Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
I sure hope not. Otherwise, you can't make fun of them anymore.
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Is it OK to make fun of religions?
- Thread starter Sunstone
- Start date
I sure hope not. Otherwise, you can't make fun of them anymore.
CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
I keep wondering if one makes fun of religion; do they believe it's going to change a religious person's mind? Is it going to let the religious person how silly believing in said religion that the mocker believes it to be?
After this long thread, I think those are questions that could be addressed.
I think for Christians it would have the opposite effect.
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Sir Doom
Cooler than most of you
I can't say I've ever really made fun of someone for their benefit. Not that its impossible, but I don't do it. Usually its to make myself feel better, make that person feel worse (make myself feel better) or simply to entertain the masses (make myself feel better).
Yeah. It would for me.
CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
Yeah. It would for me.
Matthew 5:11-13
I keep wondering if one makes fun of religion; do they believe it's going to change a religious person's mind? Is it going to let the religious person how silly believing in said religion that the mocker believes it to be?
After this long thread, I think those are questions that could be addressed.
I don't mock to evangelize or to de-convert the subject.
I answered yours. It would be totally awesome if you would answer mine....like if certain religious beliefs are off-limits from mockery. Like the black supremacists or the example of Brother Max who said he hits his wife over the head with a Bible. People would mock them. But people would also become upset and argue.
Is it more morally wrong to chuckle and make jokes? Is it "better" to challenge them? Question them? And if they don't budge and still like to preach their worldview of hitting wives over the head with the Bible (he also specified the KJV, too)?
Are you saying that no religious belief is ever to be considered goofy?
I think it might help to post those verses:
Mat 5:11 Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for My sake.
Mat 5:12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for your reward in Heaven is great. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Mat 5:13 You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its savor, with what shall it be salted? It is no longer good for anything, but to be thrown out and to be trodden underfoot by men.
I post to let others know what we are talking about.
That all depends. I wouldn't want to mock someone who is likely to react violently to it, for example. There are certainly some beliefs that might seem goofy to me or you, but not to the person who follows it. It isn't wrong to challenge someone, however although some people might not react well to it.
As for people abusing others, that does, indeed, need to be addressed. Abuse is something not to be tolerated. Some people might use their religion to justify abuse, but it is still not acceptable.
AmbiguousGuy
Well-Known Member
No true Christian ever hits his wife on the head with anything other than the KJV.
Amechania
Daimona of the Helpless
As blunt instruments go, nothing beats the KJV.
So, it isn't across the board, then?
It isn't wrong to challenge someone.....what's the difference between challenging them through humor and challenging them through rhetoric? Either way, their ego will be bruised.
On that we agree. So, how would YOU have addressed Brother Max, then? And then how would you have addressed the folks who mocked them? Would you be harder on the ones who mock, or on Brother Max, or are they equally at fault?
But the KJV does do an excellent job beating wives and unbelievers alike. Especially the leather-bound large print edition.
CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
I think it might help to post those verses:
Mat 5:11 Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for My sake.
Mat 5:12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for your reward in Heaven is great. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Mat 5:13 You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its savor, with what shall it be salted? It is no longer good for anything, but to be thrown out and to be trodden underfoot by men.
I post to let others know what we are talking about.
You just had to let the cat out of the bag.
I interpret verse 13 as thus:
You are the flava of the earth, if you lose your flava how can you be cool again? If you lose your cool (your flava) you ain't good for anything but being considered uncool by others.
Urban Dictionary: flava
By the way, Heather, I think I knew the Brother Max you speak of. He used to make the rounds of several universities in the Midwest. By sheer chance, I saw him preaching on several occasions -- on two different campuses. One campus where I was a student, and one campus where my brothers were students.
Brother Max? If he is abusing someone, then he needs to pay for his crime. Mocking is different, to me, that challenging them. Humor is supposed to make people laugh. And, no, I would not be harder on those who mock.
I think I may be very sensitive to making fun. When I was in elementary school, I was made fun of because I had an overbite: I was called names like "bucky beaver" and similar. Maybe I am having trouble separating that from when adults use humor to address something.
Humanity as a whole. Seriously?
AmbiguousGuy
Well-Known Member
I see bullying as an opportunity. If we can deal with hostility, especially hostility directed at our most sacred beliefs, we've learned a valuable skill. And it makes us better champions for our worldviews.
Humor works both ways. We can attack with it but also defend with it.
Yes. He's the one. Used to wear shades and a hat and a white button-down shirt. He would randomly break into songs about how much love he has for Jesus in the middle of a sentence during his preaching.
He loved debating people and often encouraged people to challenge him. Especially women. I was part of Campus Crusade for Christ, and even a guy who was one of the most devout Christians in the organization got into a debate with him over scripture. Brother Max would preach and spit fire-and-brimstone when he wasn't dancing and singing.
He got a lot of attention.
Max got a lot of challenges that he was abusing his wife. Repeatedly. On many many occasions. He never would entertain the notion that hitting his wife was abusive. He was doing God's will as the man of his family, according to him.
So at that point....AFAIK....what's left? A few of the guys in the crowd starting chanting the part from the Bugs Bunny cartoon of the Abominable Snowman catching Daffy Duck (when Max would talk about how he is to lead his wife and love her as Christ loved the church)...and they'd chant out "I would love him and kiss him and call him George."
It broke the tension. Because Max would make a lot of people tense with his statements about spousal abuse and his cognitive dissonance over it. So cracking the joke allowed people to breathe again through laughter.
It's possible, and it's understandable. I have plenty of battle scars of my own from childhood. So I get where you're coming from.
Well, at least quite a few Christians I've known have thought of Christianity as providing a chance of salvation to all of humanity, and perhaps even more broadly, as redeeming humanity as whole.