I know there are a number of Muslim comedians both in Australia and around the world. Good luck to them because if ever a religion needed to poke a bit of fun at itself, Islam is it.
Any Muslim humorist has his or her work cut out. At a scriptural level there are numerous forbidding entries regarding laughter in the Koran and associated texts.
The Hadith says, “Do not laugh too much, for laughing too much deadens the heart.”
Potentially this means any Muslim who uses the laugh out loud acronym is looking at an apostasy charge and in grimmer corners of Islam like Saudi Arabia this has probably already happened.
The Hadith also puts the brakes on satire, too. “Woe to the one who speaks and tells lies in order to make the people laugh; woe to him, woe to him.”
Iran’s mullah, the Shi’ite cleric Ayatollah Khomeini said Islam was a joke free religion. There was not a laugh to be had according to Khomeini. One look at that grizzled visage and you just knew he hadn’t cracked it for a giggle in a very long time, if at all.
Full column here.
So now you know why you never see too many Muslims sheiking with laughter!
Yeah Milt, I think they have a sense of humor it is just sometimes they blow up about it.
What? ….. not even on the sunni side of the street?
Can you do something with “shekeling with laughter?”
shiating themselves
Canadian Russel Peters did some sold out shows in Dubai but they warned him, no jokes about Islam otherwise they would laugh his head off.
Religion is crap, crap religion. That is all you know, and all you need to know on earth.
Bless you my child for you knowest not what you speak.
amen
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Speaking of Christians, I divide them up into three main groups. About 2-3% are true Christians living the teachings of Jesus Christ in every way; (there may be more, one characteristic of them is that they don’t go round telling everybody how holy they are). The rest are what I call Rules Christians; follow the rules, make sure others follow the rules. Not an ounce of charity in their souls. The best example of this group are cradle catholics and evangelicals. A big subset of this group are the psychologically inadequate, those that can not function without a rigid set of rules enforced by a sky daddy with a whip.
So we have two groups of authoritatians trying to enforce their beliefs on society.
Not good
Good observations, insofar as the “edited” teachings of Jesus go. I doubt that “Jesus” ever existed and was the brainchild of the disciples, probably based on one or more of the radical upstarts who preceded them.
If he did exist and those who recorded his statements were reasonably accurate he must have been simply bi-polar at best.
http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/reasons-to-be-ashamed-and-not-fan-of.html
https://www.facebook.com/AustraliansAgainstIslamAAI/photos/a.1523716971240889.1073741827.1523715254574394/1877643642514885/?type=3
Yes, I suppose cracking the odd harmless joke about religion is okay, but I bet the “celebrated” American artist, Andres Serrano, who photographed a crucifix submerged in a glass of his own urine wouldn’t have the guts to “create” a similar “piece of art” depicting you know who.
How’s this for news? No comedies, one asumes….
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/saudi-arabia-is-building-cinemas-says-arabian-centres-ceo-663107.html
Must be 2 cinemas per mall, one for women, one for men.
In Doha and Dubai I watched movies with mixed audiences.
Yep, whacko. Seen one in Saudi?
What is your problem? the comment was that “they” the mussies have 2 cinemas per mall. I refuted that with facts. I have not worked in Saudi so No I have not seen one there. Malaysia, Indo, Kazakhstan, Pakistan . Tunisia all predominately Mussie countries mixed cinemas. Kuwait, did not get to the movies will check next time there. As I said in another comment deliberately divisive Islamaphobia campaign to bring out the intolerant who want to tell us all they are better than those they want to judge. .
Nah! they will have to keep the lights on all the time so the religious police can keep tabs on all the nefarious goings on in the back row.
Church is a place where sheep flock on Sundays to worship a make-believe person, sing songs about this ‘person’ then eat a cracker.
Oh, I almost forgot, bring cash with you, they’re doing it tough at the big gold house in Rome these days.
I have a big problem with religions because they like to tell us they have all the answers. They just don’t like the questions.
I also don’t suppose Islamic women have a whole lot to be laughing about anyway.
