This document discusses the views of various philosophers and religious figures on humor from ancient Greece to modern times. It provides a chronological sampling of statements on humor from Plato and Aristotle in ancient Greece to modern thinkers like Freud and Kierkegaard. It also explores how different religious traditions like Buddhism, Christianity and Judaism have incorporated or viewed humor. Examples of religious humor in sermons, church bulletins and politics are presented to show how humor can be used to identify with religious groups.

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Humor, Philosophy, and
Religion
by Don L. F. Nilsen
and Alleen Pace Nilsen

2. A Philosophical Encounter
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3. A Chronological Sampling of
Philosophers’ Statements on Humor
• Plato, a classical Greek philosopher
(424-348 BCE) conflated what we
now call humor with laughter. He
looked mainly at the laughter of
ridicule and viewed it as an emotion
in itself, rather than evidence of
something more complex.
• It therefore fell under his general
objection to emotions, which he said
“override rationality and self-
control.”
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4. Contributions from Other Early Scholars
Who Pondered on the Role of Humor
ARISTOTLE (384-322
BCE) was a Greek tutor to
Alexander the Great.
•He thought that comedy
results from people who are
worse than the average. They
do not cause pain, but are like
a mistake in being unseemly or
distorted.
•He nevertheless gave advice
on how to make people laugh.
Set up an expectation and then
“jolt” the audience with
something different.
CICERO (Born in 106
BCE) was a Roman orator and
author.
•He wrote that the most
common joke is when we
expect one thing and
something else happens.
•Our disappointed expectation
makes us laugh.
•But when something
ambiguous is thrown in,
listeners have to stop and
figure out the joke and the
effect is heightened.
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5. More Early Philosophers
SENECA (4 BCE-AD 65) was a Roman advisor to Nero.
•He counseled “Bear yourself with wit, lest you be regarded as
sour or despised as dull.” He added, “Those who lack playfulness
are sinful.”
•And those who never say anything to make you smile, and who
are grumpy are “rough and boorish.”
Of course there were people thinking and talking about
humor over the next several centuries, but we do not
have records of their thoughts until the end of the
Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance.
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6. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 A.D.)
This well-known Italian Priest called a happy person a
“eutrapelos,” and defined the term as “a pleasant person
with a happy cast of mind who gives his words and deeds a
cheerful turn.”
René Descartes (1595-
1650 A.D.). This French scholar
wrote, “I am thinking, therefore
I exist.”
•He said that people laugh at
those who are inferior to them.
He explained that the laugh is
an obvious defect, because it is
satisfying to see others held in
lower esteem than ourselves.
Immanuel Kant (1724-
1804). This East Prussian
philosopher wrote that
“Laughter is an affectation
arising from the sudden
transformation of a strained
expectation into nothing.”
•NOTE: In a way, this is
opposite to the epiphany that
today we expect as the punch
line of a joke.
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7. William Spencer (1769-1834). This British poet wrote that
we laugh when our minds are surprised by recognizing
similarities between great and small things. He called it a
“descending incongruity.”
William Hazlitt (1778-
1830)
This British writer observed
that “Man is the only animal
that laughs and weeps; for he
is the only animal that is struck
with the difference between
what things are and what they
ought to be. We weep at what
thwarts or exceeds our desires
in serious matters; we laugh at
what only disappoints our
expectations in trifles.”
Soren Kierkegaard
(1813-1855)
This Danish philosopher wrote
“The tragic apprehension sees
the contradiction and despairs
of a way out,” while the comic
vision faces the same
contradiction but sees a “way
out.” In many situations, “the
comic perspective can be more
imaginative, more insightful,
and wiser than the tragic
perspective.”
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8. Father Guido Sarducci’s Five Minute University:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO8x8eoU3L4
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9. Monks Who Have Taken a Vow of Silence
Sing Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCFCeJTEzNU&feature=related
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10. Stone carvings like this Mayan Frieze, are usually
related to answering THE BIG questions of life. Is there
room for humor in religious statues?
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11. MODERN PHILOSOPHERS
Henri Bergson, French Philosopher (1859-1941)
•Bergson claimed that when we suppress our “elan
vital” and manage our lives with logic, “we act in rigid,
mechanical ways, treating new experiences merely as
repetitions of previous ones.”
•He concluded that laughter comes from the surprise
of suddenly seeing “the mechanical encrusted on the
living.”
•Are we being too literal if we apply his observation to
today’s humor that centers around competition
between humans and computers?
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Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Austrian Neurologist, Father of Psychoanalysis
• Freud said that telling jokes is like dreaming, a way to let repressed
feelings into the conscious mind. When we express our hostile or
sexual feelings we ‘save’ the mental energy we would have expended
to repress those feelings. That saved energy is vented in laughter.
• He popularized the terms “tendentious humor” and “Freudian slips.”
• An example of his definition of “the comic” would be a Rube Goldberg
drawing of a fantastically complicated device to do some simple task,
such as watering a plant.
• At first viewers try to understand how each part of the machine moves
the next part, but then acknowledge that the drawing is just a cartoon.

