Susan Dorman wrote:
 >>  Mark Twain comes at God in a personal way....<<

    And this is why he can speak in such a candid way of God.  First
off, if you have a personal communication with God, and keep it up, all
kinds of things come up, and you begin to feel defensive if anyone
impinges the "person" of God that you come to know by doing so.  This, I
believe the Bible does; denigrates God to the level of an idiot, which
is MT's point in Letters from Earth, or at least one of his points.
     I have such a personal communication with "God", ever since a 10
year stint in a Fundamentalist Christian cult, in my early adult years.
I can't shake it, even tho there have beens times when I swear that I'm
nothing more than a neurotic co-dependent upon a fictitious entity.  At
one point, many years after leaving that cult, I even began to call God
"deaf, dumb, and mute", because I was doing all the talking, and God
never said anything back.  This went on for about a year, even tho I
continued to communicate with what I thought to be God.  I settled the
matter; that I needed some kind of communication with the source of my
being, whatever that is, and continue this crazy inner dialogue today.
    This tendency, to communicate with God, goes deep into my being.  I
do it all the time, even while writing this.  But I don't do it to be "a
Great Man of God", no, I do it out of weakness, -- maybe I should be
sorry to say.  I do it because of a deep realization that I am dependent
in this life, on so many things that I have absolutely no power over.
Things like the air, water, trees, the sun, so on and so on; ad
infinitum, ad nauseam.
     But, like MT, it makes me sensitive to ideas, figments usually,
that caricaturizes (sic) God by anthropomorphizing him into behavior
that is less than any human could allow him or herself conscience to
do.  God is God, true.  And "He" can be a tyrant if He likes.  But can I
love him with a clear conscience?  No!  Fear him maybe; but not love him!
    I guess this is one reason that I love MT so much, because he
suffered the same struggle with God and religion as I.  I get angry just
like him, at what I see out of my religious brothers and sisters;
usually Christians, so called.  For example, after watching "The Passion
of the Christ" by madman Mel, I was mad as hell.  I thought the damn
thing should have been named:  "Jesus - The Snuff Movie".  And I hated
that people would not only allow such a depiction of God, but
passionately believe in it; a God that would require a human sacrifice
to appease his anger; for manufacturing defects caused by Himself.  I
don't even believe in animal sacrifice, much less a human one.  And they
mock the pagans & "primatives", for sacrificing virgins, while they hang
their hat on the sacrifice of the very "Son of God."   How could anyone
love such a God?

"I am plenty safe enough in his hands; I am not in any danger from that
kind of a Diety. The one that I want to keep out of the reach of, is the
caricature of him which one finds in the Bible. We (that one and I)
could never respect each other, never get along together. I have met his
superior a hundred times-- in fact I amount to that myself."
- Letter to Olivia Clemens, 7/17/1889

    Good to hear from you Susan....keep it up....

Harold