Thread: Too sacred to be funny? Board: The Laugh Judgment / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Duo Seraphim (# 3251) on :
 
On the suggestions for debate topics thread Sarkycow wrote:

quote:
Where does something become too sacred to laugh at, or beyond the bounds of making fun of? Can something ever be too sacred? Why?
Over to you.
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
My answer would be: Nothing is too sacred to be made fun of.

I like to think God has a sense of humour. I like to think He's the sort of Being that can take a joke, even about Himself...
 
Posted by Fool of a Took (# 7412) on :
 
I think there's a HUGE difference and important distinction between a thing being 'too sacred' to have jokes made, and jokes being in utter poor taste.
There's very little that I think of as 'untouchable' by jokes. But I want those jokes to be clever or witty or affectionate, not just crapping all over something sacred for the sake of crapping all over something sacred.
 
Posted by Papio. (# 4201) on :
 
People can make jokes about peadophilia all they like, but I reserve the right to find them disgusting and revolting.

Plus, I reserve the right to dispute the notion that they are somehow religious jokes. Most of them aren't.
 
Posted by SteveTom (# 23) on :
 
My sense of it is that no subject is inappropriate for comedy, because it's not the subject that makes a joke offensive but its attitude.

The most offensive joke that I can bring to mind is one I saw Bernard Manning tell on TV, to the effect that there was this Paki who "wanted converting", so they took him to Headingley and booted him over the crossbar. This is such an unequivocal, shameless expression of racial hatred, it's simply despicable, but this doesn't mean that all jokes about Pakistanis in England, or about racial violence, are offensive (whoever they are told by).

Its all in the attitude.
 
Posted by kbe323 (# 9837) on :
 
I like the reply the Buddhist Bhodidharma is reputed to have given the great Yellow Emperor of China when questioned as to the first principle of Buddhism: "..Vast emptiness, nothing holy."

An interpretation of that ancient homily is that nothing exists anywhere without prior causes and thus everything is ultimately of the same worth.

So, does that indicate taking offense to humor involving our own beliefs is nothing but a display of personal ego being attacked? Perhaps. And perhaps too Bodhidharma would have answered this particular question with yet another: "I do not know."
 
Posted by jlg (# 98) on :
 
Nothing is too sacred to be made fun of.

But making fun of the sacred will naturally elicit offense from certain individuals and in certain circumstances.

That's the difference between God and our existence in the incarnate/fallen/sinful world.

[Preview Post is your Friend and I didn't use it.]

[ 21. July 2005, 01:36: Message edited by: jlg ]
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
Most previous posters agree, but I think they only answer the easy question. Namely, is there anything that outlaws jokes about certain sacred topics? I agree, there is no such thing. We, and hopefully God, can laugh about absolutely everything - if it is indeed funny. But precisely therein lies for me the more interesting question: whether we are actually able to construct funny jokes about everything. I'm not so sure.

Can we for example say something hillarious about the Trinity doctrine itself (rather than for example use the three persons to make fun of the idea that the RCC hierarchy is guided by the Holy Spirit, as one of the jokes here does)? Perhaps some things are indeed too sacred to make jokes about - not in the sense of some law, but simply in the sense that our comic wit dries up when faced with it.
 
Posted by Callan (# 525) on :
 
Originally posted by SteveTom:

quote:
The most offensive joke that I can bring to mind is one I saw Bernard Manning tell on TV, to the effect that there was this Paki who "wanted converting", so they took him to Headingley and booted him over the crossbar. This is such an unequivocal, shameless expression of racial hatred, it's simply despicable, but this doesn't mean that all jokes about Pakistanis in England, or about racial violence, are offensive (whoever they are told by).
Spoilt, of course, by the fact that the original pertains to an atheist who went to a Welsh Methodist Chapel and asked to be converted. The humour in the original joke lurks in the space between the religious fervour of Welsh Methodism and the sporting fervour of Welsh rugby fans. Turning it into a joke about a Pakistani at Headingley merely transforms it into an expression of racial hatred and kills the joke stone dead.
 
Posted by sugar mouse (# 9828) on :
 
Sometimes jokes seem more funny when they are about something usually considered too sacred to laugh at - the sheer "naughtiness" of daring to laugh at something forbidden can sometimes be what makes you laugh - the cheek of the person telling the joke.

