Interreligions Humor

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To add a bit of levity to one of the most heated forums, I was wondering it anyone out there knew some good, tasteful, interreligious humor out there. A nice poking fun at ourselves. Since I’m Catholic, I’ll start out with a nice Catholic joke, feel free to add in your own.
Theology 911 * Final Exam
  1. Summarize Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae in three succinct sentences. You may use your Bible.
  2. St. Martin of Tours, Pope Clement VII and Karl Barth were not contemporaries. Had they known each other, how might the history of the Reformation have turned out differently?
  3. Define a moral system that satisfies Liberals, Conservatives, Moderates, and the entire population of Ancient Rome, ca. 3 BCE.
  4. Memorize the Bible. Recite it in tongues.
  5. Imagine you have the stigmata. Would it affect your productivity at work? Would you still be admitted into fine restaurants? Would it be covered by your medical insurance, or should it constitute a pre-existent condition?
  6. What would it mean to be eternal, co-eternal, and non-existent all at once?
  7. St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine of Hippo decide to rob a bank. The note to the teller is 1,200 pages long, not counting footnotes, complete with a promise of damnation if the teller does not accept immediate Baptism. In the middle of the heist, they engage in an extended debate as to whether or not the money really exists.

    Are they committing a mortal or a venial sin?
  8. Speculate on what the current status of salvation history might have been if Abraham had just stayed in Ur.
    (continued)
 
Hermeneutics for Moderns

Suppose you’re traveling to work and you see a stop sign. What do you do? That depends on how you apply exegesis to the stop sign.

A postmodernist deconstructs the sign (i.e., he knocks it over with his car), thus ending forever the tyranny of the north-south traffic over the east-west traffic.

Similarly, a Marxist sees a stop sign as an instrument of class conflict. He concludes that the bourgeoisie use the north-south road and obstruct the progress of the workers on the east-west road.

A serious and educated Catholic believes that he cannot understand the stop sign apart from its interpretive community and their tradition. Observing that the interpretive community doesn’t take it too seriously, he doesn’t feel obligated to take it too seriously either.

An average Catholic (or Orthodox or Coptic or Anglican or Methodist or Presbyterian or whatever) doesn’t bother to read the sign but he’ll stop if the car in front of him does.

A fundamentalist, taking the text very literally, stops at the stop sign and then waits for it to tell him to go.

A preacher might look up “STOP” in his lexicons of English and discover that it can mean either:

something which prevents motion, such as a plug for a drain, or a block of wood that prevents a door from closing;or

a location where a train or bus lets off passengers.

The main point of his sermon the following Sunday on this text is: when you see a stop sign, it is a place where traffic is naturally clogged, so it is a good place to let off passengers from your car.

An Orthodox Jew does one of two things:

Take another route to work that doesn’t have a stop sign so that he doesn’t run the risk of disobeying the halachah, or

Stop at the stop sign, say “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, king of the universe, who hast given us thy commandment to stop,” wait 3 seconds according to his watch, and then proceed.
Incidentally, the Talmud has the following comments on this passage: R[abbi] Meir says: He who does not stop shall not live long. R. Hillel says: Cursed is he who does not count to three before proceeding. R. Simon ben Yudah says: Why three? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. R. ben Isaac says: Because of the three patriarchs. R. Yehuda says: Why bless the Lord at a stop sign? Because it says: “Be still, and know that I am God.”
R.Hezekiel says: When Jephthah returned from defeating the Ammonites,the Holy One, blessed be He, knew that a donkey would run out of the house and overtake his daughter; but Jephthah did not stop at the stop sign, and the donkey did not have time to come out. For this reason he saw his daughter first and lost her. Thus he was judged for his transgression at the stop sign.
R. Gamaliel says: R. Hillel, when he was a baby, never spoke a word, though his parents tried to teach him by speaking and showing him the words on a scroll. One day his father was driving through town and did not stop at the sign. Young Hillel called out: “Stop, father!” In this way, he began reading and speaking at the same time. Thus it is written: “Out of the mouth of babes.” R. ben Jacob says: Where did the stop sign come from? Out of the sky, for it is written: “Forever, O Lord, your word is fixed in the heavens.” R. ben Nathan says: When were stop signs created? On the fourth day, for it is written: “let them serve as signs.” But R. Yehoshua says: … (continues for three more pages…)

A Haredi [ultra-Orthodox “black hat” Jew] does the same thing as an Orthodox Jew, except that he waits 10 seconds instead of 3. He also replaces his brake lights with 1000 watt searchlights and connects his horn so that it is activated whenever he touches the brake pedal.

