I TRIED A gag in my sermon at St Bride’s last Sunday: A Buddhist
monk goes into a pizza house. The waiter asks him what he’d like on his
pizza. The Buddhist monk replies: “Make me one with everything.” It
bombed. A Christian website recently ran a competition to find the best
religious joke. I can’t tell you the winner. Not that it’s offensive,
you understand. It just isn’t funny.
Rowan Atkinson argues that I
might be charged for my Buddhist joke if there’s a new religious hatred
law. The Government counters that it has no intention of making
religious ridicule an offence.
But both sides are missing the point.
Faith
just isn’t funny enough. If journalists spent more time looking for
laughs in religion, it would serve the dual purpose of making it more
attractive to young people and any silly new law unworkable.
George Pitcher
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