Is it OK to joke about religion?

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jsp...=20080404115931

I think the only time one should talk about religion is when making a joke.

It IS a joke

it is great how people in religion manage to keep a straight face though. If I was telling a joke that good, I'd probably ruin it by laughing or at least snickering a bit.

I choose to kid about anything I want to kid around about. By definition I am not being serious and those that get offended can kiss my ass. This system is a good way of choosing people to pal around with, you weed out the thinned skinned whiners quickly.

*snigger*

I think one does have to consider the degree of offence the joke might cause including the risk of civil disorder. A joke between friends is one thing, but in cartoons in newspapers, prime time TV or from political platforms a "joke" can be misperceived as a threat or an attack on a particular group. Most reasonable people can make educated guesses as to where the line is that should not be crossed. The cartoons in Denmark quite deliberately (and idiotically) crossed that line to prove an utterly trivial point only to trigger worldwide civil disorder, mass indignation and a whole ranmge of religious positions including moslem, christian and atheist all at each others throats. You really have to ask, is that sort of agro really worth the bother?

If your god can't take a joke by some cartoonists then maybe you should find a god without the insecurity problems of a 15 year old girl...

yep

It's a good point. These people are brainwashed into believing these things and therefore some are going to react. 'Our' freedom of speach says that we should but in excercising that freedom we will ellicit a response from people who's own programming is less liberal.

I'm kind of reminded of the rape thread. Is it right a woman should be able to walk around anywhere wearing whatever she sees fit. Of course. Is it dangerous and Ill advised at times. Sadly yes.

Freedom of mind is not something all have the luxury of and those without will just will not see it as a joke. You are personally offending them.

As any comedian knows the first rule of comedy is...timing. And probably now is just not the right time.

If you consider the bigger picture, it wasn't that long ago that people the UK were hanged for blasphemy:
Eg: Thomas Aikenhead

I personally don't make jokes about religion, but I can laugh at them...

My mother had a collection of religous satires gathered into one book - the Bible.

Sorry guys but joking about religion is just disgusting. The same holds for jokiing about nationality, race, profession, appearence and most of all sex. All this should be forbidden!!!

Its a matter of people in glass houses throwing stones. A joke is a joke wether its about religion, race, politics or disability.

If you take the piss out of people for being religious dont be a hypocrite and winge when people make jokes about your nationality or political views or race. If you take the piss out of poeple and you invite the same in return.

Some people, to varying degrees are sensitive about these topics.

Some people will always split hairs and say a joke about religion is different to race, disability, nationality etc but its realy like saying you cannot thorw that stone at my house as I only threw a pebble at yours.

You still broke my window so I dont give a shit what you threw.

and maybe sometimes lighting a candle is better than cursing the darkness. Just a thought.

There are now more moslems than Catholics in the world. It is patently obvious that good reasonable moderate moslems exist and we should be find ways to build bridges with them and create a world of mutual understanding.

Instead in recent years, Europe seems to have gone out of its way to poke extremist elements who will never even remotely accomodate with pointy sticks and then decry the intolerance of islam when the world erupts. It is childish, unnecessary and often hides deeply sinister agendas behind a veil of free speech.

Beating the ban - there was this black, English, hunchbacked, peadophile priest ...

presumabley that was a joke . . .

its not that religion should not be joked about. I doubt anyone could legislate against that. But sometimes discretion should suggest that some jokes are illadvised on a public platform.

TT is also a public platform...Fortunately our mods have quite a liberal sense of humour :-)

We all come frome the same place and are going to the same place

Yes, it's ok to joke about religion, any religion.

But on the other hand, I don't think people should have to walk on glass to avoid offended a particular group because they might get their feelings hurt. I understand its childish to publically antagonize people, but I feel uncomfortable with the promulgation of attitudes that can lead to instutionalized censorship..

Its the ultimate joke of life.

We only find out if there is or isnt a god/other diety upon death.

This goes either way...

