Huck is the young innocent yet worldly wise boy wrestling with the fact that he feels guilty even when he is doing the right thing. He can't reconcile his conscience with the matter and he resolves to go to hell. Years ago I did the same thing. I couldn't go on with "doing the will of God" so I just resolved to go to hell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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