Mark Twain's The War Prayer

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Samuel Langhorne Clemens better known for his pen name Mark Twain was a realistic writer. He is one of the most celebrated American authors, who used his pen to depict social realism (New World Encyclopedia contributors). Mark Twain’s The War Prayer is one of the most controversial satires all this time. In the satire Mark Twain eloquently illuminate the shadows of our humanity, the feelings one doesn’t actually realize they have and his feelings on war.
In The War Prayer, it was a time of abundant excitement. The country was at war. The people were excited about the war. Proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering on the young volunteers as they walked down the streets with voices choked with happy emotion.
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If one ever has the pleasure of going to a church around the time a young person is about to be deployed, one may have the privilege of seeing the pastor and elders of the church do a war prayer. The prayer is a very energetic event and in some causes loud. The room is filled with verbal acceptance and agreement of the words the prayer. The prayer no matter the wording usually still has the same base concepts protection, courage return home sound and victorious. The personal are often told to trust in the lord, the lord will order their steps and that god will hold their head up while they are away from home. Twain would have been greatly opposed to theses rhetoric. Twain was continually critical of religion so much so his critics called him an atheist (Reesman). Twain even from a young age was critical of religion, he hated organized religion, often seeing people be more religious than actually care about god (Smylie ). In The War Prayer Twain is criticizing the people for using religion to farther their nationalism. The prayers had nothing to really do with god but were the selfish desires of the people. They used god to make it seem like what they were saying was right, these deep god loving thought but in truth they were not. Twain felt that people often used religion as an excuse for the behaviors, however the focus needed to be more on god((Smylie

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