(continued)
 
A Breslover Hasidic Jew sees the sign and makes hisboddidus (a form of spontaneous personal prayer) saying: “Robono Shel Olam [Master of the Universe] – here I am, traveling on the road in Your service, and I’m about to face who knows what danger at this intersection in my life. So please watch over me and help me to get through this stop sign safely.” Then, “looking neither to left nor right” as Rebbe Nachman advises, he joyfully accepts the challenge, remains focused on his goal – even if the car rolls backward for a moment – then he hits the gas pedal and forges bravely forward, overcoming all obstacles which the yetzer hara [evil inclination] might put in his path.

A Lubovitcher Hasidic Jew stops at the sign and reads it very carefully in the light of the Rebbe’s teachings. (In former times he would have used his cell phone to call Brooklyn and speak to the Rebbe personally for advice, but this is no longer possible, may the Rebbe rest in peace.) Next, he gets out of the car and sets up a roadside mitzvah mobile [outreach booth], taking this opportunity to ask other Jewish drivers who stop at the sign whether or not they have put on tefillin today [male ritual] or whether they light Shabbos candles [female ritual]. Having now settled there, he steadfastly refuses to give up a single inch of the land he occupies until Moschiach [the Jewish Messiah] comes.

A Reform Jew sees the stop sign, and coasts up to it while contemplating the question “Do I personally feel commanded to stop?” During this internal process he edges into the intersection and is hit from behind by a car driven by a secular Jew who ignored the sign completely.

A Conservative Jew reacts by calling his rabbi and asking him whether stopping at this sign is required by unanimous ruling of the Commission on Jewish Law or if there is a minority position. While waiting for the rabbi’s answer he is ticketed by a policeman for obstructing traffic.

A Reconstructionist Jew, seeing the stop sign, might say: First, this sign is part of our evolving civilization and therefore I must honor it and stop. On the other hand, since its origins are in the past, I must assert that “the past has a vote and not a veto,” and therefore I must study the issue carefully and decide if the argument “to stop” is spiritually, intellectually and culturally compelling enough to convince me to stop. If yes, I will vote with the past. If not, I will veto it. Finally, is there any way that I can re-value or transvalue the stop sign’s message for our own time?

The Renewal-Movement-Jew meditates on whether the STOP sign applies in all kabbalistic Four Worlds [Body-Emotion- Mind-Spirit] or only in some of them, and if so which ones? Must he stop feeling? thinking? being? driving? Since he has stopped to breathe and meditate on this question, he is quite safe while he does so, barukh HaShem. [Praise G-d.]

A scholar from the Jesus seminar concludes that the passage “STOP” undoubtedly was never uttered by Jesus himself, but belongs entirely to stage III of the Gospel tradition, when the church was first confronted by traffic in its parking lot.

A NT scholar notices that there is no stop sign on Mark Street but there is one on Matthew and Luke streets, and concludes that the ones on Luke and Matthew streets are both copied from a sign on a completely hypothetical street called “Q”. There is an excellent 300 page discussion of speculations on the origin of these stop signs and the differences between the stop signs on Matthew and Luke street in the scholar’s commentary on the passage. There is an unfortunate omission in the commentary, however: the author apparently forgot to explain what the text means.

(continued)
 
An OT scholar points out that there are a number of stylistic differences between the first and second half of the passage “STOP”. For example, “ST” contains no enclosed areas and 5 line endings, whereas “OP” contains two enclosed areas and only one line termination. He concludes that the authorfor the second part is different from the author for the first part and probably lived hundreds of years later. Later scholars determine that the second half is itself actually written by two separate authors because of similar stylistic differences between the “O” and the “P”.

