1. Chapter 23: Humor and Religion
by Don and Alleen Nilsen

2. Humour and Religion Network
Humour and Religion Network: Contact :

5. Our Grand Daughter Kami and Andrew (Not the Hurricane)
Marriage is a significant and solemn ceremony, usually followed by a reception, often with humorous toasts to the bride and groom. In this picture, Kami and Andrew are smiling because they know they will soon be going on their Honeymoon.

7. 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”).
We’ve 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.

8. John Morreall, Professor of Religious Studies at College of William and Mary

9. 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

11. Laughter and Hostility Laughter and Foolishness
For laughter and hostility, consider Psalms 59:4-8 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 17:17 when God tells Abraham at age 99 that he and his aged wife Sarah will have a son:

12. 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.”
When their child was born, they named him Isaac (meaning “He will laugh or rejoice”).
(Genesis 18:12-15)

13. 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 7:3-6)

14. 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 126:2)
In the New Testament, Jesus says, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.”
(Luke 6:21)

15. Four Great Religious Truths
Muslims do not recognize Jews as God’s chosen people.
Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian world.
Baptists do not recognize each other at Hooters.

16. 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”).

17. Evangelical television preaches “family values” in which a woman’s 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.”

18. Spoiler Alert:

19. Be Right Back!

20. Conrad Hyers and Harvey Cox: The 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!

21. John the Evangelist: The 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 out the moral that so, too, would the human spirit snap were it never unbent.

22. Point of View: Earth from Heaven

23. MORMONISM Insider-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.’”

24. Another Mormon joke is a story about St
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 they’re the only ones here.

25. 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.

27. Punishments for Laughter
The monastery of Columban in Ireland assigned the following punishments: “He who smiles in the service…six 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.”

28. TIBETAN BUDDHISM Laughter 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.

29. Zen Buddhism
Zen masters use “koans” to break people’s 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.

30. YURI NIKULIN’S JOKE Trousers 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:

31. An American actor rails at his New York Tailor:
“God needed only seven days to create the world 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.”

32. Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus”:
Hallelujah Chorus: Food Court Flash Mob

34. A Wing-Suit Sky Jumper Meets His Maker: http://safeshare

35. Is there life after death? Keep stealing my ducks, and you’ll find out.

36. Dia de Los Muertos
Every year on November 1st, Spanish speakers in Mexico and in the Southwestern United States celebrate their ancestors and relatives in a holiday named “Dia de Los Muertos” (Day of the Dead). In craft booths they make sugar skulls and skull jewelry and skull masks, etc. Many revelers dress in funny costumes, participate in plays, dances, musical events and mini dramas. All of the costumes represent death, and often they are distorted by being too big, too beautiful, or too tall. The public is invited to the festival part, but the families also have private memorial services.

37. Our Grand Daughter Lauren in a Dia de Los Muertos Booth

38. Some of the Death Costumes are beautiful. Some are ugly.

39. Some of the Death Costumes are very tall.

41. History of Five Religions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-sIF78QYCI

42. Nilsen, Alleen and Don. The Language of Humor: An Introduction
Nilsen, Alleen and Don. The Language of Humor: An Introduction. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2019.