A Visit with Mark Twain

By Gary Berg-Cross

The end of Summer and the beginning of Fall is a good time for people in this area to visit and roam the Freethought Trail in upstate NY.  This Trail for Freethinkers is a smart collection of places in West-Central New York, roughly the Finger Lakes area, that is historically rich in the development of freethought in the 19^th century. Last year I visited the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum, where you can  spend a little time with that exceptional mind thanks to the efforts of the  Council for Secular Humanism and its Tom Flynn.

This summer I was back in the trail with a visit to Mark Twain’s Elmira locations. Twain (aka real name Samuel Clemens) married Elmira native Olivia Langdon, and spent significant time in the area from the1870s to 1889. When married the couple lived in Buffalo and Hartford, Conn., for 20 years, but Twain and Olivia spent every summer in the peaceful setting of Olivia’s sister’s Elmira home. That home, called Quarry Farm, was located at the top of East Hill, which provides the geographic advantage of a stunning vista, removed from Elmira’s downtown. It now owned by Elmira college and you can see some wonderful things associated with Twain’s life on that campus. You can spend the day with Twain's thoughts by your side.  You can see some of the places he chose to be with the people that were special to him.

It was in Elmira that Mark Twain was married and afterwards penned many of his finest works. His daughters were born Elmira and it is where he entertained some notable guests. You can visit Twain’s study that is featured as a small building on campus. The study was moved from its original location, overlooking the Chemung River on Quarry Farm, to the Elmira College campus in 1952. Twain famously said of it:

“The three months which I spend here are usually my working months. I am free here and can work uninterruptedly.”

And in 1886, Twain penned a more detailed picture to the Chicago Tribune of it as a birthplace for ideas:

“The study may be called the home of Huckleberry Finn and other books of mine, for they were written here.”

This octagonal building was one of Twain’s favorite places  wrote major portions of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, The Prince and the Pauper, A Tramp Abroad, and many short pieces. In 1952 the Mark Twain Study was moved from Quarry Farm to the Elmira College campus. The Study is staffed by trained student guides daily throughout the summer and by appointment in the off-season.

You can see  a twain statue on campus along with memorabilia and associated material at the Mark Twain Exhibit in nearby Cowles Hall which houses photographs, stereoscopic views, and items from the summers Mark Twain and his family spent in Elmira. I loved the Exhibit which dresses up Twain and Olivia's life with association furniture and clothing. We were entertained by one of the student guides who are on hand daily throughout the summer and by appointment in the off-season. They can answer questions about Elmira's role in Mark Twain's life. I could spend a day just on the various quotes of Twain.  Some are displayed on the walls of the Hall or in the books for sale.

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”

— Mark Twain

My Dear Sir:

But you are proceeding upon the superstition that Moral Courage and a Hankering to Learn the Truth are ingredients in the human being's makeup. Your premises being wild and foolish, you naturally and properly get wild and foolish results. If you will now reform, and in future proceed upon the sane and unchallengeable hypothesis that those two ingredients are on vacation in our race, and have been from the start, you will be able to account for some things which seem to puzzle you now.

Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
Riverdale-on-the-Hudson, Dec. 21, 1901.

"What is it that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man's breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked; that you are beholding what human eye has not see before; that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To give birth to an idea -- an intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a field that many a brain-plow had gone over before. To be the first -- that is the idea. To do something, say something, see something, before anybody else -- these are the things that confer a pleasure compared with other pleasures are tame and commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial. Lifetimes of ecstasy crowded into a single moment." - Innocents Abroad

If you are lucky you may run into events sponsored by Center for Mark Twain Studies and you can ride a “Trolley into Twain Country” tour which brings Clemens’ biography to life, and also provides a glimpse into the history of Elmira itself.

The tour includes a stop at Woodlawn Cemetery where Twain and his wife, children and her family are buried.  It’s such a special place evoking deep feeling and many, many people have tried to capture it in video.  You can see one of many here.

A day with Twain is a day with a noble mind.  It makes one think freely and feel deeply. It is sad for the feeling of loss but it may send you back to the pleasant times with your favorite thinkers and their works. I don’t know exactly with Twain would say today, but it would likely be a memorial mix of his ironic wisdom and sadness about our wild and foolish ideas.  The saf fact that folly, rumor and ignorance still reigns despite his warnings and encouragements to the contrary.