Another prominent OT scholar notes in his commentary that the stop sign would fit better into the context three streets back. (Unfortunately, he neglected to explain why in his commentary.) Clearly it was moved to its present location by a later redactor. He thus exegetes the intersection as though the stop sign were not there.

Because of the difficulties in interpretation, another OT scholar amends the text, changing “T” to “H”. “SHOP” is much easier to understand in context than “STOP” because of the multiplicity of stores in the area. The textual corruption probably occurred because “SHOP” is so similar to “STOP” on the sign several streets back that it is a natural mistake for a scribe to make. Thus the sign should be interpreted to announce the existence of a shopping area.

A feminist scholar notes that all commentary refers to “he” and concludes she is thus exempt, so she runs the sign and is killed.

A radical feminist, observing what happened to the first feminist, concludes this is a misogynist plot to get all feminists killed by inciting them to run stop signs. So she gets out of the car and stages a protest against the inherent sexism in all traffic signs.

An observant Orthodox Jewish woman concludes that she is not allowed to observe the mitzvah [commandment] of stopping because she is niddah [menstruant]. This is a dilemma, because the stop sign is located on the way to the mikvah [ritual purification pool]. She refers the dilemma to all the Rabbinical scholars, who shrug.

A feminist Jewish woman sees this as a sign from the Shekhinah feminine aspect of G-d) that translates roughly “enough already…”

Thanks to Catholic-Pages.com
 
Some Anti-catholic guys are at a football game, and just happen to sit behind two nuns. They decide to take turns in trying to get a rise out of them. The first guys says, loud enough for the nuns to hear, “I am gonna go to North Dakota, there are only 10,000 catholics there.” The second takes his cue and says “I gonna go to Montana, there are only 1000 catholics there”. The last guy says "I am gonna go to Utah, there are only 50 catholics there. At this point one of the nuns turns around and smiling sweetly says “Why don’t you go to hell, There aren’t any catholics there”
 
This isn’t intereligious but here goes anyway:

The chemical formula for Holy Water is: H2OLY
 
A Catholic Priest and a Jewish Rabbi were traveling together one wintery day and dicussing religion and what it would take to convert each other. Suddenly, their car hit black ice, the car slid off the road and into a ditch on the side of the road. Each man got out of the vehicle. Once they were both out and assured each other they were not hurt, the Catholic Priest saw the Rabbi make the sign of the cross. “Praise Jesus”, he said, “are you making the sign of the cross becuase you were saved from the wreck and are converting?”

The Rabbi replied, “sign of the cross? I was checking the essentials, head, loins, heart and wallet!”
A Catholic Priest and a Jewish Rabbi were traveling towards each other on a road. As they were about to pass each other, they both hit a patch of ice, slid into each other and off the side of the road. They got out and after making sure each were okay, the priest said, “I have unconsecrated wine with me, let us have a toast to God, that we aren’t hurt” The priest offered the wine to the Rabbi, for the first drink. The Rabbi tried to return the bottle for the Priest to have his turn, but the Priest refused saying, “Nah, I don’t want the investigating officer who just pulled up to think I was drinking!”

Oh, and to be honest, I don’t remember whether I heard this joke as the Priest or the Rabbi offering the toast, but since this is a Catholic web site… 😃

John
 
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Monarchy:
Some Anti-catholic guys are at a football game, and just happen to sit behind two nuns. They decide to take turns in trying to get a rise out of them. The first guys says, loud enough for the nuns to hear, “I am gonna go to North Dakota, there are only 10,000 catholics there.” The second takes his cue and says “I gonna go to Montana, there are only 1000 catholics there”. The last guy says "I am gonna go to Utah, there are only 50 catholics there. At this point one of the nuns turns around and smiling sweetly says “Why don’t you go to hell, There aren’t any catholics there”
Click to expand...
LOL HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
 
A righteous Russian, a righteous German, and a righteous Jew all die about the same time and go to Heaven. They are greeted by Gabriel, who says “All three have you have lived such exemplary lives that you each can have any one wish granted to you.” Gabriel first turns to the Russian and asks him what he wishes.

