Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Judaism, Islam, whatever....no laugh out loud jokes.
not even much humor. might be some snide quips
or "hah-hah, see what i did there" commentary,
but almost nothing considering the human need
for humor.
my opinion (so far) is Humor is not conducive to conversion.
to gain followers, fear works better than anything else.
of course, today, there might be humor injected,
but In The Beginning, nothing was "funny"
from reading the texts.
Judaism, Islam, whatever....no laugh out loud jokes.
not even much humor. might be some snide quips
or "hah-hah, see what i did there" commentary,
but almost nothing considering the human need
for humor.
my opinion (so far) is Humor is not conducive to conversion.
to gain followers, fear works better than anything else.
of course, today, there might be humor injected,
but In The Beginning, nothing was "funny"
from reading the texts.
I knew a priest who used to "do" Jesus in a Catskills-type exaggerated Yiddish accent to demonstrate her belief that some of the things he said were meant to be funny. She believed that Jesus had to have had a sense of humor or no one would have followed him around.
Judaism, Islam, whatever....no laugh out loud jokes.
not even much humor. might be some snide quips
or "hah-hah, see what i did there" commentary,
but almost nothing considering the human need
for humor.
my opinion (so far) is Humor is not conducive to conversion.
to gain followers, fear works better than anything else.
of course, today, there might be humor injected,
but In The Beginning, nothing was "funny"
from reading the texts.
Well there is a reason that dancing used to be considered 'evil'.
One thing I like about atheists, but it's never been said - we are always cracking jokes. Religion is so damn' Serious. Oh sure - there's plenty of excited and happy smiles on the faces of the faithful - just like the one of the mush of the Bali -bomber as they dragged him away. But there's no humor.
One thing I like about atheists, but it's never been said - we are always cracking jokes. Religion is so damn' Serious. Oh sure - there's plenty of excited and happy smiles on the faces of the faithful - just like the one of the mush of the Bali -bomber as they dragged him away. But there's no humor.
Well, you know Christians my dear old sprout. They just can't get enough misery and suffering. They thrive on it.
BTW. There is a 'U' in humour. Are you becoming bloody Americanised or something!
Because having a sense of humor is a characteristic of intelligence?
Nobody much likes my theory, I know. And it's profoundly offensive to some. See my thread on mothers and religion. I'm predisposed to have this opinion. Whether it's true or not.
Interesting question! Apart from the intent of religious writings (i.e., "this is really serious stuff"), perhaps it wasn't common back then in general to waste valuable effort and papyrus on jokes? It also sounds like the ancients took a dim view of humo(u)r, and that found its way into Christianity, as explained in this excerpt from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (link at bottom):
Another of Plato’s objections to laughter is that it is malicious. In Philebus (48–50), he analyzes the enjoyment of comedy as a form of scorn. “Taken generally,” he says, “the ridiculous is a certain kind of evil, specifically a vice.” That vice is self-ignorance: the people we laugh at imagine themselves to be wealthier, better looking, or more virtuous than they really are. In laughing at them, we take delight in something evil—their self-ignorance—and that malice is morally objectionable.
Because of these objections to laughter and humor, Plato says that in the ideal state, comedy should be tightly controlled. “We shall enjoin that such representations be left to slaves or hired aliens, and that they receive no serious consideration whatsoever. No free person, whether woman or man, shall be found taking lessons in them.” “No composer of comedy, iambic or lyric verse shall be permitted to hold any citizen up to laughter, by word or gesture, with passion or otherwise” (Laws, 7: 816e; 11: 935e).