Also humour can push things forward - when something is laughed at it is taken out of the realm of "untouchable" and becomes public property; open to discussion. This can be a good thing, I reckon. Some things previously considereed untouchable need discussing.

sugarmouse
 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Some time ago we had a poster who started a thread inviting people to laugh at the Stations of the Cross. I spent some time explaining why I thought this wasn't remotely amusing, and completely failed to get it across to him. If I remember correctly he wanted to laugh at Jesus taking a pratfall along the way, and so on.

For me jokes that involve pain or suffering aren't funny. It's too real. "The Life of Brian" was fine until the crucifixion scene - the first time I saw this I was upset by this almost to the point of tears. I still can't watch it with any degree of ease. The crucifixion was a real and terrible event. For me that overshadowed the parody and I couldn't see any humour in it. I can't see any in the Stations of the Cross either. In the days when I was a practising Catholic I was never able to do these lightly or detach myself from it nor just shrug it off as a task completed.

Are some things too sacred to be funny? Yes, I think so. Laughter is more of a detached response than an involved one in some ways. You laugh at something. It can be a way of handling difficult emotions, making them more manageable if you can reduce it to a more down-to-earth level, poke fun at it. But that can trivialize it. The pain and suffering of the Jesus story can be intensely moving. Other aspects of religion can be utterly beautiful and equally moving, they can even be numinous. But they're not actually comical. It's simply that humour just doesn't come into some things at all, there are places where it's simply irrelevant - or inappropriate.
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
I've come across what I considered to be a particularly nasty attitude where people were encouraged to laugh at other Christians who had a different way of worshipping. I feel very uncomfortable when the leaders of young people encourage them to do this - and probably says more about the chips those leaders are carrying on their shoulders than of the young people themselves. Would they have encouraged them to ridicule the practice of other religions, or only other versions of their own? - I don't know.

There is fair criticism, and genuinely funny laughter, and then there is just plain nastiness.
 
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
We have the almost unanimous answer that nothing is too sacred to make fun of, and yet we have on the actual jokes threads has specifically that response.

I would like to suggest that its not a straightforward question of an object being too sacred to be made fun of, but of the type of humour that is felt to be acceptable.

Firstly it is not about sacredness so much as identity. What someone holds for some reason as connected with who they are (or more accurately who they are becoming) then one needs to be careful how one uses humour. There is the humour of respect which almost everyone will be happy with except a very few who are actually very uncertain who they are.

To give you an example of the way this works, I will often talk of God as I would talk of my earthly employer, same tone. I have friends who are offended by this because it suggests some sort of parity with God and their picture of God is very transcendant. It is not that this is rude, derogatory or sexual (it ain't) but it upsets their understanding of how we relate to God and therefore who they are.

Jengie
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
I don't think that anything is too sacred to be funny, but I think some things are too horrible to be funny -- I'm thinking of ones like the one with the little girl at the cliff on the board, and not because a priest is involved but because it's just a horrible thing.
 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
That was doubly horrible because it was a priest. They're supposed to be figures you turn to when you're in trouble, people you can rely on for help and advice, people you can trust. That "joke" came across to me as twice as abusive of its subject, more so than if the priest had been an ordinary man.
 
Posted by Campbellite (# 1202) on :
 
I think David is on to something about things too horrible to be funny. There were quite a few cartoons made in the early 1940's parodying Adolph Hitler. Charlie Chaplin made his _Great Dictator_ about the same time. Very funny stuff.

Post war, when the world learned of the Final Solution, it suddenly wasn't very funny anymore.
 
Posted by jlg (# 98) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Laughter is more of a detached response than an involved one in some ways. You laugh at something. It can be a way of handling difficult emotions, making them more manageable if you can reduce it to a more down-to-earth level, poke fun at it. But that can trivialize it.
There are different sorts of laughter. Polite tittering, embarrased tittering. Mocking, nasty, laughing at someone or something; simple, innocent silly laughter; the laughter of dark humor which does indeed provide necessary emotional distance. Best of all is that wonderful gift of true belly laughter, usually only experienced in company with someone else, when you simply can't stop the upwelling of this glee and it leaves you smiling and happy and at peace with the world. I suspect it might be impossible to truly hate someone after having shared a session of genuine belly-laughing with that person.

quote:
It's simply that humour just doesn't come into some things at all, there are places where it's simply irrelevant - or inappropriate.
It may be irrelevant to the official version of what's supposed to be happening, it may be inappropriate in terms of the expectations of polite society, but the point is that humor (genuine humor of the irresistable belly-laugh soul-warming variety)does manage to worm it's way into even the most irrelevant and inappropriate places at times.

