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Treatise on the Gods (Maryland Paperback Bookshelf)

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H. L. Mencken was a rare man indeed. He was a hard headed skeptic of the theological arts, but took an intense, scholarly interest in it, and it was a boon to the universe of thoughtful men when he decided to report back to them on what he found there. The book he wrote will stand for a long while as the best of its kind--at once dispassionate and informative, with more than a little of his trademark wit thrown about with an undisguised glee. His enthusiasm for his subject bubbles out all over the place.

The book begins with an imaginary story of how religion must have gotten started among the first primitive men. It is a story well told, and reveals what Mencken imagines is at the root of men's heart much of the time--a fear of the unknown, and an understandable aspiration to master that fear by some means. Then, very early on, the con men step in to utilize the fear for their own ends--power and cash. To successfully create a job for himself, he proceeds to invent embellishments unintelligible to the poor saps, and rituals that only the initiated, such as himself, can perform.

The book continues with some comparative religion, basing most of it on what the Romans sneered at, that the Greeks made dramas about, what the Jews borrowed from the Babylonians, and what the Asiatics actually first dreamed up. He finds in all of this the roots of Christianity, and especially the stuff that Christ had never thought of, which the theologians later added for the most practical of reasons.

His account of the early church and the evolution of the bibles is gratifying in its scholarship and clarity of description. He makes the ancient theological quarrels come to life, imparting an understanding that is a valuable addition to any freethinker's equipment. Occasionally, the real Mencken peeks through, enlivening and enlightening as he goes.

The best part of the book, though, is when he shows how religion is inadequate for the job, and is in a full retreat before the onslaught of science and rational methods, leaving the truly civilized man with " a way of facing the impenetrable dark that must engulf him in the end, as it engulfs the birds of the air and the protozoa in the sea ooze....not perhaps with complete serenity, but at least with dignity, calm, a gallant spirit."

Pleasant, easy to read, and thorough overview of religion from the beginning of humanity, with an emphasis on Christianity, from the position of an atheist.

From the preface: "My book is mainly factual. Its purpose is simply to get together, in handy and I hope readable form, the material data about the embryology, anatomy, and physiology of theology, with an occasional glance at its pathology....Religion was invented by man just as agriculture and the wheel were invented by man, and there is absolutely nothing in it to justify the belief that its inventors had the aid of higher powers, whether on this earth or elsewhere....There is no purpose here to shake the faithful, for I am completely free of the messianic itch..."

Chapter I "Its Nature and Origin" - Mencken describes his view of how early priests came into being in prehistoric society: "One Spring there came great rains in the valley and on their heels a flood of melting snow...One night the flood rolled into the lowermost cave, cut off the occupants, and drowned a mother and her child...The rising water to them seemed like a living thing...One fellow steps boldly forth...He goes close to the edge and bombards his enemy with stones...Growing bolder, he stalks into the water and belabors it with his club...the next morning the flood begins to recede...This first priest could accomplish something that other men were incapable of...What more natural than to give thanks?...True religion was born at that moment...He took on the aloof, philosophical air of a dermatologist contemplating a rash: he learned how to avoid making promises and yet hold the confidence of his customers... He gave some thought to the form and content of his first incantations, and thereby invented the first ritual...The gift of blarney went with the sacerdotal office, in the early days as now...the new trade of priesthood had attractions that were plainly visible to any bright and ambitious young man...When he let it be known that there were certain things, done by the people, that would gratify the gods and insure their aid, these things began to be regarded as virtuous, upright, moral. When he announced that other things were frowned upon, they straightaway became sins...The priest found himself a law-giver...Did the fires rage and the sky remain dry? Then it was because the faithful had forgotten their plain duties...It was not the priest's fault...calamities were plentiful in those days, as they are now. They remain the most potent weapons in the armamentarium of the priest...Theologians, as a class, are practical men. Immortality, as they preach it in the modern world, is but little more than a handy device for giving force and effect to their system of transcendental jurisprudence: what it amounts to is simply a threat that the contumacious will not be able to escape them by dying...I am myself a theologian of considerable gifts, and yet I can no more imagine immortality than I can imagine the Void which existed before matter took form. Neither, I suspect, can the Pope."

Chapter II "Its Evolution," continues as an academic treatise, but sprinkled liberally with condescending and clever phraseology: About creation myths: "In no department of theology is there a vaster accumulation of amusing rubbish." About afterlife: "Even in India, the very gonad of theology..." About contradictions in the Bible: "The collection of tracts called the New Testament is so full of inconsistencies and other absurdities that even children in Sunday School notice them."