More at

 http://newyorkstatesofmind.com/2013/07/18/a-foretaste-of-heaven-elmira-and-mark-twain/

Footage of Twain in the last year of his life

http://io9.com/the-only-known-footage-of-mark-twain-just-got-way-bette-1640814322

Getting Sound Advice from MLK

By Gary Berg-Cross

Agonizing over the various conflicts around the globe I wondered what Martin Luther King might have said.  At the time he spoke up about the Vietnam war the main street press largely criticized him:

I am convinced that it is one of the most unjust wars that has ever been fought in the history of the world. Our involvement in the war in Vietnam has torn up the Geneva Accord. It has strengthened the military-industrial complex; it has strengthened the forces of reaction in our nation. It has put us against the self-determination of a vast majority of the Vietnamese people, and put us in the position

of protecting a corrupt regime that is stacked against the poor.

It has played havoc with our domestic destinies. This day we are spending five hundred thousand dollars to kill every Vietcong soldier. Every time we kill one we spend about five hundred thousand dollars while we spend only fifty-three dollars a year for every person characterized as poverty-stricken in the so-called poverty program, which is not even a good skirmish against poverty.

Not only that, it has put us in a position of appearing to the world as an arrogant nation. And here we are ten thousand miles away from home fighting for the so-called freedom of the Vietnamese people when we have not even put our own house in order. And we force young black men and young white men to fight and kill in brutal solidarity. Yet when they come back home that can’t hardly live on the same block together.

The judgment of God is upon us today. And we could go right down the line and see that something must be done—and something must be done quickly. We have alienated ourselves from other nations so we end up morally and politically isolated in the world. There is not a single major ally of the United States of America that would dare send a troop to Vietnam, and so the only friends that we have now are a few client-nations like Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, and a few others.

This is where we are. "Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind," and the best way to start is to put an end to war in Vietnam.

Well we are long past Vietnam but justice and judgment are still issues. 

Pushed by Neocons and ill served by career politicians lobbyists and a careerist, collaborative press we stumbled into Iraq.  We still brandish weapons at Iran, support authoritarian regimes, military-security states, occupations and drone populations into enemies at will.  We are grid locked and unable to stop the various wars that threaten.

The neocon voices are heard loudly in the land so perhaps a quick visit to the MLK memorial and some quotes brought up to date from him can put us in a better peace perspective.  What would MLK say?  And what goes through people's mind as they face the challenge of a moral life?

"I oppose the war in Vietnam (add your favorite here – Gaza, Ukraine, Iran etc.) because I love America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as a moral example of the world."
Anti-War Conference, Los Angeles, California, February 26, 1967.

"Injustice anywhere (again add your favorite here – Gaza, Ukraine, Iran, Lybia, Syria etc.) is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
Letter from Birmingham, Alabama jail, April 16, 1963.

"I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits." (Only we aren't going to pay for any of it.)
Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Oslo, Norway, 1964

"It is not enough to say 'We must not wage war.' It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but the positive affirmation of peace." (I hear in Congress that we must restore full funding to DoD.)
Anti-War Conference, Los Angeles, California, February 25, 1967.

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of convenience and comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." (OK, I think we have the challenge and controversy, who’s standing where?)
Strength to Love, 1963.

"Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies."
New York City, April 4, 1967. (Oh that UN thing again.  What about American/Israeli/Russian etc. exceptionalism?)

"If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective."
Christmas sermon, Atlanta, Georgia, 1967. (See above….our loyalties are too important to give to the world for free it seems.)

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."
Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Oslo, Norway, 1964. (OK, this temporary has gone on long enough.)

"Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a better person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in."
March for Integrated Schools, April 18, 1959. (I might make this a career, after all jobs are hard to come by  What does it pay?)

Contemplate these and see where you stand on events. Comments appreciated. 

