The works of the American satirist Mark Twain (1835-1910) are extremely popular among a lot of people. We know Mark Twain as a talented novelist, witty storyteller, essayist, who, in his work, reflected daily American life, subjected to the merciless criticism of the manners and customs of bourgeois society. However, Mark Twain, a critic of religion, is not so familiar to us. This can be explained by the fact that many of writer’s atheist works remained unpublished for a long time, and some of them saw the light of the day only recently. From the biographical material that was published after his death, we learned a lot about his attitude to religion.

“Letters from the Earth” is the most critical piece of Mark Twain, which exposes the religious dogma. The story was set in the ancient times, when God created the universe. He then placed the animals on Earth, giving each of them a specific quality, such as ferocity or timidity. Finally, as an experiment, he created people. Each person received all the qualities of animals in varying proportions from him. Archangels began to discuss the new creation of God. Among them was Satan, who like the others, praised God’s new creation, but all his praise was apparent irony. As a consequence, he was banished again from heaven to the newly created world. He was amazed, when he got acquainted with the religion of humanity. From his point of view, it was something absurd and ridiculous. Satan described his impressions in a series of letters to the heavens.

Another satiric essay, The Damned Human Race, exposes Twain’s thoughts, while he compares behavior of a human being to a behavior of an animal. He makes a conclusion that Darwinian Theory is wrong, and thinks that people descended from animals, not the other way around. He underpins his believes by a number of valid points, for example, that people think only about themselves and take from nature much more then they need to survive. Another point is that animals, unlike people, never hold grudges or retaliate. Mark Twain believed that the main reason for this inhuman behavior was the sense of morality, as its aspects vary from country to country and cause confrontations. Morals define and create evil simultaneously.

Twain’s arguments are also supported by a number of experiments he conducted. He tells a story of an English Earl, who arranged a buffalo slaughter, during which 72 buffaloes were killed, and meat of only 1 was touched. He projected the same situation on animals and placed 7 calves with an anaconda in one cage. The anaconda only ate one and did not touch the rest. This example shows how greedy and wasteful human beings are. Though he did not include any real facts in his essay, as it was based entirely on his observations, he raised some disturbing questions about the nature of a human. The Damned Human Race surely makes one rethink his values and ideals.