If certain forms of laughter didn't have such a wonderful positive effect, I doubt humanity would put so much effort into trying to create and/or experience laughter. We're always hoping for that genuine, uncontrollable bout of belly-laughs.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
On the other hand (re horror), I do wonder -- in the Middle Ages and such periods, when people saw the very visible effects of human evil and of (in their belief, at very least, apart from questions of metaphysical reality) diabolical evil, on a quite regular basis -- mutilations, murders, etc. in wars and the like, torture and so on -- yet they were able, in mystery plays and the like, to make fun of the Devil. In some ways, while they believed in Satan more than many people do now, they seemed to be able to laugh at him more than we do now. I wonder if part of our horrified reactions to some things (including corrupt clergy, which were also often mocked in those days, such as in Chaucer) is because of not dealing with them as directly. (For good and/or for ill. It could also desensitize someone to it, and if they're used to wartime atrocities they may be more likely to commit them too.)

David
 
Posted by Esmeralda (# 582) on :
 
I agree that there are things too horrible to make jokes about. There are concentration camp jokes, but only Jews can make them. And the best one I know mocks the SS, not the holocaust.

I do have difficulty with jokes which appear to take God's name in vain - by which I don't mean swearing, but using the word 'God' to refer to a person with vindictive or petty attitudes, or in some way belittling God. If anything is too holy to be mocked, it is the Godhead itself - and Jesus, as the human expression of the divine.

I have no problem at all mocking the followers of Jesus and their peculiarities. There again, however, I would not make a joke, for instance, about someone being martyred for their faith. That seems to me too tragic and cruel to be laughed at.

Perhaps a lot of one's reaction is tied up with one's own personal experience and sensitivities. I don't like suicide jokes because I have experienced suicide in my family, and the pain never goes completely. On a lesser level, I don't like jokes which mock single women, since I was one till the age of 36. In fact I don't like jokes that mock women, full stop. It's all to do with how far you're committed to a particular viewpoint, social group or doctrine.
 
Posted by wing (# 9833) on :
 
Too sacred to be funny? Never Never take that which we imagine to be sacred seriously, or else it will unfold just like some many of today's terribly tragic circumstances that come about because folks take "the sacred" so seriously (wars and violence and various kinds of social persecution based upon taking "the sacred" seriously and then expecting everyone else to do so also).
if I think your sacred thing is funny, or if i choose not to believe in it, or worship it, what are you going to do about it? too often the "unbeliever" or the person who doesn't take "the sacred" seriously enough, ends up being on the recieving end of human judgement.
i think if one is really confident and sure of the "sacredness" of one's god, then laughing at it is nothing but an exercise in feeling good.
 
Posted by KenWritez (# 3238) on :
 
Everything exists to be laughed at.

The trick is knowing when.
 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Everything exists to be laughed at? That's about as meaningful as "everything exists to be loved" or everything exists to be annoying/boring/depressing". Everything just exists, full stop. Your reaction is your reaction. It doesn't affect that thing intrinsically or change its nature. But I still think there are some things it's simply impossible to laugh at.


The common theme (apart from paedophilia) is that they lack a human element. You have far less personal, emotional involvement. And for me, most of them have other things in common: the wonder of their complexity, the brush with infinity, a quality of being awe-inspiring, most likely precisely because they lack the personal, emotional involvement. They are moving, but they're not comical. I doubt if many people have ever looked through a maths course and found it amusing. But some may well have found it inspiring, thought-provoking, even glimpsed a touch of the mystical about the inexplicable neatness of the logic and the extraordinary number of patterns woven through it that seem too structured to be random.

So I stand by what I said. I don't believe that everything can be - or should be - laughed at. Sometimes it's nice to get that sense of awe and wonder. Laughter is a good thing and enriches life and we would be much the poorer without it, but I think it's good that not everything is risible and I don't think it should be.
 
Posted by ACOL-ite (# 4991) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
But I still think there are some things it's simply impossible to laugh at.

<snip>
Really?
 
Posted by KenWritez (# 3238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Everything exists to be laughed at? That's about as meaningful as "everything exists to be loved" or everything exists to be annoying/boring/depressing". Everything just exists, full stop.
"Everything just exists, full stop" has as much meaning as my statement. You're merely arguing cover art.

