G.K. Chesterton: ”The test of a good religion is whether it can laugh at itself”

We all enjoy a good joke, but there are few jokes about religion. Very many are about religious people ( “a priest, a minister, and a rabbi go into a bar, etc.”) but very few are about religion itself.

The two extremes of religion - saints and devils - are rarely the source of knee-slapping jests or bon mots.

Seers and prophets tend to be a humorless sort

Maybe this is because the really big questions are very serious ones.

We want to know what happens when we die. Is it the start of some exciting new experi-ence?

Or a very bad one?

Or maybe an eternity of bland television. Or maybe nothing at all.

Many religions think all the answers are in some sacred book.

But we know from the tabloids at the supermarket that you can’t believe everything you read.

The queen, in Alice in Wonderland, says that she be-lieves 6 impossible things before breakfast. But she is a queen. What are we supposed to do?

Some things are just too hard to swallow.

We are asked to believe in invisible beings, who sometimes make an appearance in some-one’s pizza or vegetable bin.

Sometimes these are forces of evil.

Exorcism is supposed to be able to banish them.

These ideas are taught to young people before they are old enough to form their own opinions or know better.

Religious rituals are quite serious. No humor there.

Divine punishment would be no laughing matter.

And to prudery, like the desire to cover up tree crotches.

Religious bigotry leads to tunnel vision. No humor there.

The route to “heaven” is long, arduous, and beyond the abili-ties of most people

So it is easy to see that there is not much here to allow a religion to laugh at itself. G.K. Chesterson would have to agree.

By contrast, humanists see the world around them clearly.

They want to measure up to stan-dards that they and other people choose, not by some deity.

Unlocking the mysteries of life is something for us to try for ourselves.

We need to look within ourselves for guidance.

And draw inspiration from human creativity

Our strength is in ourselves and in others.

Happiness is to be found within the human community.

That is something to be merry about, to laugh, to celebrate — the merry mel-ody of life, in the here and now!