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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Someone must sleep in the barn
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Simon
Editor
# 1
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Posted
Joke submitted by anon:
A Hindu priest, a rabbi and an evangelical Christian were travelling together when they were overcome with fatigue. They stopped at a farmhouse and asked for lodging, but the farmer said he only had room for two. One of them would have to spend the night in the barn.
"I'll go," said the Hindu priest, and off he went. A few minutes later, there was a knock at the back door. There stood the Hindu priest, exclaiming, "There's a cow in there, and cows are sacred in my religion. It would be impossible for me to sleep in the same room as a cow."
The farmer then asked which of the other two would volunteer to sleep in the barn. "I'll go," said the rabbi, and off he went. A few minutes later there was a knock at the back door. It was the rabbi. "There's a pig in that barn. It wouldn't be kosher for me to sleep there. I cannot do it!"
"Oh, all right," said the evangelical. "I'll go," and off he went.
A few moments later there was a knock on the door. It was the pig and the cow.
[ 07. July 2005, 00:02: Message edited by: Simon ]
Poll information
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Eternal memory
Posts: 3787 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2001
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Midnight Scholar
Shipmate
# 9112
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Posted
Last time I heard this one, the third member of the party was a lawyer.
The pig and the cow can't stand to spend the night with a lawyer - geddit?
IMO this was much funnier. Wouldn't you have to have a problem with evangelicals to find the quoted version funny? (Though having thought about it, perhaps the guy was from my college CU ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif) )
OTOH many, many people find lawyer jokes funny.
mn
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Men are from Earth. Women are from Earth.
Deal with it.
Posts: 129 | From: out there | Registered: Feb 2005
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The Scrumpmeister
Ship’s Taverner
# 5638
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Posted
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Ahhh, this has given me a good start to the day.
Thank you.
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If Christ is not fully human, humankind is not fully saved. - St John of Saint-Denis
Posts: 14741 | From: Greater Manchester, UK | Registered: Mar 2004
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Midnight Scholar:
Wouldn't you have to have a problem with evangelicals to find the quoted version funny?
Not necessarily, I quite like the mental image of the pig and cow knocking on the door.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Mark M
Shipmate
# 9500
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Back-to-Front:
Ahhh, this has given me a good start to the day.
Thank you.
Me too! It's amazing how good a good chortle is after a nightshift.
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I only know three words of Latin: deus caritas est.
Posts: 139 | From: Edinburgh, Scotland UK | Registered: May 2005
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Glimmer
Ship's Lantern
# 4540
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Posted
Not funny, just nasty. Very useful for retelling within earshot of a disliked person who happens to be evangelical (or a lawyer or an estate agent or a traffic warden or a politician or .....)
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The original, unchanged 4540.
The Temple area, Ankh Morpork
Posts: 1749 | From: Ankh Morpork, Dorset | Registered: May 2003
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Gill H
Shipmate
# 68
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Posted
I've heard it with the disliked person being somebody specific (eg Saddam).
Would it have been funnier if it was Fred Phelps?
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*sigh* We can’t all be Alan Cresswell.
- Lyda Rose
Posts: 9313 | From: London | Registered: May 2001
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Actually there is a gloss that makes it funnier.
When the Hindu comes back, the Conservative Evangelical, says "Well being a Christian we are far more sensible, and have no creature which is either taboo or sacred. So I guess I really should have gone straightaway and left you two with your superstitious religions to share the house".
It changes the point subtly but provocatively.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gill H:
I've heard it with the disliked person being somebody specific (eg Saddam).
Would it have been funnier if it was Fred Phelps?
I've certainly heard it with Ian Paisley in place of the generic "evangelical". In that making fun of a whole group of people on the basis of the nature of a few (eg: a few evangelicals can be truly obnoxious, constantly quoting Scripture and trying to convert you just because you happen to be walking past them in the street) is mildly offensive to members of that group, I'd find the same joke with Ian Paisley less offensive. But that might be because Ian Paisley is so offensive.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Loved it. Am certain to repeat it! Made me think of certain people in the "tribe" I belong to.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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John Donne
Renaissance Man
# 220
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Posted
It worked for me, not real ha-ha, but useful for throwing off a bit of built up resentment.
Posts: 13667 | From: Perth, W.A. | Registered: May 2001
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Newman's Own
Shipmate
# 420
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Posted
I loved (and repeated) this joke on countless occasions during the first ten years after I heard it first - there are all sorts of versions of who the third person is (often Ian Paisley). Trouble is, since the tenth anniversary of my hearing this was about 35 years ago, I just could not manage a laugh yet again.
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Cheers,
Elizabeth
“History as Revelation is seldom very revealing, and histories of holiness are full of holes.” - Dermot Quinn
Posts: 6740 | From: Library or pub | Registered: Jun 2001
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Rat
Ship's Rat
# 3373
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Posted
The thing I find quite interesting is that the ones I find most funny so far are the ones that chime in with my experience, even though that experience is not positive. This one (and even more so another I can't recall right now) are rooted in a form of sectarianism. The Paisley connection was in my head also. Sectarianism has impinged on my life in all sorts of ways - personal, familial and environmental - and it is something that gets me really het up. Yet these are the jokes that have made me laugh, even when I can see a matching offensive element (not this one particularly).