Some Secular and Non-Secular Perspectives for Earth Day

Gary Berg-Cross

Earth Day (ED) is, as they say, a 2^nd chance to the wearing of the green in Spring. It’s celebrated in many ways and not just on the 22^nd.  There is a nice   spill over for working folks into the weekend with Green events. And you can find any number of Inspirational Quotes for Earth Day. A favorite for the Deist crowd might be Frank Lloyd Wright’s:

I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.

Some years ago Yahoo music has its Top 10 Earth Day Songs:

Top 10 Earth Day Songs

1. Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) - Marvin Gaye

2. Big Yellow Taxi - Joni Mitchell

3. Paradise - John Prine

4. Shapes Of Things - The Yardbirds 

5. Nature's Way - Spirit

6. Don't Go Near The Water - The Beach Boys

7. If A Tree Falls - Bruce Cockburn

8. Don't Go Near The Water - Johnny Cash

9. Mother Earth (Natural Anthem) - Neil Young

10. I Remember California - R.E.M

It’s a good list although what about Pete Seeger singing Garden Song (Inch by inch)

 Since this is a day to raise children’s consciousness there are ones just for children with some good values, if some take a religious tone about god’s creatures.

I like the Celebrate Earth Day in Images that Google provided along with its  Animated Google Doodle.

But to all of these joyful connection there are a few suffers out there since Earth Day seems too secular a holiday celebration.  The New America site had a disgruntled Bob Adelman who started out noting that, “some consider it (earth day)the most holy of secular celebrations, the culmination of more than four decades of indoctrination of the theme that it’s moral to force people to go green.”

Yep, and his analysis provided this revelation for the selection of the April 22^nd ED date.

Various theories are extant about why April 22 instead of March 20, including trying to set the date during spring break, avoiding true religious holidays such as Easter and Passover, while honoring green believers. One of them, conservationist (not an “environmentalist” by today’s definition) John Muir, was born the day before, 132 years earlier, on April 21, 1838.

Perhaps more conveniently, April 22, 1970 was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lenin, the first totalitarian to inflict his own view of Earth Day onto the hapless citizens of the Soviet Union. Called a “subbotnik,” the first day of enforced cleaning of streets and public parks occurred on April 12, 1919.

Wow.  Shades of conspiracy and the very Jewish Bob Adelman commiserates with Steven Landsburg who complained that his four-year-old daughter was being subjected in public school to the indoctrination without proof. Here’s the Landsburg scree:

At the age of four, my daughter earned her second diploma. When she was two, she graduated with the highest possible honors from the Toddler Room at her nursery school in Colorado. Two years later she graduated from the preschool of the Jewish Community Center, where she matriculated on our return to New York State.

At the graduation ceremony, titled Friends of the Earth, I was lectured by four- and five-year-olds on the importance of safe energy sources, mass transportation, and recycling. The recurring mantra was "With privilege comes responsibility" as in "With the privilege of living on this planet comes the responsibility to care for it."

Of course, Thomas Jefferson thought that life on this planet was more an inalienable right than a privilege, but then he had never been to preschool.

I think I know what side of this issue the Deist-like and naturalist Jefferson would have been on. As a fiddler he’s be playing some of the songs listed above and didn’t Jefferson say this?

“Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands”

Thomas Jefferson

Paul Kurtz in Quote- Part 1

By Gary Berg-Cross

The thoughts of Paul Kurtz, one of America’s leading humanists, will be the topic of the Sept. 8^th 2012 WASH MDC-organized panel. As a preparation for this I thought it interesting to provide some Kurtz quotes. These reflect some of the many subjects Kurtz has commented on over a long career. As the author of several version of the “Humanist Manifesto, including the recent Neo-Humanist statement, he’s earned the title of a modern” father of secular humanism.” As a member of the American Humanist Association, and a long-time editor of its magazine, The Humanist, he contributed to the writing of Humanist Manifesto II in 1973, which was an update on the original which his mentor John Dewey co-authored. He served as editor-in-Chief of Free Inquiry and Chairman of the Council for Secular Humanism.

Below are some quotes from these and other sources.

Free Inquiry & Tolerance

"Free inquiry entails recognition of civil liberties as integral to its pursuit, that is, a free press, freedom of communication, the right to organize opposition parties and to join voluntary associations, and freedom to cultivate and publish the fruits of scientific, philosophical, artistic, literary, moral and religious freedom." 

