Yesterday I watched an outstanding documentary on the Church of the Subgenius, which started off as satire but for those who got the joke -- who heard the word of Bob -- became a real religion, especially for weirdos and outsiders who resist the normotic enticements and coercions of the Conspiracy. A genuine fake, as Alan Watts used to describe himself.
On the other hand, we start with genuine religion and try to infuse it with a bit of fun, because... because we can, and because no one else is doing it.
To be sure, people make fun of religion, but not enough people make fun with it. But if we have a sense of humor and God doesn't, this means God lacks a good that we possess, which is impossible. Rather, humor can only exist because its principle is somehow in God.
Of course, this doesn't apply to bad humor or unfunny people. In other words, late night comedy is not proof of God.
I believe more in God's smile than His wrath.
Some people say the very idea of "wrath" in God is nonsensical, since he doesn't have transient emotions. Then again, verses like Psalms 5:5 and 11:5 explicitly state that God hates evildoers, and Proverbs 6:16-19 compiles a list of specific evils that really piss off the Lord. Besides, if God loves justice, how could he not revile its opposite?
Gemini, how many instances of laughter or humor do you reckon there are in the Bible?
It's tricky to give an exact number of "instances" of laughter or humor in the Bible, as interpretation plays a big role. But some scholars argue that the Bible contains a significant amount of humor, while others have historically downplayed its presence.
I'll bet these latter interpreters are slackless anti-Bob types trying to incorporate religion into the Conspiracy, when the whole point of religion is to oppose the Conspiracy and liberate us from it, as in Be not conformed to this world.
Some scholars have even attempted to quantify the amount of humor within the bible. For instance, some state that there are over a thousand "humorous lines and stories" within the bible.
That's more like it: again, a real religion with genuine humor.
Are there any yucks in the Koran?
Probably not, but let's ask Gemini:
It's important to understand that the Quran's primary purpose is to provide guidance and religious instruction, not to entertain with jokes.
Indeed, joking about Islam is likely to get you fatwa'd. Nevertheless,
There are instances where the Quran describes the disbelief of certain people in a way that highlights the illogical nature of their claims, which can be seen as having elements of irony.
Perhaps as in Psalms, where we read that The fool says in his heart, "There is no God," so ha ha!
There are even "narrations of the prophet Muhammed, that contain instances of him joking with his companions," but not everyone is into antisemitic humor.
On the one hand,
The unforeseeable grace of an intelligent smile is enough to blast away the layers of tedium which the days deposit.
On the other, there is
The destructive capacity of the imbecile’s smile.
But enough about late night comedy.
According to Lao Tse,
When the inferior man is told of the Tao, he laughs aloud at it. Without his laughter, it would not be the Tao.
Now, I am not the first to gnotice the psimilarities between the Logos and the Eternal Tao, which seem to be the same reality under two names (or at least close enough for blogging). Regarding this Godhead, Meister Eckhart is full of fun, puns, & good'uns such as
In the core of the Trinity, the Father laughs and gives birth to the Son. The Son laughs back at the Father and gives birth to the Spirit. The whole Trinity laughs and gives birth to us.
Which implies that the Trinity is a nonstop guffah-HA! experience.
Having thought about it for at least five minutes, it must be the case that anything we can do God can both do, and do better -- especially the things that define us as human such as freedom, rationality, intersubjectivity, creativity, beauty, et al.
Come to think of it, just as love requires a lover and a beloved, humor always takes two, and by implication three, the joker, the jokee, and the laughter they share.
Thomas Aquinas, of course, related laughter to rationality. Which explains why leftists aren't (intentionally) funny.
Now, I'm old enough to remember when they were funny. What happened? Well, Trump is funny, and the left wants to be the opposite of Trump in all ways. If he found a cure for cancer they wouldn't rejoice, and when he engages in humor they just get more angry.
Then there's Isaac,
which literally means "He laughs/will laugh." According to the biblical narrative, Abraham fell on his face and laughed [ROFL] when God imparted the news of their son's eventual birth.... Later, when Sarah overheard three messengers of the Lord renew the promise, she laughed inwardly for the same reason.
Now, why am I talking about this? Because of a comment yesterday from Steve in Kansas, who partly reads the blog for "the entertainment factor." Which happens to be the same reason why I write it. Somewhat like Alan Watts, who always called himself a "philosophical entertainer."
Is the creation God playing peek-a-boo with himself? That's probably going too far, but every once in awhile
It also reminds me of when George Martin signed the Beatles to a recording contract. It wasn't on the basis of their musical abilities, rather, because he found them so funny, clever, and "the kind of people that you liked to be with." He reasoned that if he enjoyed their company so much, others would too. He wasn't wrong.
