No jokes about faggots

Science is full of jokes: the chameleon; the eyes on a butterfly's wings or a peacock's tail; the light which burns on our retina from a star which has not existed for millions of years; the fact that the testicles, upon which all human life depends, have to be stored outside the body's protection, or they get too hot.

Christianity only has one joke:

Matthew 16:13-20

¹³When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?

¹⁴And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

¹⁵He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

¹⁶And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

¹⁷And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

¹⁸And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

¹⁹And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

²⁰Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.

A stupid pun on the word Petrus, in Latin, or if you like Kephas, in Greek, which it's unlikely Jesus, had he existed, would have appreciated.

The Jews, not surprisingly, have more, but only two: the sacrifice demanded of Abraham, when God popped out and went, "Only kidding!" And the Book of Job, which most fans of comedy would admit goes a bit too far -- farther even than Frankie Boyle.

Humanists can laugh at themselves. Scientists even make it a tenet of their activity: if you can prove my thesis wrong, I'll laugh at myself and move on. That's the scientific method.

The faithful don't have that facility. It will be remarked that aside from Jesus' stupid pun, the only jokes in the Judeo-Christian tradition we all hear about are of an extreme cruelty, and while that's not a bar to comedy -- see Fawlty Towers -- it doesn't exactly signal a group of people at ease with their philosophy.

Perhaps that's why the Vatican likes to burn heretics: it doesn't get the joke.