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John Morreall, Contemporary American Scholar
in the Department of Religious Studies at William and Mary
points to the psychological differences associated with
having a Comic Vision vs. a Tragic Vision of Life. He
also lists these Social Differences and says that most
“new” religions promote the Comic Vision.
•Anti-Heroism vs. Heroism
•Pacifism vs. Militarism
•Forgiveness vs. Vengeance
•Social Equality vs. Inequality
•Questioning vs. Acceptance of Authority
•Situation Ethics vs. Duty Ethics
•Social Integration vs. Social Isolation

14. In virtually all cultures, religion plays a role in the
philosophically important events of life: Births,
Weddings, Funerals, and the overall establishment of
Cultural Values. We know people take these things
seriously, but humor can also be found around the edges.
This historical photo from Alleen’s
family shows great seriousness.
•To make the wedding portrait
“picture perfect”, the bride is
sitting down because she was
taller than her husband.
•Also she is not smiling because
she was missing a tooth.
•The letters behind the portrait are
filled with “serious” advice to the
couple’s son.
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15. Christmas II--Digital Story of Nativity & Christmas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZrf0PbAGSk
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TIBETAN BUDDHISM
Laughter and Open Mindedness
When John Cleese asked the Dalai Lama
why in Tibetan Buddhism people laugh
so much he responded that laughter is
very helpful to him in teaching and in
political negotiations, because when
people laugh, it is easier for them to
admit new ideas to their minds.

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Zen Buddhism
• John Morreall writes that Zen masters use
“koans” to break people’s attachments to
incongruities, for example, “What is the
sound of one hand clapping?”
• He adds that “The most comic vision among
traditional religions is in Zen Buddhism and
Taoism, the most tragic vision is in certain
forms of Judaism and Calvinist Christianity.
Virtually all the New Religions of the past fifty
years have embraced the comic vision.”

