It is impossible to believe that the same God who permitted His own son to die a bachelor regards celibacy as an actual sin.
Interpretation
The quote questions the notion that celibacy is a sin by highlighting the example of Christ's single status.
H. L. Menckenβs quote challenges conventional beliefs about celibacy and marriage within religious contexts. By pointing out that God allowed His son Jesus to remain unmarried, Mencken suggests that celibacy should not be viewed as sinful or undesirable. Instead, he argues that this divine allowance reflects a complex understanding of human relationships and personal choice, prompting deeper contemplation of societal norms concerning love and partnership.
In practice
This quote could be used in a debate about the role of celibacy in religion.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.
Mythological symbols touch and exhilarate centers of life beyond the reach of vocabularies of reason and coercion.
When Levin thought what he was and what he was living for, he could find no answer to the questions and was reduced to despair; but when he left off questioning himself about it, it seemed as though he knew both what he was and what he was living for, acting and living resolutely and without hesitation.
An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. "Can they be brought together?" This is a practical question. We must get down to it. "I despise intelligence" really means: "I cannot bear my doubts.
The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.
Pension: An allowance made to anyone without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.
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