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Your reaction is your reaction. It doesn't affect that thing intrinsically or change its nature.
I can introduce you to some scientists who would argue that with you, re: the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
But I still think there are some things it's simply impossible to laugh at.
I disagree. Where I think you're wrong is ascribing humor as an attribute carried within the items on your list. For humans, our laughter is laughing at the perversity within ourselves which we smear upon the walls of the Universe and then point to in blame.

The humor lies within us, as humans, an essential of our human condition. We are the clowns of the Universe, buffoons of stardust and buggery. Luke 7:32 sums it up:
quote:
"They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept."
Pedophila is not funny in and of itself, and when I say it exists to be laughed at, I mean it exists as a mirror to ourselves, a horrifying one, yet some of the best humor is found in the most grotesque, as you see in Poe's writings. Pedophilia does not make the girl on the cliff joke funny to me, the humor lies in the reversal of expectation, which is why Monty Python has had such a huge run of popularity. All their humor is based on reversal of expectation.

People in crisis-oriented professions often develop an intensely black sense of humor as a way to cope with the horror and pain of their profesional lives. Talk to doctors, nurses, firemen, EMTs, police officers, coroners, crisis counselors, et al. Their best jokes will disgust anyone outside that sphere of experience.

I used to work as a mortgage payment collector, and every month I had to dun mortgagors and initiate foreclosure on families who would not or could not pay their mortgages. I received death threats, people screamed abuse and curses at me, every day I heard stories of death, divorce, drinking and alcohol addiction, job loss, illness, every flavor of personal disaster. My fellow collectors and I shared jokes that would curl your hair, yet it was a needful way for us to cope with the stress of our jobs.

The humor lay not in the disasters that befell these people, but in our reactions to their reactions to it, or, more accurately, in our tacit realization "there but for the grace of God go I."

[ 23. July 2005, 19:10: Message edited by: KenWritez ]
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
Serious discussions over whether humour should be denied certain serious subjects!

Oh, God, no, stop!! BWWaHAhaHAHAha! [Killing me] [koff*ahem*sorry]

Seriously, though: Humour should be the deal killer for the proposed laws. How can it be determined if a joke incites hatred of a religous group? A slippery slope littered with pratfalls, for sure.
 
Posted by rewboss (# 566) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Campbellite:
I think David is on to something about things too horrible to be funny. There were quite a few cartoons made in the early 1940's parodying Adolph Hitler. Charlie Chaplin made his _Great Dictator_ about the same time. Very funny stuff.

Post war, when the world learned of the Final Solution, it suddenly wasn't very funny anymore.
Well, Chaplin did later say that if he knew then what he knew afterwards, he might not have been able to make that film. On the other hand, knowing about the Final Solution, I found it hilarious, as did my German girlfriend.

The object of The Great Dictator was to cut Hitler down to size, and in that it succeeded greatly. It didn't make fun of the Final Solution itself, it made a very serious point about the man behind it -- and about mad dictators in general. The eponymous dictator is shown to be a weak man, given to explosive changes of mood, unaware that his second-in-command is really the one pulling the strings, childish, deluded and irrational.

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, calls this the "proximity" problem. Although the film doesn't seek to downgrade the suffering of Jews in the Third Reich, it does seek to downgrade the man behind it all -- and is thus perceived to be making light of the Holocaust. That that was never the intention is obvious in light of the fact that at the time, nobody knew the extent of the horrors.

Adams provides a clearer example of this himself. In one strip he had Dilbert being tricked into buying a football ostensibly bearing Jesus's autograph. The problem was that Jesus was mentioned in a cartoon that satirised fraudulent business practices. Even though it didn't in any way suggest that Jesus had anything to do with -- in fact, the point of the joke is that it was an obvious forgery -- the proximity of the two elements meant that many readers connected the two and Adams received several complaints.

[ 25. July 2005, 09:17: Message edited by: rewboss ]
 
Posted by Matrix (# 3452) on :
 
For me, my comments on the [I] Popular Man[/} thread were not solely to do with whether it was too sacred, but also whether it was to lovely, too beautiful, too precious, too meaningful.

My concern also is to do with what telling some jokes says about me and my response to the object.

Would i want to be the kind of person who finds turning the crucifixion into a nob gag funny? I really don't think I want to be.