"Free inquiry requires that we tolerate diversity of opinion and that we respect the right of individuals to express their beliefs, however unpopular they may be, without social or legal prohibition or fear of success."

Strategy and Criticism of Religion

I am not suggesting that we should not critically examine religious claims, especially where they are patently false, injurious, and destructive. The secular world constantly needs to be defended against those who would undermine it, and we need to responsibly examine the transcendental and moral claims of supernaturalism and criticize its pretensions—especially when they impinge on personal freedoms. (from Free Inquiry May 2004)

Freedom from Religion

A key point to recognize is that one does not have to be an atheist or agnostic in order to defend the separation principle. In the United States, most Protestant denominations defend separation, as do secular Jews, liberal Roman Catholics, Unitarians, and members of other denominations. Secular humanists have many allies in this great battle. Indeed, both liberals and conservatives, believers and unbelievers, have stood firmly in support of the First Amendment. (from Free Inquiry May 2004)

Humanism and Liberation of the Human Mind

“If God is dead. Humanism is alive.”

Most humans feel the transcendent temptation, the emotional drive to festoon the universe with large-scale meaning.

“There is a broader task that all those who believe in democratic secular humanist values will recognize, namely, the need to embark upon a long-term program of public education and enlightenment concerning the relevance of the secular outlook to the human condition.” 

from  the   Humanist Declaration

Humanism and "Secular Humanism

Secularism needs to be adapted to diverse cultural conditions if it is to gain ground. I submit that we cannot legislate secularism uberhaupt without recognizing the cultural traditions in which it emerges. Accordingly, multi-secularism seems to be the best strategy to pursue: that is, adapting secular ideas and values to the societies in which they arise.

The question that I wish to raise is: What is secularism and/or the secular society?

Among the secular values that emerge today is the compelling need to develop a new Planetary Ethics. Because we must share the Earth, no entity can any longer be allowed to attempt to impose an exclusive, doctrinaire religious creed on every man and woman. We live in a multicultural world in which multi-secularism needs to be developed—in which different forms of secularism need to be adapted to the diverse cultural traditions and contexts of specific societies. Thus, we need secularized Christianity, secularized Judaism, secularized Hinduism, and even secularized Islam; all are requisite for societies to be able to cope with their problems. (from Free Inquiry May 2004)

A New Enlightenment

If we are to usher in a New Enlightenment, we need to spell out new goals to be achieved in the future. I can only briefly suggest what these might entail:

•The New Enlightenment needs to defend secularism, that is, the separation of church and state and the secularization of values.

•It must be planetary in scope, applying to all members of the human family—thus it would develop a new planetary ethics.

•It would seek to develop the public appreciation of scientific methods of inquiry and the scientific outlook.

•It would emphasize the need to use reason to resolve social differences and to lessen the resort to violence on the national and international level.

•It would defend the protection and cultivation of democracy and human rights everywhere.

•It would seek to banish poverty and disease from all parts of the globe and to reduce the disparities in income and wealth by expanding the amount of wealth and income available.

•It would focus on education and persuasion as the best methods for achieving social change, and it would make education and cultural enrichment truly universal.

•It would seek to elevate taste and appreciation, to cultivate the best of which we are capable as human beings, to achieve excellence, and improve the quality of life.

•It would seek for all people to work together to deal with global problems such as the unmeasured growth of population, environmental hazards, and global warming.

•It would seek to cultivate individual freedom consonant with the rights of others.

•While it would respect diversity and multiculturalism, it would seek always to find common ground that we may share.

•It would encourage cultivation of open societies, equal access to the media, and freedom of inquiry and research.

•It would seek to go beyond the ancient religious, ethnic, and national moral prohibitions of the past and move on to new alternatives appropriate to the contemporary world, new ethical values and principles.

•It would seek to generate and expand equality before the law and equality of opportunity for all individuals.

•It would seek to develop cooperative efforts among all segments of the world to deal with common problems.

