Religious Humor

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Religious Humor

• by Don L. F. Nilsen and
• Alleen Pace Nilsen

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• WARNING ABOUT RELIGIOUS HUMOR, TABOOS, AND
  CENSORSHIP
• In selecting examples of religious humor we have
  tried to be edgy, but not offensive, but consider
  the following
• CENSORSHIP FROM THE RIGHT Blasphemy, Obscenity,
  Profanity, Vulgarity, Body Parts, and Body
  Functions
• CENSORSHIP FROM THE LEFT (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS)
  Age, Disabilities, Gender, Ethnicity, Belief
  System, and all other marginalizations.
• Religious humor tends to be in the vernacular.
  It is colloquial, and ungrammatical and
  unpretentious, but it is also often vulgar
  because it is in the language of the common
  people (compare Vulgar Latin).
• Weve tried not to use offensive examples, and we
  hope we have succeeded, but remember that what is
  not offensive to one person might be very
  offensive to another person. We apologize in
  advance if any of our examples are offensive.

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John Morreall
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Laughter in the Bible

• When laughter is mentioned in the Bible, it is
  associated with one of three things.
• In descending order, they are
• Hostility
• Foolishness
• Joy

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• Laughter and Hostility
• For laughter and hostility, consider Psalms
  594-8 which implores God to have no mercy on
  villains and traitors. But you, O Lord, laugh
  at them, and deride all the nations
• Laughter and Foolishness
• For laughter and foolishness, consider Genesis
  1717 when God tells Abraham at age 99 that he
  and his aged wife Sarah will have a son

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• Abraham fell on his face and laughed.
• On hearing the news, Sarah also laughed with
  disbelief, and when God confronted her, she
  compounded her foolishness by denying that she
  had laughed.
• (Genesis 1812-15)

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• Laughter is again associated with foolishness in
  a Bible passage which reads
• Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness
  of countenance the heart is made glad.
• The heart of the wise is in the house of
  mourning but the heart of fools is in the house
  of mirth.
• (Ecclesiastes 73-6)

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• Laughter and Joy
• But laughter can also be associated with joy in
  the Bible as in
• When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we
  were like those who dream. Then our mouth was
  filled with laughter, and our tongues with shouts
  of joy (Psalms 1262)
• In the New Testament, Jesus says, Blessed are
  you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
• (Luke 621)

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Evangelism Paradox

• Evangelism is related to the awakenings, and is
  associated with fundamentalist Christianity. The
  religious world used to be divided between the
  Catholics and the Protestants, but now the
  division is more between the Evangelicals and
  mainstream religion.
• The word evangelism comes from the Greek
  evangelion, and is composed of eu (meaning
  well) and angelos (meaning messenger). It
  translates directly into Old English godspell
  or gospel (meaning good word).

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• Evangelical television preaches family values
  in which a womans place is in the home. But at
  the same time it places women into very public
  roles.
• Many Evangelicals simply refer to themselves as
  Christians, meaning that they have been born
  again or saved. This leaves mainstream
  Christian denominations puzzled or angered by the
  implication that they are not Christians.

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The First Senior Moment
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Spoiler Alert
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Be Right Back!
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Conrad Hyers and Harvey CoxThe Bible as Satire
and Festival

• Conrad Hyers sees the Story of Jonah as a satire
  on a reluctant prophet. In many stories about
  Jesus, he also finds wit, imagination, and an
  openness to people characteristic of someone with
  a sense of humor.
• In the Bible, Harvey Cox sees festivity in terms
  of conscious excess, and celebrative affirmation.
  Cox closes his book by asking Christians to
  think of Christ as a harlequin!

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John the EvangelistThe Importance of Play

• When people were scandalized at finding Jesus at
  play with his disciples, he requested one of his
  questioners who carried a bow to shoot an arrow.
  
• When this had been done several times, the man,
  on being asked whether he could keep on doing so
  continuously, replied that the bow would break.
• Whereupon the blessed John pointed the moral that
  so, too, would the human spirit snap were it
  never unbent.

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Point of View Earth from Heaven
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MORMONISMInsider-Humor to Question Attitudes

• A cartoon that appeared in the Brigham Young
  University newspaper in Utah showed a bloodied
  and battered student rising from a pile of stones
  that had been thrown at him.
• As a campus police officer comes up, the student
  explains, All I said was Let he who is without
  sin, cast the first stone.

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• Another Mormon joke is a story about St. Peter
  taking visitors around Heaven and telling them to
  tiptoe past the room where the Mormons are,
• because they think theyre the only ones here.

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Deseret Primer

• Early Mormons developed a special Deseret
  alphabet to distinguish Mormons from other
  groups.
• Also it was phonemic and easier for Mormon
  converts to read.

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Prayer
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Punishments for Laughter

• The monastery of Columban in Ireland assigned the
  following punishments He who smiles in the
  servicesix strokes if he breaks out in the
  noise of laughter, a special fast unless it has
  happened pardonably.
• The strongest condemnations of laughter came from
  monastic leaders. The Essenes, an early Jewish
  monastic group, had imposed a penance of thirty
  days for those who guffawed foolishly.

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Corporations as Belief Systems
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TIBETAN BUDDHISMLaughter and Open Mindedness

• When John Cleese asked the Dalai Lama why in
  Tibetan Buddhism people laugh so much, he
  responded that laughter is very helpful to him in
  teaching and in political negotiations, because
  when people laugh, it is easier for them to
  accept new ideas into their minds.

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Zen Buddhism

• Zen masters use koans to break peoples
  attachments to incongruities like What is the
  sound of one hand clapping?
• The most comic vision among traditional religions
  is in Zen Buddhism and Taoism.
• The most tragic vision is in certain forms of
  Judaism and Calvinist Christianity.
• Virtually all the New Religions of the past fifty
  years have embraced the comic vision.

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YURI NIKULINS JOKETrousers vs. The World

• Yuri Nikulin was known as the Russian Charlie
  Chaplin. When he died in 1997, his New York
  Times obituary recounted his favorite joke

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• An American actor rails at his New York Tailor
• God needed only seven days to create the
  universe and it took you 30 days to make a pair
  of trousers?
• Yes, answered the tailor, But look at the
  world, and then look at the trousers.

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Handels Hallelujah Chorus

• Hallelujah Chorus Food Court Flash Mob
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vSXh7JR9oKVE

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• A Wing-Suit Sky Jumper Meets His Maker
• http//safeshare.tv/w/kLlmcNCGBk

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Is there life after death?Keep stealing my
ducks, and youll find out.
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• History of Five Religions
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vx-sIF78QYCI