M
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Everything exists to be laughed at? That's about as meaningful as "everything exists to be loved" or everything exists to be annoying/boring/depressing". Everything just exists, full stop. Your reaction is your reaction. It doesn't affect that thing intrinsically or change its nature.
I have to disagree with the principle I think I am hearing you suggest, because I think "everything exists to be loved" does have meaning (whether or not it's the best way to put it, I don't know), and apart from any human reactions at all. But I don't believe in existentialism -- I believe that everything does have intrinsic meaning, and that humor may be one element among others, and that such meaning is not invented or merely imagined by human beings but part of its intrinsic nature, created by God.

I may, however, completely misunderstand you, in which case, er, carry on...

David
 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
I think that we are limited in the way we perceive things, because we perceive them through the medium of our senses. It might look like a small green cube, but small is relative, it may not be green to someone else, it might not even be a cube. They're attributes that I give it, not necessarily intrinsic qualities of that thing itself. The real nature of things is essentially unknowable. This is why I can only say: things exist. Any further qualification is, as far as I'm concerned, subjective. My perception of a particular thing may be shared consistently by many others, but it doesn't actually mean that that thing is genuinely like that. It may be. I don't know.

And that's just physical properties. Emotional attributes are subjective as far as I'm concerned. I don't believe everything exists to be laughed at, or everything exists to be loved. Nothing is lovable or comical in itself, any more than anything is boring or interesting in itself, they are simply your own ways of looking at an object and attributing meaning to it. The object simply exists. For whatever reason, I don't know. I can attribute all sorts of things to it and it may have meaning for me personally, but they are not absolutes as far as I'm concerned. My liking it, hating or or loving it does not change the nature of that object in any way, either. If you're talking about a person, that's another matter. But an inanimate object is not going to be affected by my view of it.

That's my opinion, other people have different opinions.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
Well, I suppose this is an area in which we shall simply have to disagree. [Smile]

But then if such traits of things are either subjective or unknowable, wouldn't it then follow that humor might be a response to any number of things, even if one does not feel that response personally? That if nothing can be intrinsically comical, it also cannot be intrinsically non-comical or somber? And therefore the numinous, mathematics, the stars, etc. might be just as reasonable objects of mirth as anything else?

David
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
(I pondered saying "might be a correct/valid/etc. response" but... er... if there is no intrinsic meaning then I suppose all responses would be neither valid nor invalid, and if there is a meaning but it is unknowable, then it might be valid or correct but we would not know it...)
 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
But then if such traits of things are either subjective or unknowable, wouldn't it then follow that humor might be a response to any number of things, even if one does not feel that response personally? That if nothing can be intrinsically comical, it also cannot be intrinsically non-comical or somber? And therefore the numinous, mathematics, the stars, etc. might be just as reasonable objects of mirth as anything else?
Yes; but having said that, it does depend to some extent on what you mean by "reasonable". Some responses are fairly consistent across a wide number of people, e.g. most of us will perceive much the same colours, can be expected to react within certain ways in given situations. I think the general trend is that people tend to find jokes or comic sketches involving other people funnier than inanimate objects. The numinous, stars, maths, etc are in my view neither intrinsically comical or un-comical; it depends on what attitude I take myself. You can see things quite differently when you are happy than when you are depressed, drunk, worried, etc.

We do construct our own frameworks of reference, though, because even if things are essentially unknowable, on a day to day basis you still have to make certain assumptions about them. Mostly those assumptions - this box is small, it's blue - work for us. But whether the box is really small or really blue, who knows. But the consistency in perception is enough for you to get by on a day to day basis, so it doesn't really matter that much.

If you want to laugh at the stars, numinous, mathematics, etc, there's no reason why not. But I just think it would be difficult, given their impersonal nature, and also I don't think, as I've said, that humour is anything more than a perception you have of them.

Anyway - we can agree to disagree. [Biased]
 
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on :
 
Many things are fair game for jokes in my view; however, how jokes are used can have some unfunny consequences.

For example, I find it difficult to get on board with using a joke as a put down of a specific person in the company of the joke tellers.

So, I might laugh at a joke about a certain religious practice when it's posted on a discussion board because presumably the topic is general and the joke is directed at no one in particular from among the group.

In my mind, there isn't anything funny about singling out the religion/spirituality/culture of a person in present company for criticism by dressing it up as "we're only joking."

