Tex's comments in the post below reminded me of an
old post on religious jokes, from way back in 2007. There was a follow-up
post in 2009, in both of which I retold one of Jerry Clower's jokes. It's better when he tells it.
In any case, the posts are in line with Tex's complaint about jokes being "all hostility and no punchline." There's some bad jokes out there, and some great ones too.
10 comments:
Dan McBride: Tiptoe Through the Tithers
I don't know if any of you remember Bill Maher when he was a very funny stand-up artist, but he had a classic routine about being raised by a Jewish mother and Catholic father. He said he went to confession, but brought his lawyer: "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. . . . I believe you know Mr. Cohen."
Yeah, I think this is part of the reason I like the Bee so much. They have the inside perspective.
Tex, that's funny. I didn't know Maher did stand up, but I'm pretty oblivious to large parts of our culture.
My 7th grade block teacher told this one in class:
It seems a man was on an upper-level ledge of a skyscraper, threatening to jump. An Irish-Catholic cop was on the street below shouting up to him, imploring him not to jump.
"Think of your children," he yells.
"I don't have any children," the man responds.
"Think of your wife," the cop yells back up.
"My wife left me," the man yells back down.
"Think of the Virgin Mary," the cop yells.
"Who's she?" the man yells.
"Ah, jump ye Protestant," and the cop walks away.
Imagine telling that joke in today's jr highs.
Eric Hines
That one is hilarious.
You might be a Calvinist if ... You thing the 12 Apostles are Peter, James, John, James the Lesser, Matthew, Mark, Luke,Thaddeus, Augustin of Hippo, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox.
LittleRed1
My naturalized friend's Irish father told me this one.
A masked band of armed men stopped a bus in Northern Ireland and demanded that all Catholics exit the bus and line up on one side of the bus and all Protestants line up on the other. After almost everyone had exited the bus and lined up according to their religious identification, it was noticed that one family remained seated in the back of the bus. One of the terrorists told them they had to get off and get in the appropriate line. The father of the family said they couldn't because they were Jewish.
This perplexed the terrorists and they discussed it among themselves for some time. Eventually the lead terrorist approached the father and asked him if they were Catholic Jews or Protestant Jews.
Do you know how to tell the difference between Methodists and Baptists? Methodists will say hello to you in the liquor store.
Garrison Keillor was funny making fun of Minnesotans when he still had affection for them. When that went away he was just mean.
Eric Hines, the long version of that joke is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3fAcxcxoZ8
And Joel, there is another version of a person attempting to outwit the terrorists by pretending to be Jewish, at which point one of them says "Sure, and Oim the lookiest Palestinian in all o' Belfast."
Funny jokes take aim at a quality in people that we can admit to sharing ourselves. Not being Catholic, I don't go to confession, but I can identify with the desire to bring a lawyer with me to help get me off the hook--I mean, who REALLY wants to repent of that sin and give it up entirely, and who wouldn't prefer a Jewish lawyer for a sticky accusation that required deft attention? Christ the Advocate is the perfect type of that role in a fallen mind. Similarly, we can all see the habits of mind in ourselves that would divide the whole world into the same opposing camps that occupy us in our provincial disputes, so we get Jews that must be either Protestant or Catholic.
I recall a Keillor riff on a new Lutheran minister about whom the town is trying to make up its mind; they worried that he was "soft on Catholicism." He liked to tell stories about the Lutheran minister and Catholic priest in which they were trying to find common ground, but not in the usual lazy way of jettisoning anything difficult about their fundamental beliefs and adopting a breezy undiscerning secularism. They both had ascetic lives and flocks who wouldn't listen to them. They both pushed spiritual goals in a petty world.
I recall the old joke about how Baptists can't have public sex standing up because someone might think they were dancing. It makes fun of the fear of dancing, as if from the elevated position of someone too cosmopolitan to agree, but also laughs at our own lack of proportion in discerning between two errors to avoid. "Say what you will about my murder convictions, at least I use the right fork!" That's what the punchlines of a lot of Pearly Gates jokes are about.
A joke about a dead Muslim and his 72 virgins is likely to be only sour, because most of us can't identify enough with Islam to share in the role of the butt of the joke. I do like the Zen hot-dog pun, though, "Make me one with everything." I may not understand Buddhism, but I can make fun of confusing an exalted abstract desire with an unrestrained worldly appetite.
AVI, that is a good one, but keep in mind we were 7th graders and attention span-challenged.
One last one from me:
A priest, a minister, and rabbi walk into a bar.
The bartender says, "Is this a joke?"
Eric Hines
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