The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected.
Interpretation
This quote addresses the societal expectation to respect religious beliefs, questioning its validity and roots.
H. L. Mencken's quote critiques the prevailing social convention that mandates respect for religious beliefs, highlighting the irony and curious nature of this expectation in a modern age where critical thought should prevail. It suggests that the automatic respect given to religious opinions may inhibit honest discourse and intellectual inquiry, inviting readers to consider the implications of such a convention on society's values and critical thinking.
In practice
During a debate on religious freedom, one could reference this quote to discuss the balance between respect and critical thought.
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.
I think there is a serious corruption in the idea sold through advertising that you can attain spiritual peace through lifestyle and the notion of building your happiness from the outside-in by acquiring things . . . which if you think about it, is the essence of advertising
The deadliest foe of democracy is not autocracy but liberty frenzied. Liberty is not foolproof. For its beneficent working it demands self-restraint, a sane and clear recognition of the practical and attainable, and of the fact that there are laws of nature which are beyond our power to change.
People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarreling with them.
We need not be theologians to see that we have shifted responsibility for making the world interesting from God to the newspaperman.
Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.
I - and I still consider myself, I'm sorry to tell you, a Marxist and a Communist, but I couldn't help noticing how all the best Marxist analyses are always analyses of a failure.
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