Those that dont believe are right - no one will care as either we just stop or we move on somewhere else.
Those that believe are right - good for them, not so for the rest if the diety in question is not happy baout the lack of belief.

Either way, none of us will be telling the rest left behind about it.

Or, the third option, as told in one of the pratchett book..You get what you believe...

Believe in nothing, you go to it.
Believe in a diety and an after life, you go to it.
Believe you move on, you go to it.

As the two guys in the book decided, we now believe in a place where women are sexualy liberal and want to please us :-)

its not got anything to do with hurting people's feelings believe me. I seriously doubt there were any moslems weeping into their pillows over the Danish cartoons. But there is a certain violently rightwing paraNazi element on the very far extremes of islam that looks for ANY excuse to try and trigger mayhem. When they can do it with a ringing cry of 'blasphemy' this rouses a whole lot of religious people too and what have you got - a bandwagon of ignorance and misunderstanding. The stuff that revolutions and civil wars thrive on. Like it or not, the world is teetering on the brink of something unthinkable and thoughtless twats in Europe who think its clever to make a big 'bang' for free speech against such sinister movements should think twice.

In the end, who gives a fuck about 'blasphemy'? It is a really stupid trivial issue in the grand scheme of things.

After all there are matters like the treatment of women, gay people, racial minorities and nonmoslems where islam should be very legitimately criticised. I believe we are likely to be supported by many moslems, especially here in Europe if we challenge islam on these matters

There is always the possibility that makíng the wrong joke will get you targeted for assassination.

but arn't jokes an excellent way of targeting these issues? esp. if made by moslems themselves?

yup. But note the 'jokes' that have sparked worldwide protests were not actually about these issues at all.

Lets start an anti Muslim and Muslim joke thread to see if it gets Editor Bob and the moderator team annihilated.

I'm one of those who will spend a long time splitting hairs on this one as there are massive differences. The differences being whether they are physical , like a disability , or psycological/socio-political like race/religion.

Anyway I read 'is it ok to joke about religion'. Not whether it is OK to joke about somebody being religious. I would say there is a world of difference there.

Check out Ricky Gervais and his Genesis sketch on you tube frigin hilarious

I dont see the difference in insulting someone through a joke about anything, size, colour, religion, disability.

I have still insulted them regardless of how I wish to justiy that to myself. I have either mocked them over how they look, how they think or on something that makes them different to me.

The differences on what is ok to joke about are with the person making the joke.

Although in principle I agree there is a difference between joking about religion and mocking a person about their beliefs there seem to be a lot of indirectly insulted people unhappy about certain cartoons.

None were made fun of, all feel insulted.

It's largely a cultural thing. The Brits joke about everything, death and religion included, but many aspects of humour just seem beyond Germans, for example.

Did somebody call the spanish inquisition?

sorry couldn't resist.

Ah, the inquisition, what a show...

Confess, don't be boring, confess, don't be dull...

If GOD is the top DOG of all religions and responsible for releasing us with the ability to make jokes, then what is the problem?
Or are we just the Beta versions and when Human Pack 2 is released then that glitch will have been removed?

I teach about and study religion for a living and think an appropriately timed joke can have pedagogical merit. I'd love to see a neurologist or psychologist comment on how a response of laughter can open up cognitive pathways, creating the opportunity for greater learning, discussion and reflection. Laughter, especially about oneself or one's religion (or culture, etc.) can be disarming. If laughter is taboo, then a subject is de facto given privileged status and cannot be the subject of critical analysis, which I think is the problem this thread is aiming at. Personally I love it, for example, when Jesuit friends of mine joke about how many Jesuits it takes to change a lightbulb.

and where would us/american humour be today without the massive input of jewish humour??

in Any Case, No one knows if you are a DOG in internet.

I agree with the people who have talked about laughing at yourself. Maybe this is "wrong", but American stand up comics are much more likely to (and more accepted when they) make jokes about "niggers" if they are black. The best Jewish jokes come from Jewish people, and the best about women from women. I think it is much less offensive if you are making fun of something that is part of your own identity. Joking and criticism are better received from your own. I notice, for example, that I quite like Michael Moore films, but when somebody who doesn´t KNOW America starts in on it, that makes me mad.