Even the Stones were, at their best, a knowing parody of black music. As Mick Jagger said, "what's the point in listening to us do 'I'm A King Bee' when you can listen to Slim Harpo doing it?" Partly to chuckle at it. Conversely, when Led Zeppelin tries to do the blues, it's never funny, just plodding.
Now, where were we? Something about God intervening in history and snatching victory from the jaws of the Antichrist. Which he already did via the Resurrection, but will purportedly do again at the end of time, just to rub it in.
For the same reason,
The very act of creation thus might be called the beginning of the passion of God. God has so entered into the world that God cannot but be affected by its life, including its sinful life (Fretheim).
Looked at this way, the Incarnation can almost be seen as God's own way to extricate himself from the mess he's gotten himself into. The early fathers taught that God becomes man so that man might become God -- and have a good laugh?
There's an old saying in the Church of the Subgenius, aimed straight at the heart of the Conspiracy:
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Come to think of it, just as love requires a lover and a beloved, humor always takes two, and by implication three, the joker, the jokee, and the laughter they share.
Without humor and laughter, life would be simply intolerable. Even animals can laugh.
Well, now you. got me interested in Alan Watts. I have to read and listen to him. His bio shows he was a heavy duty Christian, an Anglican priest, then a seeker who shifted to Eastern religions, Hinduism in particular. Sort of the reverse of you. Not exactly but sorta. He liked tobacco ( the ever present pipe) and alcohol, a lot apparently. Well I'm an Anglican, with credentials, and a semi-regular attender of Sunday rituals, largely because of the pageantry and also Chesterton in my case. I wasn't brought up that way. I smoked a pipe in law school. Many did then. It looked serious. Now it's cigars and I must have my glass of wine with dinner. Your blog got me interested in Eastern religion and mysticism in general. That sort of thing didn't make it all the way to Kansas in the 60's. We encountered Hari Krishna's begging at airports, but generally lumped Timothy Leary, mushroom consumers, tree huggers and crystal gazers into the same pot with Charles Manson. Apparently, Watts pissed off a lot of his disciples when he admitted to being an entertainer, but he had a great death and funeral plan, almost like the Viking funeral I've imagined.
Watts was basically a stand-up theologian. A lot of his insights don't hold up over time, but neither does comedy. He went on to influence a lot of people who were more serious than he was. In fact, he would have called himself a "serious joke." Or at least he thought of life as a serious game.
The other fun one is Terence McKenna. I don't agree with a lot of what he says, but he says it beautifully and humorously. He's the one who turned me on to Joyce and Whitehead. His ideas were much more plausible when I was sleep-deprived and working the graveyard shift in the supermarket.
Also, back then I was a leftist hippie instead of a reactionary hippie.
Speaking of movies.......Do you remember Bob & Carol and Ted & Alice? I thought that movie would kill all of the new age crap and maybe feminism, as Bob especially, played by Robert Culp, made the whole enterprise seem ridiculous, as it was. Some movies have that kind of power. It didn't happen. The whole national psychosis just kept rolling. Most guys I knew viewed real feminism as Natalie Wood and Dyan Cannon. I read somewhere that later in life, the founders, Betty Friedan or Germaine Greer, expressed some regrets about the whole thing. A maybe we went too far moment. A movie that did bring about real change, not for the good though, was One Flew Over The Cookoo's Nest. Jack Nicholson getting lobotomized killed psychiatric hospitals. And it didn't take long. Funding dried up and now we have "the homeless".
This isn't a private conversation. Feel free to jump in.
I never saw it. I was too young and it was too naughty at the time.
What did you think of the Subgenius doc? I saw it a few years back. Sort of quirky and I doubt many got the joke behind the joke.
I've only watched about half of it, but it's great. Of the two founders, I relate to the conservative one. My kind of guy. A lot of the members are rather weird, but I suppose that's the point.
What I like is the overall sensibility. No one, to my knowledge, has tried to bring that quirky sensibility into real religion, or rather, make religion appeal to us misfits and outsiders. It mostly speaks to conventional types, something Schuon often points out. What about the restavus, who don't necessarily fit into the box? When I was younger, I blamed religion for that. More recently I blamed myself. But now I'm feeling more inclined to blame religion again, since I'm too old to become something other than who I am.
Come to think of it, I've spent twenty years trying to make conventional religion accessible and appealing to unconventional people!
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