"For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing"
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Mencken’s genius here is that he doesn’t argue with theology on its own turf; he re-labels the whole enterprise as a category error with terrible taste. “The unknowable” grants religion its favorite defense - mystery - then Mencken twists the knife by saying the explanatory machinery doesn’t merely fail, it cheapens what it can’t grasp. The punchline is that theologians aren’t translating mystery into meaning; they’re translating it into trivia.
The hyphenated barb, “the-not-worth-knowing,” is classic Mencken: a mock-scholarly coinage that sounds like a technical term while functioning as an insult. It implies theology is less a search for truth than an elaborate bureaucracy of irrelevancies - metaphysical paperwork. By pairing “centuries” with that dismissive phrase, he frames tradition not as authority but as sunk cost: long tenure in a job that shouldn’t exist.
Subtextually, Mencken is attacking more than religion; he’s attacking the cultural prestige that lets certain institutions launder speculation into seriousness. Theologians become stand-ins for any professional class that survives by turning untestable claims into intricate systems, then confusing complexity for value.
Context matters: Mencken wrote in early 20th-century America, amid modern science’s rising confidence and Protestant moralism’s continued grip on public life. His broader project wasn’t gentle skepticism; it was an assault on sanctimony and the intellectual deference that shields it. The line works because it’s not a refutation - it’s a demotion. It denies theology its status as profound by suggesting its true product is not insight, but noise dressed as wisdom.
The hyphenated barb, “the-not-worth-knowing,” is classic Mencken: a mock-scholarly coinage that sounds like a technical term while functioning as an insult. It implies theology is less a search for truth than an elaborate bureaucracy of irrelevancies - metaphysical paperwork. By pairing “centuries” with that dismissive phrase, he frames tradition not as authority but as sunk cost: long tenure in a job that shouldn’t exist.
Subtextually, Mencken is attacking more than religion; he’s attacking the cultural prestige that lets certain institutions launder speculation into seriousness. Theologians become stand-ins for any professional class that survives by turning untestable claims into intricate systems, then confusing complexity for value.
Context matters: Mencken wrote in early 20th-century America, amid modern science’s rising confidence and Protestant moralism’s continued grip on public life. His broader project wasn’t gentle skepticism; it was an assault on sanctimony and the intellectual deference that shields it. The line works because it’s not a refutation - it’s a demotion. It denies theology its status as profound by suggesting its true product is not insight, but noise dressed as wisdom.
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| Topic | Sarcastic |
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