Bella, as you know we’re both in the caring “business”. So, your forthright, outspoken comments causes me to wonder if you would be imparting such a message to some of the more frail folk you may tend to. The folk who find it personally comforting in their particular time of need to continue to practice their spiritual belief system, including to “flock on Sundays to worship”, etc. Have you considered that such comments may cause the “flock” you are charged to care for may experience unnecessary additional distress?
Or are you more circumspect in broadcasting your own belief system in such circumstances?
My best wishes
Carl
Are you asking her if she shoves her own beliefs down the throats of all around her, the frail folk? I can answer that for you, no she doesn’t.
Why would you assume Bella is anything less than professional.
Thanks for that Wraith.
Don’t you just love it when the JW’s come calling with their bored, brainwashed little kids reciting their lines first these days?
There’s a no-go for hawkers sign on my gate & I never raise my voice with the littlies right there but with a smile tell the adults in no uncertain terms to leave as they are trespassing.
Kia Kaha Wraith. (means Be Strong in Maori)
Regards, Bella
Your concern is unwarranted Carl. In my work there’s simply no place for our personal opinions so my lips are sealed in the ‘faith’ department.
As you would appreciate, the Salvation Army is in the business of picking up the pieces for far too many people & I happen to find it excruciatingly ironic that some will persist in asking their god for help but he never gives a thing.
It’s all a bit fraught having to seek charity & by now I’m very used to the ‘bless-you dear’ phrase but I just can’t say it in return. A hug works for me. My immediate boss trusts my gentle manner but he also knows & understands that deep down inside I rage against the injustice of religious indoctrination & the riches the Vatican refuse to share.
Just between you & I Carl it’s lucky he’s an athiest too. Ssh.
Best wishes mate, Bella
Upon reflection, perhaps my query was unwarranted. But you response Bella, was given with the dignity and spirit it deserved.
Its no wonder I value you posts.
Kind regards
Carl
It’s all good, I really wasn’t offended.
I think you’d appreciate this Carl:
“Never stop doing little things for others. Sometimes those little things occupy the biggest part of their hearts.” Anonymous
Best Regards, Bella
CotC so you have gone from being misogynistic to patriarchal, to objectifying to now just patronising. Very poor form. No surprises.
Dismayed – you just wouldn’t understand. My “connection” with Bella, over all others on here, is one of the most valuable experiences I get from JTI’s blog.
You know where your money on the plate goes don’t you? $270million the Catholics paid out for their paedophile priests!!
Speaking of ethnic humour, the Sri Lankans have Dickwella and Munaweera opening. Where is Billy Birmingham when you need him?
Who says there is no humour in Islam? Twenty (good looking presumed) virgins in Heaven has to be one of the enduring jokes of all times. No I won’t be drawn into the side jokes.
As an aside Jack, I saw Leak’s cartoon this morning and thought, gee I hope his safe house is going well because the feministas will be joining the Islamic sisterhood in going after him. And you recon the Imams have no sense of humour?
By the way, has he got a guest room for you, might be handy.
virgin what??
Your concern is unwarranted Carl. In my work there’s simply no place for our personal opinions so my lips are sealed in the ‘faith’ department.
As you would appreciate, the Salvation Army is in the business of picking up the pieces for far too many people & I happen to find it excruciatingly ironic that some will persist in asking their god for help but he never gives a thing.
It’s all a bit fraught having to seek charity & by now I’m very used to the ‘bless-you dear’ phrase but I just can’t say it in return. A hug works for me. My immediate boss trusts my gentle manner but he also knows & understands that deep down inside I rage against the injustice of religious indoctrination & the riches the Vatican refuse to share.
Just between you & I Carl it’s lucky he’s an athiest too. Ssh.
Best wishes mate, Bella
Sorry JTI, that’s the third time one of my posts has been repeated. Must be a hiccup with my Ipad so I’ll look into it this week. That or I’ve got a serious case of the shakes!
Regards, Bella
No worries.
I cannot handle this blog on an Ipad Bella.
I look on an Ipad and then to add an entry I revert to a very large screen under Windows.
