To paraphrase Twain, re-reading Paine's _Age of Reason_,
without fear or loathing, we came across other quotes and thought
there must be some parallel thoughts by Twain.  Any ideas?

"Those who suppose that the sun went round the earth every 24 hours
made the same mistake in idea that a cook would do in fact, that
should make the fire go round the meat, instead of the meat turning
round itself towards the fire" (Paine 69).

"The book called the book of Matthew, says, (3.16) that the Holy
Ghost descended in the shape of a dove.  It might as well have said
a goose; the creatures are equally harmless, and the one is as much
a nonsensical lie as the other" (Paine, "Author's Note," 190).

"But when, according to the Christian Trinitarian scheme, one part
of God is represented by a dying man, and another part, called the
Holy Ghost, by a flying pigeon, it is impossible that belief can
attach itself to such wild conceits" (Paine 190).

"For Joshua to have excedded Mahomet, he should have put the sun
and moon one in each pocket, and carried them as Guy Fawkes carried
his lanthorn and taken them out to shine as he might happen to want
them.  The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related
that it is difficult to class them seperatly.  One step above the
sublime makes them ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous
makes them sublime again.  The account . . . shews the ignorance of
Joshua, for he should have commanded the earth to have stood still"
("Author's Note," 107)

"The sublime of the critics, like some parts of Edmund Burke's
sublime and beautiful, is like a windmill just visible in a fog,
which imagination might distort into a flying mountain, or an
archangel, or a flock of wild geese" ("Author's Note," 193).

" . . . I come to the book of Ruth, an idle, bungling story,
foolishly told, nobody knows by whom, about a strolling country-
girl creeping slily to bed to her cousin Boaz . . . It is, however,
one of the best books in the Bible, for it is free from murder, and
rapine" (110).



I'm beginning to think _The Age of Reason_ and _The Bible According
to Mark Twain_ are companion volumes.  (This is greatly augmenting
Chap. IV of my _Cradle Skeptic_.)