Finally, it would exude some optimism about the human prospect, some belief that the human condition can be progressively improved, and above all, express the resolve to do so. (Free Inquiry Editorial -October/November 2005 Vol. 25, No. 6)

Life, Happiness & World View

Life, when fully lived under a variety of cultural conditions, can be euphoric and optimistic; it can be a joy to experience and a wonder to behold.

It is not the "courage to be" that we must develop as much as the "courage to become." We are responsible for our destiny. The meaning of life is not located in some hidden crevice in the womb of nature but is created by free persons, who are aware that they are responsible for their own futures and have the courage to take this project into their own hands.

The meaning of life is not to be discovered only after death in some hidden, mysterious realm; on the contrary, it can be found by eating the succulent fruit of the Tree of Life and by living in the here and now as fully and creatively as we can

Ethics & Values

…since the Renaissance, secularity in the ethical domain has been growing in influence. Secularists do not look to salvation and confirmation of the afterlife as their overriding goal, but rather focus on temporal humanist values in the here and now—happiness, self-realization, joyful exuberance, creative endeavors and excellence, the actualization of the good life—not only for the individual but for the greater community. (from Free Inquiry May 2004)

Far from living in a moral vacuum, secular humanists “wish to encourage wherever possible the growth of moral awareness.” (The quote comes from “A Secular Humanist Declaration,” the Council for Secular Humanism’s founding document, authored by Paul Kurtz.)

“common moral decencies” (include) qualities including integrity, trustworthiness, benevolence, and fairness. These qualities are celebrated by almost every human religion, not because God ordained them, but because human beings cannot thrive in communities where these values are ignored.

Free Inquiry into Science

Not the least among secular values of course is free inquiry and freedom of scientific research, the very basis of science and technology. Religious censorship or limitation—such as that intelligent-design advocates seek to impose on scientific theories of evolution—is unacceptable. The free mind is vital for the open society. If one wants to pursue scientific inquiry, then one needs to abide by methodological naturalism: objective standards of evidence, rational coherence, and experimental testing are quite independent of the Bible or Qur’an. (from Free Inquiry April/May 2004)

Skepticism (The New York Times called him "a skeptic of everything but fact.")

"a skeptic is one who is willing to question any claim to truth, asking for clarity in definition, consistency in logic, and adequacy of evidence." Skepticism and Humanism by Paul Kurtz

“I would like to introduce another term into the equation, a description of the religious "unbeliever" that is more appropriate. One may simply say, "I am a skeptic." This is a classical philosophical position, yet I submit that it is still relevant today, for many people are deeply skeptical about religious claims.
Skepticism is widely employed in the sciences. Skeptics doubt theories or hypotheses unless they are able to verify them on adequate evidential grounds. The same is true among skeptical inquirers into religion. The skeptic in religion is not dogmatic, nor does he or she reject religious claims a priori; here or she is simply unable to accept the case for God unless it is supported by adequate evidence.” From Why I Am a Skeptic about Religious Claims

Life, Happiness & World View

As I see it, creative achievement is the very heart of the human enterprise. It typifies the human species as it has evolved, particularly over the past forty to fifty thousand years: leaving the life of the hunter and the nomad, developing agriculture and rural society, inventing industry and technology, building urban societies and a world community, breaking out of the earth's gravitational field, exploring the solar system and beyond. The destiny of humankind, of all people and of each person, is that they are condemned to invent what they will be - condemned if they are fearful but blessed if they welcome the great adventure. We are responsible in the last analysis, not simply for what we are, but for what we will become; and that is a source of either high excitement or distress. Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 18, Number 3.

Facing Death

…each person must face death: life has meaning only if we realize that it will end. It is in viewing one's life as a complete whole that one sees it for what it is: what I accomplished and did well; whether I fulfilled some of my dreams and plans; whether I enjoyed life, made friends, fell in love, worked for a beloved cause, and so forth. I should have no false hopes about death, but I should do what I can to ward it off. Indeed, health is a first condition if one is to live well. We must not be deluded by a belief in immortality but should face death realistically. A free person worships the creative life as the ultimate good. But when death comes, he or she will accept it with equanimity, if with sorrow; and he or she will realize that in the face of death the only thing that really counts is what has been the quality of life, and what has been given to or left for others.