Bella, see above at 10.36pm.
JTI et al,
The essence of humour is often the ridiculousness of the human condition – and the quintessence (hence less offensive to most) is self-deprecating humour.
in order to indulge in such you need to be very confident (eg British Empire) or the converse – so scared that you have to get in first to deflect the barb (cf Jewish humour also utilised as a self-medication).
Unfortunately, to my knowledge, Islam has not conformed to either circumstance nor have its protagonists managed to laugh at themselves.
Instead (like a number of other groups – and you can pick your own most obvious candidates) there seems to be a classic case of inbred inferiroity ie a chip on both shoulders.
from my point of view it is unclear whether this is a classic chicken and egg paradox but what does seem clear is that if they could laugh at tehmselves there would be likely to be less open conflict. As is often the case the inferiority sense breeds intolerance …..
My logic does not permit benevolent god(s) on a hgh probability basis or even a happy afterlife (or indeed any) but that does not mean that despite teh absence of logical rtionale i would deny such solace to the believer (contrast teh evangelical atheist Dawkins)/
All I ask is that they leave me alone…. but unfortunately the need of most to assert arrant superiority and proselytise mediaeval philosophies is part and parcel of their cant.
We have reached our current level by arguing ideas fairly robustly – despite the efforts of those supporting the prevalent orthodox views to disaviw and disallow dissent.
My ” creed” simply favours the evolution of ideas by permitting discourse – limited basically by the doing of physical (or incitement of such ill ) to others.
If someone can convince me that there is a better way. I would like to think that I am open to persuasion but in the absence thereof I am intellectually committed to maintenaance of individual freedom of thought, belief and speech: may the best ideas triumph!
Satire and humour play a crucial role but as always I wonder ( in the spirit of the devil’s advocate) whether even they play only to ” the converted”!
Until such time I shall continue to laugh (and cry) at our condition – and mount an impious hope that otehrs will extend the same tolerance (but despair when that proves not to be teh case).
cheers with apologies for the relative seriousness of the consideration of humour (and religion)
Ah. How erudite Voltaire. You are quite right
RE: Jack The Insider says:
February 17, 2017 at 5:08 pm
JTI,
To address your points in reverse order.
I agree Organised Religion can be characterised as the font of turmoil, disaster and aggro but ………. for over 5000 years there seems to have been something in the human condition that demands the existence of something / someone beyond the human experience.
Be it the Tribes of Israel, their allies and foes various, the masses of Mesopotamia, India, China , Central and South America etc etc. The rise of ‘Atheism / Agnosticism’ perhaps is a more recent phenomenon, that many of us would like to ascribe to enlightenment / education but I think is more likely a result of increased affluence, the satisfaction of immediate needs and perhaps the influence of science.
But I must say from personal professional experience, come tragedy and disaster, death and destruction to the ‘new age’ more enlightened society and individuals; I am amazed at how quickly there is a reversion to ‘long-term trend’ – so many seek some solace from something like ‘God’!
Re the Orthodox Jews and the ‘classy’ option. To my knowledge there is no significant increase in the interaction between orthodox Jewry and the bulk of Australians; and the ID card issue does not translate easily to Israeli administration.
But there is quite a significant increase in the interaction at a personal, professional and business level between Australia and an increasingly ‘ more devout’ Indonesia. Of course it is an issue that most, including many of my professional acquaintances, would wish to ignore. And indeed they can until the ‘you know what hits the Oscillator’
then we will have a re-run of the recent ‘Chicken Strangler’ training aid incident!! Where one of the ‘devout’ in fact perhaps more correctly described as ‘politically correct stirrers’ used an opportunity to make a point.
Look at how far up the food chain we had to go to hose that one down.
Of course the obvious solution to the KTP dilemma is to ‘play the game’ – it might involve indulging in theatrics and ‘sucking it up’ for the National good – there is the off-chance that attending church etc might just prove individually beneficial!!!
Nah ….. couldn’t happen!!
“there seems to have been something in the human condition that demands the existence of something, someone beyond the human experience.”