Sure, freedom of speech and all that, but ER does have a point that you need to think about the practical aspect of repercussions.

About the reactions to the Danish cartoons -- apparently the governments of some Muslim countries handed out Danish flags to burn. It´s not that normal people got all upset -- it was the government getting them riled up and using them as puppets.

Dylan Moran on religion.


Some other comedians on religion.

So your all-powerful, all-knowing invisible sky giant cries like a little girl if we hurt his widdle feewings? If he's so fucking powerful, why doesn't he just smite me himself, the big pansy?

woof.

Someone please make a joke about this anti-religious dogma!

Yes, I agree 100%. Being able to laugh about yourself and your own perspectives / beliefs / frameworks is very important indeed.

So it's OK to joke about religion but not Islam? Maybe the people making educated guesses about where the line is that should not be crossed are not so much reasonable or sensitive to others' views than intimidated by the idea of a possible adverse reaction. That's not very healthy for freedom of speech.

If Salman Rushdie had published the Satanic Verses today, would people be more inclined to be shocked by the adverse reaction from Islamic fundamentalists, as they were in 1989, or to blame Rushdie for being unreasonable and insensitive?

'The principle of free thought is not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate.' Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, US Supreme Court
'Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.' Voltaire

which isn't even remotely what I said.

Blasphemy is an issue for most religions and extremist islamofascists use it as a touchpaper for fomenting civil unrest. For that reason it is best that people think twice before blaspheming Allah or Mohammed - ie by depicting them in pictures or impugning their characters in literary descriptions. Why? Because the blasphemy itself achieves nothing other than giving a license to these beasts to cause trouble.

But joking about moslems, moslem countries or even moslem practices. Yeak, why not. Moslems joke abnout these things too.

Fuck that, fuck you, and most of all, fuck them. If they don't like our freedom of speech in the West then they can GTFO and go the fuck home to a place where justice means jailing a woman for having the indecency to get raped and where if you're sentenced to death by stoning, there's a chance to get out alive if you escape the sand you're buried in. Of course men are only buried to their waists while women are buried to their shoulders, but Allah said that's how to do things.

More utter bullshit. Some of the best Middle Eastern artists painted Mohammed and you can see images from the 15th through the 19th centuries in the Mohammed Image Archive. What changed since then? According to the Koran Mohammed was the last prophet and there would be no further ones. Mo's also not slated to make any reappearance which explains the lack of half-eaten Saudi grilled cheese sandwiches on ePay.

woof.

It does does not give them a license to do anything of the kind. It tests freedom of speech and people's willingness to defend it.

Haha! BadDoggie, you made me laugh! This is so funny!

Lert me make myself plain. I utterly and totally condemn islamofascism. I think it has no legitimate justification ÀT ALL

But it exists nonetheless.

Attacking islamofascism for its far right, unislamic, fanatical violence is fair game and should be done at every opportunity.

But us blaspeming just plays into their hands. You can almost hear their pants creaming. It is t6he one issue that they know they can always win on.

Which ultimately makes the shortsighted campaign for 'freedom of speech' to blaspheme islam so fucking puerile and pointless.

Sue we can get all high and mighty about such things. But fuck it, insulting the Prophet achieves fuck all for freedom of speech and just plays into extremists hands.

I find this an interesting topic. But in Malaysia, where many religions co-exist (in harmony, so the politicians claim), it does become a sensitive topic. Even the mere questioning of whether you can joke about Islam could get you in jail! However, surprisingly, being multi-racial and multi-religion, there are a lot more racial/religious jokes going around than the politicians think.

I think there is a very fine line between making a joke and expressly saying or doing something for the sole purpose of hurting someone's feelings. In today's stressful world, I think we need more jokes - jokes about religion, racial jokes, whatever. I always find it amusing when a person of another race or religion can tell me something amusing about my race or religion.

The point is, keep up with the jokes, guys.