Greek thinkers after Plato had similarly negative comments about laughter and humor. Though Aristotle considered wit a valuable part of conversation (Nicomachean Ethics 4, 8), he agreed with Plato that laughter expresses scorn. Wit, he says in the Rhetoric (2, 12), is educated insolence. In the Nicomachean Ethics (4, 8) he warns that “Most people enjoy amusement and jesting more than they should … a jest is a kind of mockery, and lawgivers forbid some kinds of mockery—perhaps they ought to have forbidden some kinds of jesting.” The Stoics, with their emphasis on self-control, agreed with Plato that laughter diminishes self-control. Epictetus’s Enchiridion (33) advises “Let not your laughter be loud, frequent, or unrestrained.” His followers said that he never laughed at all.
These objections to laughter and humor influenced early Christian thinkers, and through them later European culture. They were reinforced by negative representations of laughter and humor in the Bible, the vast majority of which are linked to hostility. The only way God is described as laughing in the Bible is with hostility:
The kings of the earth stand ready, and the rulers conspire together against the Lord and his anointed king… . The Lord who sits enthroned in heaven laughs them to scorn; then he rebukes them in anger, he threatens them in his wrath (Psalm 2:2–5).
God’s spokesmen in the Bible are the Prophets, and for them, too, laughter expresses hostility. In the contest between God’s prophet Elijah and the 450 prophets of Baal, for example, Elijah ridicules them for their god’s powerlessness, and then has them slain (1 Kings 18:21–27). In the Bible, mockery is so offensive that it may deserve death, as when a group of children laugh at the prophet Elisha for his baldness:
He went up from there to Bethel and, as he was on his way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Get along with you, bald head, get along.” He turned round and looked at them and he cursed then in the name of the Lord; and two she-bears came out of a wood and mauled forty-two of them (2 Kings 2:23).”
Bringing together negative assessments of laughter from the Bible with criticisms from Greek philosophy, early Christian leaders such as Ambrose, Jerome, Basil, Ephraim, and John Chrysostom warned against either excessive laughter or laughter generally. Sometimes what they criticized was laughter in which the person loses self-control. In his Long Rules, for instance, Basil the Great wrote that “raucous laughter and uncontrollable shaking of the body are not indications of a well-regulated soul, or of personal dignity, or self-mastery” (in Wagner 1962, 271). Other times they linked laughter with idleness, irresponsibility, lust, or anger. John Chrysostom, for example, warned that
Laughter often gives birth to foul discourse, and foul discourse to actions still more foul. Often from words and laughter proceed railing and insult; and from railing and insult, blows and wounds; and from blows and wounds, slaughter and murder. If, then, you would take good counsel for yourself, avoid not merely foul words and foul deeds, or blows and wounds and murders, but unseasonable laughter itself (in Schaff 1889, 442).
Not surprisingly, the Christian institution that most emphasized self-control—the monastery—was harsh in condemning laughter. One of the earliest monastic orders, of Pachom of Egypt, forbade joking (Adkin 1985, 151–152). The Rule of St. Benedict, the most influential monastic code, advised monks to “prefer moderation in speech and speak no foolish chatter, nothing just to provoke laughter; do not love immoderate or boisterous laughter.” In Benedict’s Ladder of Humility, Step Ten is a restraint against laughter, and Step Eleven a warning against joking (Gilhus 1997, 65). The monastery of St. Columbanus Hibernus had these 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” (Resnick 1987, 95).
The Christian European rejection of laughter and humor continued through the Middle Ages, and whatever the Reformers reformed, it did not include the traditional assessment of humor. Among the strongest condemnations came from the Puritans, who wrote tracts against laughter and comedy. One by William Prynne (1633) encouraged Christians to live sober, serious lives. Christians should not be “immoderately tickled with mere lascivious vanities,” Prynne wrote, or “lash out in excessive cachinnations in the public view of dissolute graceless persons.” When the Puritans came to rule England in the mid-17th century, they outlawed comedies.
I like to nod politely to our american cousins by speaking their dialect when using their forams
Just so you didn't miss this, buried in my overly-long post....
"It also sounds like the ancients took a dim view of humo(u)r, and that found its way into Christianity..."
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Just so you didn't miss this, buried in my overly-long post....
