A False Impression of the Religious as Humourless?

[Purple Knight]

Question for debate: Are religious people unfairly maligned as humourlessly pious, and/or perpetually offended? Do you expect them to be? Do you expect on introspection that your expectation is biased? Why or why not?

There's a lot of finger-pointing at Christians because they forgive rather than retaliate, so in media depictions, they may absorb some of the negative traits that are more rightly associated with other religions. So, while even the least fair stereotypes don't grow out of nothing, it's not Christians. It's not Hindus. It's not Jews. It's not Buddhists. In the case of humourlessly pious, it's Muslims. And maybe Puritans.

Whether religious people are fairly or unfairly maligned for being humourless also depends on the function of humour. There seem to be some jokes which are simply cruel, but many people don't find them very funny, and you could argue that digs at a person's appearance if they are simply ugly, for example, don't really rise to the level of a joke. If humour only exists to poke fun at things which are allowed to exist, but perhaps should not be, like tyranny, it's possible that to a thinking person, if a joke attacks something unworthy of being attacked, the joke simply won't land. It's important to at least consider why things are funny - why humour exists - because if religious people are humourless, they're coming from intelligent design and there being a very intentional reason for everything, and I think there are enough sins to make sure everyone is a sinner without adding humour to the list. Even coming from that perspective, it seems in a different category than the urge to hurt people, doesn't it? It's pretty well diametrically opposite.

[Purple Knight]

When do any of these Muslims tell anyone that they're going to hell?

Check the first video, 34 seconds in. "Did your mum call you Fatia 'cause you're fat?" "Yeah luv you're going to Hell anyway, so...."

[Athetotheist]

When do any of these Muslims tell anyone that they're going to hell?

Check the first video, 34 seconds in. "Did your mum call you Fatia 'cause you're fat?" "Yeah luv you're going to Hell anyway, so...."

She's a comic.

[TRANSPONDER]

I'll check those videos right now. I expect that Muslims can be funny but not about their religion I suspect, but probably they can about other religions etc. But we shall see.

i know that I can get a bit stuffy (rather to my alarm) if Christian comics make jokes about atheism. No merry laughter ast the play on word but "Well that is simply not correct!".

As Basil Fawlty said "Thank God we can laugh at ourselves" We can, but only when we do it, not others.

I gotta admit that the first one made some good ones. 'Not married? Haven't you got any cousins?" ('No, mine wasn't an arranged marriage..it was a forced one" she doesn't say whether it was the man who was forced into it). And I laughed out loud at the one about her mother who wore a veil laughed her veil off when Covid masks became mandatory.

Though of course, Mr Fussy atheist says 'yes, covid masks for a good reason and just until it's done. Muslim masks forever and for no good reason'. But I still laughed.

[Purple Knight]

When do any of these Muslims tell anyone that they're going to hell?

Check the first video, 34 seconds in. "Did your mum call you Fatia 'cause you're fat?" "Yeah luv you're going to Hell anyway, so...."

She's a comic.

And I don't think it's funny, especially if it's true. Maybe it's pure bias on my part. I admit it could be. I also admit I can't craft a version of that exchange I find any funnier, so it being my failing is actually quite likely. I still think I'm onto something about being able to consider that you might be wrong on a very deep and real level, because anything might be, is necessary to being funny.

I gotta admit that the first one made some good ones. 'Not married? Haven't you got any cousins?" ('No, mine wasn't an arranged marriage..it was a forced one" she doesn't say whether it was the man who was forced into it). And I laughed out loud at the one about her mother who wore a veil laughed her veil off when Covid masks became mandatory.

Those ones were decent, because they get close to that special singularity where everything is correct, and nothing is. I still maintain that no version of, "Yes I'm fat but you're going to Hell," is funny. The one from Winston Churchill that's similar ("Yes I'm drunk but you'll still be ugly in the morning.") is slightly funnier, because it actually has that interplay where the joke itself is admitting that perhaps he shouldn't be plastered from dusk 'til dawn. It still sort of misses though, imo. I don't find it funny either, it's just a similar joke that I think has a slight edge.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #14

I still think I'm onto something about being able to consider that you might be wrong on a very deep and real level, because anything might be, is necessary to being funny.

These Muslims disprove any blanket statement about Muslims being humorlessly pious.

I still maintain that no version of, "Yes I'm fat but you're going to Hell," is funny.

She's telling a joke about a defense mechanism she used as a kid. It obviously wasn't aimed at anyone in the audience in her mature adulthood. Besides, why not warn those kids about hell [if you believe in it] if they're being mean? Presumably, she wouldn't have said anything about hell to them if they hadn't been mean.

[Purple Knight]

These Muslims disprove any blanket statement about Muslims being humorlessly pious.

Only insofar as all blanket statements about people are always false.

I still maintain that no version of, "Yes I'm fat but you're going to Hell," is funny.

She's telling a joke about a defense mechanism she used as a kid. It obviously wasn't aimed at anyone in the audience in her mature adulthood. Besides, why not warn those kids about hell [if you believe in it] if they're being mean? Presumably, she wouldn't have said anything about hell to them if they hadn't been mean.