18. Mainstream American Religions
• A clergyman confided to us that he thinks
that the people who need to hear “Fire and
Damnation” sermons are those who don’t
attend church.
• He believes that the people who make an
effort and come to church need to have their
spirits enriched with stories of love and
humor.
• We thought of this when we saw the portable
trailer shown in the next slide.
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19. This “FEAR GOD” message is painted on a trailer that supports an
itinerant preacher. Does the difference in tone relate to what the
mainstream clergyman told us about sending different messages
to those who come to church and those who don’t? Or could it
relate to Morreall’s idea about “Comic” vs. “Tragic” vision?
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20. Samples of Humor from the Pulpit:
Which message is most likely to inspire you to
contribute after a severe windstorm damages the roof
of your church so that $4,000 is needed for repairs?
• The Clergyman divides
the $4,000 (plus a little
extra to make up for the
cheapskates) and sends a
formal letter and an
invoice to each family in
the church asking them to
submit their share by the
end of the month.
• The Clergyman, as part of
his Sunday sermon, says
that “Unfortunately the
recent storm damaged the
church roof and $4,000 is
needed. Fortunately the
money is available. But
unfortunately it is at the
moment scattered
through the church in the
pockets of the members.”
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21. Bloopers from Church Bulletins
It is said that “To error is human, but to forgive
mistakes in church bulletins is divine.” Why are so
many mistakes noticed in Church Bulletins?
Several websites accept and reprint examples online.
Shipoffools.com is a British site, while the Joyful Noiseletter
is a publication edited by Cal Samra, from Portage,
Michigan. Here are just a few examples:
•Ladies may leave their clothes in the basement between
6:00 and 8:00 on Tuesday evening.
•At the going-away party for the pastor, the congregation
was anxious to give him a little momentum.
•You are all invited to prayer and medication next
Wednesday.
•Attendees are invited to socialize over “coffee and mice
pies.”
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22. Religious Humor as Part of Political
Identification
• In the 2008 primary election, Mike Huckabee frequently
made jokes or allusions related to the Bible. It was an
effective way for him to identify with his conservative
base.
• But when National Public Radio polled the people in his
audience, they found that only one of those questioned
was able to get all of the references correct; nevertheless
everyone recognized them as “Biblical.”
• When Huckabee was later told that it was almost a
statistical impossibility that he could get the Republican
nomination, he replied, “I didn’t major in math. I majored
in miracles.”
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23. Religious Humor for Group Identity
In the 2012 primary elections, when Rick Santorum accused Mitt
Romney of “Not being Mormon enough,” hundreds of Mormons
sent messages into an unofficial Mormon website. While many of
the “jokes” were funny only to “insiders” (those intimately
acquainted with Mormonism) others described actions that would
“work” for several protestant religious. For example,
Mitt Romney is so Mormon that--
•…at press conferences the reporters will have to put away their
own chairs.
•…he will install basketball hoops at the inaugural balls so there
will be something to hang the decorations on.
•…White House dinners will be potluck affairs.
•…Foreign service advisers will wear white shirts and always
work in pairs.
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24. A Sunday School Story from the Arizona Desert
• Two little kids, a boy and a girl, lived on adjoining Arizona
ranches. Every Sunday they would walk into Wickenburg for
Sunday School, even though they attended different churches.
This particular Sunday, there had been a Saturday night rain,
and the two came across a gully that was in flash flood mode.
They didn’t dare go through the water for fear of ruining their
Sunday clothes. But they hated to have wasted all that
walking, and so they decided to get undressed and carry their
clothes across on their heads.
• All went well and when they got to the other side, they began
drying off the best they could before getting dressed. The little
boy looked at the girl and in great amazement said, “I didn’t
know Baptists and Methodists were that different from each
other!”
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25. Mr. Diety:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzf8q9QHfhI
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26. Samples of “Benign” Jokes Used by
Clergy to Amuse Their Congregations
• A gracious lady was at the post office mailing an old
family Bible to her brother. When she was asked, “Is
there anything breakable in here?” she responded, “Only
the Ten Commandments.”
• Ministers use this quip to encourage people to move to
the front: People want the front of the bus, the back of
the church, and the center of attention.
• A young boy approached his father and proudly told him
“I know what the Bible means!” When the father said,
“What?” the boy responded, “That’s easy, Dad! . . . It
stands for ‘Basic Information Before Leaving Earth.”
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Because death and funerals are so sad,
many people now look for jokes or light
moments to bring into funerals or obituaries.
• When Yuri Nikulin, the “Russian Charlie Chaplin” died in 1997,
his favorite joke was recounted as part of his obituary. “An
American actor railed at his New York Tailor, ‘God needed only
seven days to create the universe and it took you 30 days to
make a pair of trousers?’
‘Yes,’ answered the tailor, “But look at the world, and then
look at the trousers.’”
• When Andy Rooney died in 2011, his obituary included
comments he made as part of reporting on the inauguration of
Barack Obama. He told viewers that “Calvin Coolidge’s 1925
swearing-in was the first to be broadcast on radio.” Then
Rooney added, “That may have been the most interesting thing
Coolidge ever did.”

28. Folklore as Part of Religion
• We were surprised when we
lived in Afghanistan in 1969
to hear humorous stories
told about Mullah Nasrudin.
• Now that the Taliban is
trying to enforce a strict
version of Islam, such
stories have probably
disappeared because the
tension is too high.
• But when we lived there, we
heard such stories as those
on the next slide, which
were a subtle way of
protesting the authority of
the Mullahs.
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29. Sample Stories about Mullah Nasrudin, who is a comic
figure that sometimes allows people to hint at their
resentment of the authority that the Mullahs hold.
• It is dark and the Mullah fell into a freshly dug hole left by
workers repairing a road. Townspeople had gathered
around and were stretching their hands out to the Mullah,
saying “Here, give me your hand and I will pull you up.”
Mullah Nasrudin stubbornly ignored them until a wise
man came along and said, “Here, take my hand and I will
pull you out.” As he pulled the unhappy man up from the
hole, he explained. “Mullahs are used to TAKING, not
GIVING!”
• A more ornate story is about how the Mullah tricked his
congregation so that for three weeks in a row he did not
have to give his Friday sermon.
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30. Differences Between Mythology and
Religion
• Some scholars have
observed that myth-
ology is more playful,
and so it is appropriate
for people to create new
myths and stories.
• But with religion, such
creativity is considered
sacrilegious.
• Who determines what is
a myth vs. what is
religion?
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31. “It’s Turtles All the Way Down”
• Lots of old stories try
explaining the “miracle of the
creation” by explaining that the
world is resting on the back of a
turtle.
• The answer to the question of
“What holds up the turtle?” is
“It’s turtles all the way down!”
• Here Don holds a string of such
turtles hand-sewn by women in
India. We bought the artifact at
an art museum and have no
idea whether the creator was
being humorous or serious.
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32. We wish you a Merry Mithras:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSm7YPMQOSo
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