The Russian replies “I want everything German to dissapear, in artifact, deed, or memory from the face of the Earth… I want it to be as if the Germans never existed” Gabriel nods and says “It is done. Now German, what do you wish?”

The German (glaring at the Russian) replies “I want everything Russian to be wiped out of deep, artifact and memory from the face of the Earth” Again Gabriel nods and says, “It is done.”

It’s the Jewish man’s turn now, but incredulously he asks “First, tell me, has everthing Russian and everything German been obliterated from the Earth???”

“Yes it is so”

“Really??? Trully???”

“Yes” says Gabriel, looking a little miffed at the questions

The Jew then nods and says “In that case, all I want is a good cup of coffee…”
 
A Lutheran, a Jew and a Moslem all die on the same day and appear before the pearly gates. St. Peter welcomes the Lutheran, who is overjoyed to see Martin Luther and the other great figures of the Reformation. The Jew enters and runs to the embrace of Abraham. The Moslem enters, heralded by the angel Gabriel, and attended by houris. As they follow their guides further and farther into the glorious kingdom, they pass a high golden fence. “What is behind the fence?” asks the Lutheran. “Shhh, not so loud,” says St. Peter, “the Catholics are in there, and they think they’re the only ones up here, and we don’t want to burst their bubble.”

At the federal reserve bank, paper money is burned when it wears out, and outside the furnace a $100 bill, a $20 and a one dollar bill were reminiscing. “I had a wonderful life,” said the C-note, “ate at the finest restaurants, visited the capitals of the world, rode in limousines, I have no regrets, I am glad to go.”
“I did okay,” said the $20, “bowling league, movies with the wife and kids every Saturday, drove a good, dependable Chevy, I have no regrets.” The one dollar bill just trudged toward the furnace muttering, “Church, church, church . . .”
 
40.png
asquared:
A Lutheran, a Jew and a Moslem all die on the same day and appear before the pearly gates. St. Peter welcomes the Lutheran, who is overjoyed to see Martin Luther and the other great figures of the Reformation. The Jew enters and runs to the embrace of Abraham. The Moslem enters, heralded by the angel Gabriel, and attended by houris. As they follow their guides further and farther into the glorious kingdom, they pass a high golden fence. “What is behind the fence?” asks the Lutheran. “Shhh, not so loud,” says St. Peter, “the Catholics are in there, and they think they’re the only ones up here, and we don’t want to burst their bubble.”
Click to expand...
."

That is o-fffensive to all Catholics. As we all know of EENS, you know the Catholic CHurch is the only way to heaven.[Sometimes God chooses others to go to heaven, but we cannot say that all go to heaven]
 
A taxi driver and a preacher arrive at the Pearly Gates together. St. Peter greets them, and says “I’ll be right with you, Reverend, but the taxi driver was here just a fraction before you, so I’ll see to him first.”

With that, he takes a fine, ermine-trimmed robe from his assistant, and places it on the Taxi driver. He places a fine hat on his head, kid gloves on his hand, gives him a carved, polished mahogany staff, places patent leather shoes on his feet, and says to him, “Enter into your reward!”

Once the taxi driver is inside, he turns to the preacher. He gives him a common overcoat, a felt hat, wool gloves, rought-hewn staff, and a pair of work boots, and bids him enter heaven.

The preacher, taken aback, says, “Here I’ve spent all of my life in the Lord’s vineyard, and this is all I get, when you decked out the taxi driver the way you did?”

St. Peter explained, “Well, you see, here we work on the basis of results observed. While you were preaching, people were sleeping, but while he was driving, they were praying.”

Blessings,

Gerry
 
Hey, Gerry–

We had a slightly different tag for the minister/ taxi driver joke.

When the taxi driver was admitted in glory, and the minister asked why, St. Peter replied, “Because, in 5 years of driving a taxi, he’s scared more H-LL out of people than you did in 50 years of preaching.”