Chapter III "Its Varieties" is a study of comparative religions. This is a well-done academic piece with fewer "Mencke-isms."

Chapter IV "Its Christian Form" is a beautifully written history of Christianity, highly complimentary of the Old Testament as poetry and Literature, and is the best chapter in the book. He reviews the well-accepted J, E, D, & P authorship of the Torah, with brief mention of how it was compiled. (for more info on this, read "Who Wrote the Bible," by Friedman). This chapter alone is worth the price of the book. According to the bibliography, he gets much of his factual material from James Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics.

Chapter V "Its State Today," resumes "Menckeisms," such as, "The church as an organization has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions."

I thoroughly enjoyed this entertaining and informative book and highly recommend it. For a different approach to the same subject, I recommend Atran's book, "In Gods We Trust."

In this sardonic, blasphemous and sometimes ferociously cynical pamphlet, H.L. Mencken castigates the irrationality and incredibility of all religions, e.g. there are 175.000 discrepancies in the manuscripts of the Christian New Testament.
But he considers religion rightly as one of ( for him) the greatest inventions of all times, giving the clergy enormous economical (all the temples became extremely rich) and political power. For Mencken, their power comes from the fear of Hell. The God of love that they preach invariably turns out to be a God of harsh and arbitrary penalties and brutalities. Religion is not only cruel (human sacrifices), but also a source of enormous human misery: 'Is a Catholic bishop a good citizen, when he commands, on penalty of Hell, that poor and miserable women convert themselves into mere brood sows?'(p. 270)
'The priest is the most immoral of men.' (p. 271)
His major targets are Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
'Calvin was the true father of Puritanism, which is to say, of the worst obscenity of Western Civilization.' (p. 245) His God is an 'appalling monster'. (p. 272)
The Churches are well aware that science is their natural enemy. Therefore, they try to control education. They are always on the defensive (Galileo, Darwin) and they are opposed to all attempts of rational thinking. For Mencken, religious education is the same as organized ignorance.
He lambasts those who defend religion for 'practical' reasons: 'the fact that threats of Hell have their social uses is ... simply an argument against the human race!' (p. 268)
However, H.L. Mencken has a dark side: 'the democratic pestilence'. Like Plato, he was disgusted with the masses which were a source of a cancerous proliferation of demagogy. More, 'the reigning theologians heated up the mob against the enlightened minority.' (p. 255)
It shows his deep pessimism: the masses could not be educated and the mighty priests kept them in an irrational darkness.
This is an important flaw in his reasoning and it turned out to be a false prophesy. In many democratic countries, the religious right is on the defensive and is losing (lost) important battles.
This treatise is one of the most violent pamphlets I ever read: a Homerian battle of the enlightened one against the powerful caste of the priests.
A must read.

In this wonderful 300-page book, Mencken takes on one of his most persistent enemies -- religion. Although Mencken is heavily biased against religion of all types from the start, he impresses the reader with presenting him with the most recent and accurate research into the authorship, history, and linguistics (among other things) of the time. This displays a sense of fairness and scholarship far beyond what one normally expects of skeptical writings. Mancjen even goes as far as to commend the beauty of the Jewish poetry in the King James'Bible and seeks to explain some of Christianity's popularity in terms of its' aesthetic appeal to beauty and poetry. The books' major fault is that Mencken often assumes things of which he cannot be positive and which may not be totally accurate. For example, he ascertains that Jesus was not married even though this is rather unlikely, he maintains that Jesus had no political ambitions which is even more unlikely, he assumes that the only true religious impulse is fear and never considers the feelings of awe or wonder and he uses dramatic license in recreating the prehistoric ancestry of humanity and the probable historical development of religion. In some cases, this seems to make his underlying philosophical assumptions just as full of wishful thinking as those of his advesaries, but he tempers his natural inclinations by admitting that he is not objective about the subject that he is considering, and by utlilising as many historical and reliable sources as he is able to find. I was surprised at how objective he remained throughout the whole of the work. Well worth reading.

I had no idea H. L. Mencken wrote a book until I stumbled upon this treatise (shows you how much I know). Needless to say, I snatched it up in a heartbeat. The book is, unsurprisingly, a literary delight. I was, however, struck at how calm the tone was compared to the acid sarcasm in his dispatches from the Scopes trial. I have to confess, I enjoyed the peacable Mencken more, not that the old trouble-maker doesn't peek through once in a while to give us a good laugh. There is, for instance, a little passage about a "rough Christian country." But I won't give it away - read it for yourself!