Image Credits

Skeptic Card Trumps by Crispian Jago: http://crispian-jago.blogspot.com/2010/05/skeptic-trumps-paul-kurtz.html

Free Inquiry Cover: http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=fi&page=index_25_6

Great Thoughts at the Library of Congress

by Gary Berg-Cross

Washington DC is a great city to visit for scientific and humanities treasures. One repository of humanist and intellectual expression is the Jefferson building of the Library of Congress. This Beaux-Arts palace was constructed from the wealth of the Gilded Age which yielded its prosperity to the more hopeful reform of a Progressive era. It was an age of science and technology celebrating in World Fairs and Edison seeming to invent just what we needed.

In this atmosphere the Library of Congress building was constructed,. The building as a whole reflects a Jeffersonian spirit, child of the Enlightenment idea that intelligence and an informed public is necessary for democracy and society. One can enjoy the joyful expression of this principle and many supporting ideas on the walls of the Jefferson building of the Library.

Above the windows of the great hall’s East corridor on the 2^nd floor there are, for example, some very humanistic quotations:

SCIENCE IS ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE
Herbert Spencer, Essays, "The Genesis of Science," Vol. ii, 1.

Around the corner, facing the staircase, a poet speaks:

BEAUTY IS TRUTH, TRUTH BEAUTY
Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

On the other side of the staircase a 17th mediation on life and death:

TOO LOW THEY BUILD WHO BUILD BENEATH THE STARS
Edward Young, Night Thoughts, "Night," viii, 215

And around the corner, facing the Great Hall is something naturalistic philosophy:

THERE IS BUT ONE TEMPLE IN THE UNIVERSE
AND THAT IS THE BODY OF MAN
Novalis, Philosophy and Physics

The feeling of historical wisdom washes over me in the presence of these thoughts. Lucky visitors can enjoy these and more that show some of humanistic cultural wisdom inherited from Greco-Roman times up to the great writers, thinkers and artists of the 19^th century. They have much to say that is worth reflecting about in our times.

THE NOBLEST MOTIVE IS THE PUBLIC GOOD Virgil

King James and Citizen Grayling

A few days ago I was surprised to hear an NPR story about the 400th anniversary of the completion of the King James Bible (KJB) in 1611. The story by Barbara Bradley Hagerty was entitled "Hallelujah! At Age 400, King James Bible Still Reigns"

One of the themes of the celebration is to honor its general status as one of the great masterpieces of world literature. The early 17th century was indeed a great era for literature since it comes roundly in Shakespeare's time. Perhaps for this reason one of the celebrating events in a marathon recital of the King James Bible at London's Globe theater with 20 actors working in rotation to present all 69 hours of this historic book.

The NPR story was interesting to me because it not only covered the language of the KJB, but some of the background history about how it came to be written. Interestingly there were several poltical-religious ingredients starting around 1603. That's when King James I, whose name leads in KJB, ascended to the English throne after ruling Scotland. According to Gordon Campbell, a historian at the University of Leicester the English were suspicious of this seemingly foreign king, He may not have been born in Kenya or a Hawaii-like distance but he:
"spoke with a heavy Scottish accent, and one of the things he needed to legitimize himself as head of the Church of England was a Bible dedicated to him."

This was timely because England was warring over 2 earlier English translations of the Bible. There was the Bishops' Bible which was read in churches, but was clunky & inelegant. Then there was the Puritan choice, called the Geneva Bible which was more accessible and "bolder" because it included "marginal notes" according to David Lyle Jeffrey (Baylor University historian). From the point of view of the royalists, and the new King there was a executive problem:

"these marginal comments often did not pay sufficient respect to the idea of the divine right of kings."

Shades of Social Justice Christianity! The notes referred to kings as tyrants and challenged regal authority. Good King James needed another, more favorable version. Perhaps they had PR and Presidential Commission folks back, because they got the bishops and the Puritans together like 2 opposing groups to compromise and work out the differences. The hidden agenda was to eliminate the Social Justice flavored notes while losing the clunky language that hindered the kingly message.

