Freethought of the Day

[beam me up scottie]

H.L. Mencken

On this date in 1880, America's most prominent journalist, H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken, was born in Baltimore. Although his father was agnostic, his Lutheran mother sent him to Sunday School, which he later defined as, "A prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents" (A Mencken Chrestomathy,1949). The cigar-chomping, iconoclastic journalist worked most of his life at the Baltimore Sun, where he began his trademark column, "The Free Lance," in 1911. Mencken also coedited Smart Set magazine (1914-1923) and edited American Mercury magazine (1925-1933). His lifetime production of 28 books included a 6-volume collection of his essays, Prejudices (1919-27), In Defense of Women (1917), Treatise of the Gods (1930), and an autobiographical trilogy, ending with Heathen Days, published as one volume in 1947.

The sardonic critic of the "booboisie," who also coined the term "Boobus americanus," was famed for his coverage of the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tenn., in 1925. Mencken's many epigrams include:

"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable" (The New York Times Magazine, Sept. 11, 1955).

"The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore" (Minority Report, 1956).

"No one in this world, so far as I know . . . has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people" (Notes on Journalism, Chicago Tribune, Sept. 19 1926).

"Puritanism - The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy" (A Mencken Chrestomathy, 1949).

"Sunday - A day given over by Americans to wishing that they themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their neighbors were dead and in Hell" (A Book of Burlesques 1916, 1924).

"Theology: An effort to explain the unknowable by putting it into terms of the not worth knowing" (A Mencken Chrestomathy, 1949).

"The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected" (American Mercury, March 1930). D. 1956.

https://ffrf.org/news/day/12/09/freethought/#h-l-mencken3

Mencken would be horrified to know that more than 90 years after the Scopes Monkey trial Tennessee is still allowing creationists to push their agenda in public schools:

Tennessee ‘monkey bill’ becomes law

The governor of Tennessee has allowed the passage of the 'monkey bill', giving public-school teachers licence to teach alternatives to those mainstream scientific theories often attacked by religious and political conservatives.

Nicknamed after the ‘monkey trial’ of 1925, in which Tennessee prosecuted high-school science teacher John Scopes for violating a state law against teaching evolution, the new measure allows public-school teachers to “help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories”. Biological evolution, global warming, the chemical origins of life and human cloning are listed as examples of such theories.

https://www.nature.com/news/tennessee-monkey-bill-becomes-law-1.10423

Posted in the Atheists and Agnostics group: A place where atheists and agnostics can engage in frank discussions about the effects of religion on politics