If it’s funny … laugh at it (unless you are at a solemn occasion, then can it till later). If you don’t find it funny, don’t laugh at it.

Be yourself at all times. Offer this to Jesus rather than to be duplicitous, pretending that it’s not funny just to uphold some kind of fake, social profile.

I am not a Christian per se, but I realize that God is not an evil dictator, who punishes us for trifles when, in the long run, we are making an effort to understand how to be His true friends and to have real, actual love for Him based on our understanding of how attractive He really is as a PERSON (for how can anyone love a mere ideal or a concept?).

To be loving towards another person implies a willingness to accept them as they are and to wish for their welfare. If I hear funny jokes about God that I think are funny, I laugh at their wit. If I find something derisive, wherein some person with little intelligence assumes that they are greater than God then, out of compassion for the poor soul, I cannot laugh.

I have an 18yo old daughter who sees the smutty side of almost anything. If it’s witty it deserves a giggle otherwise not.

Just do as YOU see fit and above all LOVE as much as you can.

Your servant and well wisher
tarunkrsnadas

Sage said: “You realize Carlos Mencia is a comedy-thief”

You realize that that’s a bunch of hooey. Read this article. It’s pretty long, but just search for “thief” and you’ll find the relevant part. Warning: language/content advisory.

You realize Carlos Mencia is a comedy-thief:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_5LlOJUvMM&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDmaG1-H25M&NR=1

(Some of you may have seen this.) An email came to one of our customer service reps and she just had to share it with everyone. So as everyone gathered around her computer screen, the scene begins withe 2 stuffed animals (a bunny and a puppy) are in the back window of this car. And as the music roars up the animals begin to bounce around due to the heavy bass. And they eventually come together with one on top of the other. You get the picture. Now with the 2 in a missionary position, they bounce up and down and up and down. That should be enough for you.

Okay, there you are, a Christian. What would you do? I’ll tell you what I did later. What are your thoughts?

Case in point: Napoleon Dynamite. Not one profane utterance in the whole thing. Appreciated by nerds (and others) the world over, myself included. Friend A and I shared the love; Friend B thought it derisive. Big Fish–same situation but friends’ opinions were reversed. Friend B thought it was creative and gave dignity to the father-character; Friend A thought it glorified lying. In both cases, the reactions were influenced by previous experiences.

I’ve only recently developed an appreciation for South Park, and it is precisely because of the afore-mentioned brilliant satire(the episodes on Scientology and Mormonism, and the episode “Free Hat” all fall into this category). Family Guy’s humor is pointless, but it’s irresistible to me because of ALL the pop culture references. But I’m not sure there’s anything edifying about it.

I realize it was a small part of what you addressed, but the whole Jesus-was-humorless thing (that you refuted) grates on me significantly, as it’s a product of my hyper-fundy upbringing. There seems to be a tendency in fundamentalism to strip all humanity from everyone who populates the Bible. In Jesus’ case, that borders on blasphemy; in everyone else’s case, it borders on insanity.

Or put more crassly — 13 guys (including some fishermen and probably a teenager or two) hanging out together for 3.5 years — somewhere in there, somebody had to make a fart joke.

i.e. The Seinfeld Sneer, with its curled upper lip and accompanying ironic quip.

I’ve given up drinking, chewing, smoking, drugs and a few other things for Jesus I will not mention. But I’ll be darned if I’m gonna give up Seinfeld, sneer and all.

Actually, I think the whole premise of the show is that people are laughing at the casts supposed superiority. That was the theme of the closing episode. If you don’t get that I think you don’t get Seinfeld. We are supposed to be in on the joke.

Which ties into the post–Christians often have trouble laughing at themselves.

My ethnic tradition is a composite of the Low German Mennonite and Schwab. Both groups tend to be on the “butt” end of jokes in the German tradition, and both have a very good sense of humor. Generally speaking, both groups enjoy making fun of themselves, which I believe is very healthy. Though traditional Low German Mennonite speech can be very vulgar or crude, it is generally not obscene. I can not make the same claim for the Schwabs. Nevertheless, many anecdotal stories bring out the idiosyncrasies of life in a refreshing way. Maybe it is time to look at the lighter things of life briefly.

This true story as related by my father took place in the twenties or early thirties, well before telephones and automobiles were in common use in the area. In a Mennonite village sixty miles east of us, lived a man who was known for telling very convincing untruthful stories. One day, an acquaintance met him in the store while shopping. Let us suppose that the man’s name was Isaac, and his acquaintance was John. John tapped Isaac on the shoulder and said, “Well, Isaac, tell me a lie today that I will believe”. Isaac slowly turned around with a shocked, very sad expression on his face and said in a pained voice, “You expect me to tell you a lie while I am trying to make final arrangements for my wife’s funeral?”, slowly turned back to the counter, finished his business, walked out with drooping shoulders, got in the wagon and slowly drove home. John’s conscience smote him for his insensitivity. When he got home, he related the incident to his wife. They decided that they would go to Isaac’s to comfort him. When they arrived, they found him and his wife enjoying a hearty supper together.

As another Mennonite friend stated about another habitual Mennonite liar, “He is such a seasoned liar that he blushes every time he tells the truth”.

Here Christians do have to make judgments, and those judgments are not simple or always predictable. …. Complete abstinence seems like the easier route, but I am convinced that temperance, which will risk some participation that the teetotaler refuses, is the better route.

The older I get, the more it seems to me that we just aren’t going to have a formula, or a “principle”, or whatever, ahead of time for every situation we come to. Alot of things are just going to require sizing up the situation as it comes, and using judgement.

Also, in your original post, in the paragaph after humor, you said, When I see Christians trying to rob young people of the right to be normal, ordinary and human, it angers me. As a victim of precisely this type of robbery, I really appreciate your saying this. I was almost thirty before I realized that I had really been screwed over by the counselors, Bible study leaders and writers, “disciplers”, and on and on who told me they were teaching me the gospel, but were really just teaching a kind of trinitarian Phariseeism. (Is that a word?) It’s taken another decade or so to undo some of the damage they did.

And now, as they say, my best years are behind me.

Thanks for nothing, fundies. But I’ll pray for you just the same.