I came upon this old thread today, and it got me to thinking. Then I realized what it was that really bothered me about this whole joke: the fact that it's offensive if turned around the other way.
Religious people tell jokes like this and make smug comments about non-believers (and members of other religions as well), and they act like it's perfectly okay for them to do that (which, in essence, it sort of is). But if anyone says anything bad or even critical about what they believe, they get whipped into a frenzy over it and start with the "Blessed are the persecuted" stuff. If you know what I'm talking about, just look at the loud, public temper tantrums that were thrown when movies like "The DaVinci Code" and "The Golden Compass" came out. Much of this came from the same people who went around chiding people for not going to see "The Passion of the Christ." |