Quite right, one would get ones head bashed in, get burnt at the stake along with one’s family if one didn’t have an imaginary being invented by ones master, persecutor, exploiter to acknowledge bow down to and obey as instructed by ones master, persecutor, exploiter on behalf of the invisible fairy , in order to avoid the fate as described in the first part.
Priests, Imams Gurus etc etc etc ad nauseam are the evolution of shamans and witchdoctors who devised methods of controlling and exploiting others while being either too lazy, too weak or too smart to use religion’s direct physical equivalent, the rock, the club, the spear or the machine gun in ascending order.
The reason there are more atheists these days is because now one can be an atheist in more enlightened societies because it is no longer considered acceptable to burn heretics at the stake, and educated people not completely rattle brained from birth by the agents of the said invisible one are less likely to live their lives in fear of everlasting agony.
It’s a scam. A magnificent, stupendous con job, bust your guts so I can live in a golden palace and eat for free and you’ll get a harp and an everlasting smile on your dial , or a bunch of virgins etc, after you turn up the toes.
Don’t ever tell me humans aren’t useful.
God bless you.
JB….as the granddaughter of a defrocked Anglican Minister, I have to say I agree with you. He was defrocked not because he brought my 16 year old grandmother out from the UK already pregnant and then produced 3 more children by the time she was 20, but because they got a DIVORCE and he could no longer be an Anglican minister.
My mother half heartedly sent us to Sunday School, but never went to Church herself, because (and this was her story) she had to stay home to put the Sunday roast in the oven. The fact that she made sure we were all gone from the house each Sunday morning whilst she and my father tended to the roast together has always made me a bit suspicious about her dedication to our religious studies.
I’m not exactly an atheist, but other religions fascinate me, Buddhism for example doesn’t seem to really go anywhere, but is very spiritual and has some really wise advice to those who want to be sinners. Taoism is big with the Chinese here who seem to pray to their ancestors every second week and offer food to the hungry ghosts who pop up once a year and are a bit scary. I like the Hindu religion, because it seems to be all about flowers and making sure you put some henna in the middle of your forehead every day. Our neighbors are born again Christians and keep talking about finding the Baby Jesus, that’s always fun.
But you know Islam doesn’t really grab me….praying five times a day is fine, but most of them don’t. Even our dear friends who are Muslim seem to make all kinds of excuses not to go to the mosque. Except on Friday, they can’t get out of Friday lunchtime prayers. We go to lunch at an Indian restaurant which is very near a mosque most Fridays and you’ve never seen such miserable faces on the guys dragging themselves to go to prayer and listen to the Imam preach against all infidels, particularly the Australian couple drinking wine with their mutton curry just a few doors down.
Ah religion, religion it’s a fine thing….
You and Wraith been tic-tac’n JB?
Well, …. at least with that intemperate outburst you’ve now got it off your chest. You see, religion does play a useful role. Its not healthy for one such as yourself JB, to go blundering around, blue in the face, all full of bluff, bluster and bubbles. Religion has allowed you to sate your obvious need for a decent dose of smug self-satisfaction.
But you’re deluded JB, if you think its the only gig in town where you ‘bust your guts so you can live” me old mate.
If you think that was an intemperate outburst Carl you must be transferring a mental state you don’t want to own. It was calm and considered ( a brilliant denouement) with the occasional chuckle not just at my deeply incisive understanding of the controlling scam of organised religion but my generous use of scintillating wit to entertain the readers, while informing them.
How on Earth you can feel justified in accusing me of smug self satisfaction is something I will never understand. I suppose you just delude yourself into seeing negative traits in others with a greater understanding and wit than your own.
Perhaps you should stop your carping let your inner Jesus shine his light on the world too Carl?
We at the Sacred Cur can help you learn how to perform the miracle of the fishes and the
loaves to the acclaim that you really deserve.
God Bless you.
I’ll always concede your whimsical drollery is superior to my own JB.
Carl, you damn me with faint praise!
My understanding of the nature of man and nature is far more advanced than yours too!