I heard Terry Gilliam (Python) talking about his life. He quit religion in his teens when the elders didn't like him making jokes about God. It set me thinking whether there are any religions that have humour as part of their writ. Jews tell the best jokes but I don't think it is part of the Talmud. This is a very catholic ng (small c) so I wondered if anyone has come across a witty religion in their travels or studies. My bet is on Hindu, but I profess ignorance.
Hmmm. I can see that is a sound philosophy but you don't often see Buddhists laughing in a religious way. Ones I know seem to smile in a knowing way. I want to see if there are any LOL religions.
I'll have to think about that. Is all laughter subversive? I guess that
*most* is, if it's at someone else's expense, especially the stuffed-shirts who 'run' things. But those times when everyone dissolves into uncontrolled mirth (not a dry seat in the house) is often just a group ecstasy, exactly what some religions say they do, not that they ever worked for me.
R.H.Blythe, i think it was in the book series 'Zen and Zen Classics' wrote a book titled something like zen and humour. not sure of the exact title, but its only about Zen Buddhism and Humour.
with daft questions to think about, like: Does a dog have buddha nature?
Its all hippy beads and contacting your spiritual BS.
buy anthropological texts instead.
I you study religion extensively, what you may find, as I did, that there are two sides to it.
At its core, is the religious experience. Or the shamanic experience. Indeed I find little difference between an old testament 'prophet' a Dervish, or a buddhist meditating monk. or a Brazilin tribal shaman. The goals are apparently similar, only the techniques of achieving it differ.
But that then gets translated into the local and temporal cultures of the times, in order to construct what appear to me to be socially cohesive mores, and that is what most people understand by 'religion'
I.e. its one think for Martin Luther King to say 'I have a dream..' as any good shaman/prophet does.. and then to end up with political affirmative discrimination policies etc. etc.
In other words, the essence of all these things is that this mundane world is not the be-all and end all of existence itself. And that this is a fact that may, by undergoing various rituals and disciplines, be experienced by anyone with the ability to follow the methodology. Such a person is a mystic, a druid, a shaman, a guru, a medicine man, a diablero, a witch, a prophet or an enlightened one.
What he/she chooses to do with this experience, the terms in which they describe it, and what profane followings they attract, are purely cultural.
Christianity is pure Romano European, tacked on to an older shamanistic culture of the middle east. With some incorporation of druidic and Nordic shamanism as well.
Islam is pure middle eastern.
As is Judaism.
You find traces of pre-christian European shamanism in the folk record..fairies, gnomes. witches and wizards, elves, ghosts and so on. Tolkien's landscape is close.
Also in the Greek mythology.
Taoism and Buddhism represent the development of Asian shamanism, into something akin to a structured science, only the Jewish Kabballah is comparable in the West.
Hinduism appears to be a degenerate form of Taoism, in some senses as does Shinto.
The whole study is deeply interesting and fascinating, once you can see it all objectively, and step back from 'what the church teaches' to 'what the mystics (including Jesus) actually said'
My overwhelming conclusion is that all these things point towards something that is definitely there, in some sense. But for reasons I wont go into here, how it appears, is really a function of the cultural basis from which it is viewed. Hence the remarkably different pictures that are painted to simplify it.
Smackeroo! There is one. Zen. I loved the list of different forms of laughter. Bit sad that only the proles are allowed the loudest laughter though.
Sita highest and noblest form, a faint smile
Hasita next highest form, a smile which barely reveals the tips of the teeth
Vihasita an even larger smile accompanied by some laughter
Upahasita a more pronounced laughter, marked by shaking of the head, shoulders, and arms
Apahasita loud laughter that makes one teary-eyed
Atihasita uproarious laughter that makes one double over, slap the thighs, or roll around
So ROFL is in fact atihasita
The bit about "the humor in Zen: ... is iconoclastic in its 'smashing' of that which is typically though of 'traditional'" confirms what Nat Phil said about it being subversive.
I've done the archery bit, but not many laughs allowed whilst shooting, even when I pinned my mates hat to the ground as it blew away across the field. Best shot of the day.
The Parody Religions were interesting especially the Flying Spgahetti Monster. More pasta than pastor!
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