Who says comparative religion has to be dull? Mencken is on his best behavior here, but his characteristic flash and dazzle light up the book. As "The American Language", reflects Mencken's enduring interest in words, so this book reflects his fascination for religion in all it's varieties from high-toned to gaudy. While innumerable histories of religion have appeared before and since, probably none are so gracefully written and engaging. Even the pious will enjoy it. As for the "admittedly damned" (HLM's phrase), they will enjoy it all the more.

I'd scarcely agree with others here who suggest that this work is unbiased. Mencken was quite clearly not a believer, and fully argues from that position. I quote the preface (which this edition includes and which I heartily recommend you not skip):

"There is no purpose here to shake the faithful, for I am completely free of the messianic itch, and do not like converts."

Bias duly noted, I think. And appreciated.

What concerns me more when I read an analysis of the origins, impact, and likely outcomes of organized religion is: Does the writer do a convincing job of defending his bias? Mencken most certainly does, in the brilliantly literate, bleakly romantic prose he mastered in his days as a journalist. The truly remarkable thing about "Treatise," though, is that, for all its theological detail, it still makes the discourse about the validity (and absurdity) of religion utterly readable and conversational. Other than strongly recommending that you purchase the book, I would make only one more suggestion: Have your dictionary and your Wikipedia handy, for there are GRE words and theological arcana aplenty (but don't worry, they don't bog down the enjoyment). I leave you with one more taste:

"The Reformers were men of courage, but not many of them were intelligent. The new theology that they brought in was quite as silly as the old."

Amen.

If you're used to the snappy quotables we've (all?) come to expect from Mencken and love, you may be somewhat disappointed. "Treatise..." contains more carefully fleshed out analysis and argument than his sociocultural criticism.

In this mode, without so much of the caustic wit, his writing style actually doesn't impress quite as much. But, to make up for it, his quality of argument and inventiveness is surprisingly rich. I'd always considered Mencken to be quite a philosopher, as well as a snappy come-backer. Here, he proves it: coming up with some quite brilliant hypotheticals about the origin of religion in early man, especially. And his re-telling of the concise history of Religion shows that he has a knowledge of considerable breadth. There are a few very dramatic turns of phrase here (the fun stuff), some awkward delivery, but a lot of interesting subject matter.

Over the years this is probably the tenth or more copy of "Treatise On The Gods" (TOTG) I have purchased. I collect all books by and about H. L. Mencken (HLM). If a friend expresses an interest in HLM, I give him a copy because this is the most complete survey of all the Gods who have ever lived (and died). And they are all pretty much the same; in their demands, in their outlooks on life and their ability to create and destroy. Yaway (today's big time God) was the best at this. I give copies of TOTG away to fellow non-believers and grandsons who have to read it if they want any more money from me. Mencken maintained he was an agnostic, but I believe he was a thorough-going atheist. Not the suit-filing kind of atheist (10 commandments in the Court House, Ave Maria at high school graduation etc.) but one who believed and lived by Commandments 5 through 10. You don't have to be a Jew or a Christian to have ethics and live by certain decent standards. Mencken was a Conservative/Libertarian, one of the very few in democratic Christendom. When you get through with this epic, order "Treatise On Right and Wrong," another and even better book on religion and right and wrong.

I read this book a few years ago but am reading it again and wanted to share my views. I love how Mencken develops a very logical theory on how god and religion were created. It's certainly more logical than actually believing in one of the thousands of gods that have existed throughout the history of man.

While the theory is great, the facts about the different gods and religions is fascinating. I wonder if Christians knew that the story of Jesus was essentially the same story as many other previous religions just re-wrapped with new names if they would still be so faithful? Just as gods come and go, another religion will eventually replace Christianity and the believers of that new god will call those who believe in Christianity fools.

I often wondered as a child why people would accept Christianity just because they are geographically born in a certain location that is mostly Christian. The same can be said for any religion.

If I'm an atheist and you consider yourself a believer, you are actually an atheist as well, you just believe in one more god than I do. I reject your god for the same reason you reject Zeus, Ra, Osiris, Amen, Isis, Tezcatlipoca, Vinitius, Horus, Aton, etc. etc. etc. etc..