What astonishes many is the quality of language that could emerge from something started with such devious motives. It's not every committee compromise that produces poetry of extraordinarily high quality. The KJB's pleasant phrasing has allowed it to find a home in our language, thoughts, customs and laws. As one commenter summarized it:
"It's memorable. It's beautiful. And in the KJB, it's distinctively the voice of God."

Of course as we've seen how it was engineered to be that kingly voice. It's been reworked to have an impact.

Examples offered of its powerful language include:

Isaiah 40 , where God speaks out of the whirlwind saying:
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD's hand double for all her sins.
Hagerty's article summarizes many English Phrases which seem to have been coinage in the KJB. These are mostly non-religious and include:

• A drop in the bucket (Isaiah 40:15)
• A house divided against itself cannot stand (Matthew 12:25)
• A man after his own heart (Samuel 13:14 or Acts 13:22)
• A wolf in sheep's clothing (Matthew 7:15)

These are all fine and good, but I think that admirers of Mark Twain can find equally good ones that were inspired more recently and didn't take a committee of bishops. For example:

• You can't reach old age by another man's road.
• Honor is a harder master than the law.
• Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.

Going back a little farther in US history an Enlightenment Age Benjamin Franklin coined some pretty good ones too:

• Honesty is the best policy.
• A penny saved is a penny earned.
• A place for everything, everything in its place.
• Lost time is never found again.

But there's more. I happened to have attended a talk by the noted philosopher A. C. Grayling a few days ago. He happen to also talk about the history of the Bible and had a few additional things insights(from what we might say is a Secular Perspective) about how the the language came about and its influence.

For one thing Grayling pointed out that the 6 committees of 50 translators did not achieve remarkable quality, clarity and consistency by themselves. They all drew heavily on an earlier 16th century translation by William Tyndale (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyndale) As noted in Wikipedia "Although the authorised King James Version is ostensibly the production of a learned committee of churchmen, it is mostly cribbed from Tyndale with some reworking of his translation."

The Catholic Church in particular did not like much of Tyndale's translations which in their opion did not provide a proper view- using words like "overseer" where they preferred "bishop," "elder" for "priest" etc. So “In 1535, Tyndale was arrested by church authorities and jailed in the castle of Vilvoorde outside Brussels for over a year. He was tried for heresy, strangled and burnt at the stake in 1536."

However, the KJB committees liked the tone of Tyndal's archaic language. They could use this is set a proper kingly tone for god. As Grayling notes, groups tweaked Tyndale translation to suit their purposes. This is part of a long history or reworking it to suit particular messages. Folks redact what they don't want and enhance what message they are selling. The translated Bible, like Shakespeare's works, draws heavily on prior work, making an older story into a bolder more digestible one. Old testament tribal leaders are made to seem like 17th century Kings and societies from 2500 years earlier are made to seem more like nation states than tribes. Great Scott! Mark Twain would have had fun with this if he gotten a chance as he did with the Romantic era's view of a King Arthur!

We don't have Twain to deconstruct the KJB, but A. C. Grayling has gone one better. He has constructed a new version, "The Good Book: A secular Bible." Like the KJB this is intended to make bold but is easy to digest since it can be taken in small bites such as "Be gentle since life is short."

This Good, or I would say Wise Book, mirrors the Bible in both form and language, but is a manifesto for rational thought. Grayling calls the work "ambitious and hubristic – a distillation of the best that has been thought and said by people who've really experienced life, and thought about it". To do this he draws on some classical secular texts from both east and west. So he has sources like Hume, Socrates, & Cicero. But he has reworked them into a "great treasury of insight and consolation and inspiration and uplift and understanding in the great non-religious traditions of the world".

While the book begins with a scientific view of our genesis it ends with a secular humanist version of the 10 Commandments. The Bible's has God giving Moses a small list include laws forbidding idol worship along with prohibition of killing and stealing. In Grayling's secular alternative, he mines and refines past secular humanists to give the reader these 10 commandments:

1. "Love well,
2. seek the good in all things,
3. harm no others,
4. think for yourself,
5. take responsibility,
6. respect nature,
7. do your utmost,
8. be informed,
9. be kind,
10. be courageous: at least, sincerely try."

Thank you Dr. Graylin. I was so charmed by the effort and his talk I bought a copy for my son. Something to grow on.