Yet if the joke was explicitly, locally sectarian - the sort of thing I've heard told by orangemen against catholics for instance - I'd have reacted badly. There is obviously some line to be drawn between evoking a familiarity and being truly familiar.
I am not sure where I am going with this. I need to think about it some more.
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It's a matter of food and available blood. If motherhood is sacred, put your money where your mouth is. Only then can you expect the coming down to the wrecked & shimmering earth of that miracle you sing about. [Margaret Atwood]
Posts: 5285 | From: A dour region for dour folk | Registered: Oct 2002
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Og: Thread Killer
Ship's token CN Mennonite
# 3200
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Posted
Hmmm.....I wonder what the reaction would be on here if it was Pope Benedict for the 3rd one?
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I wish I was seeking justice loving mercy and walking humbly but... "Cease to lament for that thou canst not help, And study help for that which thou lament'st."
Posts: 5025 | From: Toronto | Registered: Aug 2002
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Newman's Own
Shipmate
# 420
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Og: Thread Killer:
Hmmm.....I wonder what the reaction would be on here if it was Pope Benedict for the 3rd one?
I am sure that version shall be in circulation as well - though most variations on this joke are generic rather than mentioning anyone specifically, all well-known religious figures are subject for inclusion.
Yet, tired though this old joke is, it would not work if the third person were Benedict or ++Rowan (for example.) They are too polite in manner. For all that Benedict was known as 'grand inquisitor,' his public statements, however exasperating to some, were very academic in tone. Ian Paisley, John Selby Spong, Falwell (just to name a few - and I'm not equating the three!) had the manner of the 'troublemaker' at times and enjoyed being controversial.
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Cheers,
Elizabeth
“History as Revelation is seldom very revealing, and histories of holiness are full of holes.” - Dermot Quinn
Posts: 6740 | From: Library or pub | Registered: Jun 2001
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
'Evangelical' is just too broad a category for the joke to work for me. You need to have some definite characteristic that the cow and pig object to, and there isn't one in this version I first heard it as 'lawyer' and that does work.
This is a joke where the whole point is to laugh at someone. Not necessarily in a spiteful way, but it must at least provide a meaningful target. We all know that lawyers are (in joke-land) grasping and unscrupulous lowlifes, so it's funny that animals run away from them. There isn't a similar convention that evangelicals are ... whatever it is that offends cows and pigs ... so in this version it falls flat.
[ 08. July 2005, 18:01: Message edited by: Eliab ]
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Belisarius
Lord Bountiful of Admin (Emeritus) Delights
# 32
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Posted
I orginally heard this as a Polish joke; as mentioned elsewhere on this Board, there indeed are probably only a finite number of joke formats.
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Animals may be Evolution's Icing, but Bacteria are the Cake.
Andrew Knoll
Posts: 8080 | From: New York | Registered: May 2001
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themanwiththegingerhair
Apprentice
# 9691
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Posted
As Eliab mentioned I don't believe that "evangelicals" are enough of a defined character for the joke to work.
I might have a different understanding of the word to some of the other posters because I apply the term to virtually all "believing" protestant Christians.
The joke though is clearly set up to offend the 3rd group. As it isn't funny (there is nothing obvious about evangelical Christians that would offend a pig) then it is an insult and not a joke.
Posts: 28 | From: Birmingham | Registered: Jul 2005
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kempis3
Shipmate
# 9792
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Posted
Made my day.
Many thanks.
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Man plots -- God laughs.
Posts: 148 | From: UK | Registered: Jul 2005
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Max.
Shipmate
# 5846
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Posted
Apperently - I don't have permission to vote here :'(
-103
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For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
Posts: 9716 | From: North Yorkshire | Registered: May 2004
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Zeke
Ship's Inquirer
# 3271
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by themanwiththegingerhair:
As Eliab mentioned I don't believe that "evangelicals" are enough of a defined character for the joke to work.
I might have a different understanding of the word to some of the other posters because I apply the term to virtually all "believing" protestant Christians.
The joke though is clearly set up to offend the 3rd group. As it isn't funny (there is nothing obvious about evangelical Christians that would offend a pig) then it is an insult and not a joke.
Why do you consider most protestant Christians to be evangelical? And why do you qualify it with "believing?" Believing what? What would be on the other side from that, protestant Christians who have no idea what they've signed up for? It seems to me that if a person is designated as a Christian, there is a strong implication that he or she believes something, at least. I may have misunderstood your meaning, since I am a little confused and trying not to take offense when I am sure it is not meant.
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No longer the Bishop of Durham
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If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it? --Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 5259 | From: Deep in the American desert | Registered: Sep 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by themanwiththegingerhair:
I might have a different understanding of the word to some of the other posters because I apply the term to virtually all "believing" protestant Christians.
I'm neither an evangelical nor a protestant, but I find this sentence extremely offensive.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
Hosting
A couple of posts by MT and themanwiththegingerhair on this subject are in order that it may be clarified will be OK. Other interested parties should start a thread in either Purgatory or Hell. In a short term project like this we need to avoid tangents and stick to the theme, there are plenty of other opportunities and places on board to discuss such points.
Pyx_e
Hosting
[ 31. July 2005, 11:07: Message edited by: Pyx_e ]
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It is better to be Kind than right.
Posts: 9778 | From: The Dark Tower | Registered: May 2001
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