Lacking that kind of personal target, however, humor is as varied as food preferences. Take what you enjoy, leave the rest.

sabine

[ 28. July 2005, 01:35: Message edited by: sabine ]
 
Posted by The Lady of the Lake (# 4347) on :
 
I wonder if the Bible provides any help.
Jesus uses sarcastic humour to criticise human foibles, e.g. in the Pharisees. Paul may be using irony sometimes about Christians (e.g. described as 'saints' in Ephesians). But I can't think of an example of a sick joke. I think jokes that make fun of pomposity, power, self-importance, etc. are not just good but important.

On a personal note I find it less difficult to accept jokes about God in a context where the transcendence of God is taken seriously, maybe because the fact that God is unlike us and also the words we use about him is better appreciated by such a mindset.
 
Posted by A Feminine Force (# 7812) on :
 
My definition of en-LIGHT-en-ment:

More lightly, more lightly, more lightly. His yoke is gentle and His burden is (drumroll) Light! ba-dump. [Killing me]

Hello, is this thing on?

More levity, less gravity.

But seriously, folks, levity floats, gravity sucks.

If it can't be taken lightly then leave it.

Shalom
FF
 
Posted by Phred22 (# 3857) on :
 
One reason I don't find any topic sacred is my belief there is nothing man or God can devise which cannot be abused, including religion in all its varieties. That's not to say that some subjects are in worse taste than others. But maintaining good taste is another endeavor which has been abused before and can be again. [Roll Eyes]
 
Posted by Clarence (# 9491) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:


For me jokes that involve pain or suffering aren't funny. It's too real. "The Life of Brian" was fine until the crucifixion scene - the first time I saw this I was upset by this almost to the point of tears.
I think it was Shakespeare who said that there was nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so. Humour, what is offensive or inoffensive is always going to be down to your own point of view.

I love "The Life of Brian", probably because it DOES make me squirm, but also because I know it is not to be taken seriously and I'm allowed to laugh. On the other hand, I couldn't bring myself to see "The Passion of the Christ" because I knew I'd find the crucifixion too distressing when presented as reality.
 
Posted by Martola (# 10263) on :
 
It has long been my observation that people with genuine deep abiding Faith as oposed to mere religiosity or churchiness have rollicking senses of humour.

Nothing is too sacred to not have its funny side. Perhaps its partially because they relish and love the language of the Church. but I suspect its also because they realize that the Messsage is packaged in ordinariness and never mistake the packaging for the contents.
 
Posted by agrgurich (# 5724) on :
 
As I recall, a woman came up to G. K. Chesterton after one of his lectures and asked, "How can you make jokes about such serious subjects?"

He replied, "Madame, serious subjects are the only things worth joking about."
 
Posted by Justin (# 693) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Everything exists to be laughed at? That's about as meaningful as "everything exists to be loved" or everything exists to be annoying/boring/depressing". Everything just exists, full stop. Your reaction is your reaction. It doesn't affect that thing intrinsically or change its nature. But I still think there are some things it's simply impossible to laugh at.


...
y=f(x) walks into a bar and asks for a pint of bitter and a ham sandwich.

"Sorry" says the barman. "We don't cater for functions".
 
Posted by corvette (# 9436) on :
 
Sometimes we laugh to cover our embarrassment when we don't understand, or so that people will think we really *do* understand when in fact we don't.

quote:
Originally posted by Justin:
y=f(x) walks into a bar and asks for a pint of bitter and a ham sandwich.

"Sorry" says the barman. "We don't cater for functions".
[Big Grin] [Yipee]


This is one of the other times when if you aren't laughing or at least smiling it's because you don't understand. Does that make it an "in" joke?
 
Posted by Evo1 (# 10249) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by corvette:

This is one of the other times when if you aren't laughing or at least smiling it's because you don't understand. Does that make it an "in" joke?
Erm, it could be just cos you don't find it remotely funny too?
 
Posted by corvette (# 9436) on :
 
Well no actually i did get it, and i did chuckle; i did a lot of maths at school and beyond [Eek!] but i think maybe other people might not, and might feel excluded by that.

(ps i like the avatar [Cool] E for Einstein? )

quote:
Erm, it could be just cos you don't find it remotely funny too?
But yes, if you didn't find it funny that would also be a reason for not laughing. yeah. Maybe i didn't phrase my last post too clearly, sorry.
 


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