Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name, Mark Twain, attained worldwide fame as both a writer and
a lecturer.
It was
the opinion of Ernest Hemingway that modern American literature begins with Huckleberry Finn.
Children
from seven to seventy continue to delight not only in the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Huck, but also in the adventures of
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, The Prince and the Pauper,
and many more.
Mark Twain was an atheist.
In his autobiography he gave his personal testimony about his view of life:
“A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and
struggle for bread; they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble for little mean advantages over each other.
Age creeps upon them and infirmities follow; shames and
humiliations bring down their prides and their vanities.
Those
they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to aching grief. The burden of pain, care, and misery,
grows heavier year by year.
At length ambition is dead, pride is dead, vanity is dead; longing for release is in their place.
It
comes at last – the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them—
and they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence;
where they achieved nothing, where they were a mistake and a failure and foolishness;
where they left no sign that they had
ever existed –
a world that will lament them a day
and forget them forever” (Autobiography, Vol. II, p. 37).
The testimony of an atheist.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) Bertrand Russell came
from one of England’s most distinguished families, and he added considerable luster to the family reputation.
He first gained attention with his book Principles
of Mathematics (1903) and seven years later published with Alfred North Whitehead a book which opened a new era in the study
of the principles of mathematics and philosophy, Principia Mathematica.
More than forty books followed, on such divergent subjects as philosophy, education,
politics, and sex.
In 1950 Russell
received the Nobel Prize for literature and was described as a “defender of humanity and freedom of thought.
He lectured at Cambridge, Harvard, the University of Peking, the
University of Chicago, and the University of California.
Late in life, in the early 1960 he again came to the forefront of public notice by leading pacifist demonstrations
against nuclear weapons.
Bertrand Russell
was an atheist.
Bertrand Russell
also made a testimony. We find his evaluation of life expressed in a letter to Lowes Dickinson:
“Why should you suppose I think it foolish to wish
to see the people one is fond of? What else is there to make life tolerable?
We stand on the shore of an ocean, crying to the night and
the emptiness; sometimes a voice answers out of the darkness.
But it is a voice of one drowning; and in a moment the silence returns."
(Autobiography, p. 287).
The testimony of an atheist.
Robert
G Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Robert G. Ingersoll was a lawyer, politician, and writer.
Most of all, he was an evangelist for atheism.
With the possible exception of Madelyn Murray O’Hair, no
popular lecturer has ever attacked Christianity so forcefully, widely, continuously, and effectively.
Robert Ingersoll’s personal testimony is remarkably
like that of Bertrand Russell.
As he stood at the grave of his brother and gave an oration, he said,
“Death is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities.
We cry aloud and the only answer
is the wailing echo of our cry.”
The testimony of an atheist.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) W.
Somerset Maugham was one of the most popular British writers of this century.
Best known for his semi-autobiographical novel, Of Human Bondage, he wrote a dozen
novels and more than 150 short stories.
Sometimes ignored by the critics, he was loved by the reading public.
He died at ninety-one, an immensely famous and wealthy man, but embittered against his
ex-wife and embroiled in a lawsuit with his daughter.
W. Somerset Maugham was an atheist.
Near his life's end he wrote:
“When
I look back on my life…it seems to me strangely lacking in reality.
It may be that my heart, having found rest nowhere, had some deep ancestral craving
for God and immortality which my reason would have no truck with.” (quoted by columnist Norman Ross, The Chicago Daily
News, January 26th, 1964).
The
testimony of an atheist.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Those
who enjoyed the musical, My Fair Lady, have George Bernard Shaw to thank.
His play Pygmalion (1912) was the basis for that modern musical. Pygmalion is just one of
more than fifty plays written by Shaw. Some of his better-known works are Saint Joan, The Devil’s Disciple, Caesar
and Cleopatra, and Androcles and the Lion.
He used the drama as
a vehicle for social reform, vying against slum landlords, war, and the oppression of women.
In 1925 George Bernard Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
George Bernard Shaw was an atheist.
Here is his personal testimony, penned near the end of his life in, Too True to Be Good:
“The science to which I pinned my faith is bankrupt.
Its counsels which should have established the millennium have led directly to the suicide of Europe.
I believed in them once…In
their name I helped destroy the faith of millions of worshippers in the temples of a thousand creeds.
And now they look at me and witness the great tragedy of an atheist
who has lost his faith."
The
testimony of an atheist.
LET
US SHARE just one more personal testimony. It was written by a man of immense intellect, great ambition, and genuine literary achievement;
also a man who underwent great personal suffering and gross miscarriages of justice.
"For I am already on the point of being sacrificed; the time of my departure has
come.
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I
have kept the faith.
Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown
of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award
to me on that Day,
and not only to me but also to all who have loved
his appearing."
THE TESTIMONY OF A BELIEVER IN JESUS CHRIST
(The
Apostle Paul – New Testament, book of 2 Timothy 4:6-8)
