Mark Twain was no Dummy...

"As Mark Twain said, 'I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.' Also, what a miserable existence you must have to see death as the biggest event in your life, when it should do nothing more than mark the end of a sequence of much bigger events. Go live." TSL

Bravely spoken. Mark Twain was a very intelligent and witty man. In a 1868 speech, he said, "God puts something good and loveable in every man His hands create." But he also said, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so," and "If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be – a Christian."

Despite his criticism for organized religion, he had a profound respect for Jesus, once telling his brother, "Neither Howells nor I believe in hell or the divinity of the Savior, but no matter, the Savior is none the less a sacred Personage, and a man should have no desire or disposition to refer to him lightly, profanely, or otherwise than with the profoundest reverence."

He said of Him, "There has been only one Christian. They caught and crucified him--early."

Men often speak bravely when things are going well. Towards the end of the 19th century Mark Twain's good fortune began to change. In the 1890s, he made some risky investments that brought him to bankruptcy. Then his oldest daughter died of meningitis, his youngest was diagnosed an epileptic, and his own health began to fail. His closest friend died, and his beloved wife lost her health and eventually died, of whom he had once said, "You are my world, my life, my pride, my all of earth that is worth the having."

The storms of life predictably left him bitter at God, saying that He was "destitute of morals," and that "He could invent the tortures and set in motion the laws and machinery which should continue them through all time without his supervision, then turn His attention elsewhere and trouble himself no further about the matter."

In time, his bitterness even changed his mind about Jesus, crediting Him with what Twain believed was the invention of Hell. He wrote "the meek and gentle savior was a thousand times crueler than ever he was in the Old Testament."

So keep in mind that when you quote the great Mark Twain, you are quoting a man who wasn't a dummy. He believed in the existence of God, but tragically it seems that he didn't have the good sense to obey Him. Hopefully, you do.

P.s.
For those who still insist that Mark Twain was a fool:

"No man that has ever lived has done a thing to please God--primarily. It was done to please himself, then God next." Mark Twain, a Biography

"Man proposes, but God blocks the game." Letter to Jean Clemens, 19 June, 1908

"God pours out love upon all with a lavish hand -- but He reserves vengeance for His very own." Mark Twain's Notebook

"None of us can be as great as God, but any of us can be as good." Mark Twain's Notebook, 1902-1903