You'd be more likely to warn them, if you believed in it, if they were nice rather than mean. And of course you would want to help. But it's still not funny. Some of her other jokes are funny. That one's not funny because it's not even a joke.

[TRANSPONDER]

When do any of these Muslims tell anyone that they're going to hell?

Check the first video, 34 seconds in. "Did your mum call you Fatia 'cause you're fat?" "Yeah luv you're going to Hell anyway, so...."

She's a comic.

And I don't think it's funny, especially if it's true. Maybe it's pure bias on my part. I admit it could be. I also admit I can't craft a version of that exchange I find any funnier, so it being my failing is actually quite likely. I still think I'm onto something about being able to consider that you might be wrong on a very deep and real level, because anything might be, is necessary to being funny.

I gotta admit that the first one made some good ones. 'Not married? Haven't you got any cousins?" ('No, mine wasn't an arranged marriage..it was a forced one" she doesn't say whether it was the man who was forced into it). And I laughed out loud at the one about her mother who wore a veil laughed her veil off when Covid masks became mandatory.

Those ones were decent, because they get close to that special singularity where everything is correct, and nothing is. I still maintain that no version of, "Yes I'm fat but you're going to Hell," is funny. The one from Winston Churchill that's similar ("Yes I'm drunk but you'll still be ugly in the morning.") is slightly funnier, because it actually has that interplay where the joke itself is admitting that perhaps he shouldn't be plastered from dusk 'til dawn. It still sort of misses though, imo. I don't find it funny either, it's just a similar joke that I think has a slight edge.

I found that amusing though not lol. The..what my Bro in law used to call 'Gnam' which is a kind of smugness. "I'll have the last laugh because you'll all go to hell". Yes, it is funny, much as someone who thinks they are Napoleon is funny, but sad, though pity is wasted on one who thinks they are smarter than everyone else, because most people don't realise the world is flat.

It's that kind of funny, but not a huge laugh. And overthinking it only makes it worse.

[Purple Knight]

I found that amusing though not lol. The..what my Bro in law used to call 'Gnam' which is a kind of smugness. "I'll have the last laugh because you'll all go to hell". Yes, it is funny, much as someone who thinks they are Napoleon is funny, but sad, though pity is wasted on one who thinks they are smarter than everyone else, because most people don't realise the world is flat.

It's that kind of funny, but not a huge laugh. And overthinking it only makes it worse.

I always try to assume the perspective of the other person, so I was coming at it from the angle of it being true. I'm trying to put myself in the audience of Muslims, as one of them. She made the joke believing it was true, after all. And yes, it's a little funny if it's not true. But if it is true, it's just mean. I'm not the kind of Debbie Downer who says nothing mean can be funny. I admit there's overlap. Some things are mean and funny. But that's most certainly one and not the other.

There actually is a certain humour in someone getting their comeuppance. But in the narrative of the joke, that kid was not punished for being mean and calling her fat with some humourous turnaround that likewise stings a little (maybe even a little more, which is okay) but is ultimately harmless in the long run... He was sent to Hell to burn for eternity for not picking the right religion. That's just... not funny.

There's a bit in South Park about going to Hell for choosing the wrong religion. Everyone dies and is told that the correct religion was Mormon. Sorry, anybody else who picked wrong. I'm very good at assuming the other perspective. But in this case I have to go for the atheist side being funny. It's not funny when people are randomly punished for the fact that their parents told them the wrong random thing about the afterlife. But making fun of that, yeah, if you assume that perspective, it kind of is funny.

And making fun of the kid for assuming she didn't have a name for the first three years of her life would have been funny, too.

[TRANSPONDER]

And yet...it is. And the proof is here.

[Purple Knight]

And yet...it is. And the proof is here.

The reason this is funny is that there's interplay! It's anything can be wrong, not just "X is true, you're wrong haha." The latter simply is not funny.

The whole bit is about how silly it is that everyone ends up in Hell for eternity. But there's interplay there too. People laugh at the lawyers going to Hell because there's a bit of truth to it. But only a bit. It's back and forth.

Now I don't consider that bit terribly funny, but it does have a glimmer of it. And it completely supports what I said about needing to believe you can be wrong, needing to believe anything can be, to be funny. The stuffy person wouldn't put in that bit about lawyers going to Hell. I imagine this stuffy person as a hardcore Libertarian who is offended by the idea that you can do something wrong without punching somebody, and all manner of scamfoolery and lawyering is, of course, fair game. He's not funny, because he believes he is absolutely right on a fundamental level. He can't be funny.

The back-and-forth about the laughing until your veil fell off, in that Fatia one, was funny, precisely because it has a slight, slight glimmer of maybe-masks-are-right-and-maybe-they-re-wrong. But I think it's insincere. Covering is obviously right.

There's probably a very good reason that the best comics tend to be (these are people after all and there are no hard-and-fast rules) insecure little Jewish men.