Here’s one my brother likes.

One day the Pope passed to his reward. St. Peter met him at the gates, embraced him and welcomed him, and took him to a nice three story villa in a well-manicured suburb with lots of other nice houses around. He pointed across the street and said, “There’s Pope Paul’s place, and down the street you’ll find Popes Leo XIII, Benedict XV, John XXIII. . .” Suddenly, there was a loud noise of cheering, and a huge limo drove past, heading toward a fantastic looking 100 room mansion on a hill not far away. Angels blasted their trumpets.

“Wow”, said the Pope. “Who was that who just died?”

“George Johnson”.

“Who was he?”

“He worked in a law firm in Philly.”

“But gee”, said the Pope. “I mean, I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but here I am in this little house, and some lawyer is in a mansion?”

St. Peter shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, but do you know how many POPES we have here?”
 
Father Joe was invited to golf on his day off with a couple of new parishioners, and the round started off pretty well for him. He had a decent handicap, a strong drive if a little erratic, and fair putting, but was known as a sore loser. Things went pretty good for a while, so the new guys decided to play him along, and one of them, George, suggested a friendly wager. When the bets were in place and $50 at stake, the new guys suddenly improved their game markedly, and the priest’s game went all to h–l, and by the end of the round Fr. Jue was pretty steamed. He stomped off the the car, threw his clubs in and grudgingly paid off his bet. From George’s satisfied chuckle, he knew he had been hustled. So he decided to apologize for his behavior, and told George he would like to do something nice to make up for it. “Are your parents still living, George?” he asked.
“Yes,” was the answer.
The priest offered, “Then I would be happy to perform their marriage ceremony.”
 
An atheist substitute teacher was talking to her 3’rd grade class at a Christian school about Noah’s Ark and how it was impossible for only one man to build something so big that it could hold two of every animal in the world. A little boy raised his hand and said “no, Noah did build the Ark, I know because it says so in the Bible.” The school teacher then asked the child, “How do you know that the Bible is true?” The little boy said “because the Bible says so.” The teacher then says, well, the Bible still could be wrong." The little boy says “then I’ll ask Noah when I get to heaven.” The teacher replied “well, what if Noah isn’t in heaven?” The little boy thought for a moment, and then said “then you can ask him.”
 
A young man went to confession and confessed to fornication. The priest was sorrowful, hoping that the sin wasn’t spreading among the weaker members of his parish.

“It wasn’t with Susan, was it?”

“No, father.”

“Annie?”

“No.”

The old priest sighed and asked “Carla?”

“No, father.”

“Well, I’m relieved to know this much.” And he assigned him two rosaries as penance.

When the young man took his seat in the church, his buddy asked “Well, how’d you come out?”

The young man replied “Pretty good. I got two rosaries and three referrals.”
 
2 Irish Catholic workmen are digging up a road outside a brothel, when they notice a Protestant minister walking in.

“Shameful!” says Paddy

“What kind of men of God is that?!” adds Pat

Both men go “Tsk tsk” and get back to work.

Then they see a Rabbi go in.

“Oh Lord, look at that! Shame on that Rabbi!” goes Paddy

“Is nothing sacred anymore?!” adds Pat

Both men go “Tsk tsk” and get back to work.

A few moments later they see Father O’Malley go in.

“Oh dear … one of the ladies must be dying” exclaims Paddy

“Perhaps we should say a prayer for her” adds Pat

Both men go pray a Hail Mary for the poor lass, and gets back to work.
 
How many Anglicans does it take to change a lightbulb?

Three.

One to create a liturgy for changing the lightbulb
One to change the lightbulb
One to eulogise on how good the old lightbulb was.
 
About Anglicans and lightbulbs:

Someone asked an Anglican how many of them were needed to change a lightbulb.

The Anglican replied, "Change!!??"

Blessings,

Gerry

PS: Pray for the Christian Anglicans who are trying very hard to hold onto the truth that they have.
 
“The Catholic Church is a church of sinners and saints. For the merely proper, Anglicanism will do.”

Oscar Wilde
 
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