Jenn's Thoughts: Easter, Atheism & Comedy

There once was a little bunny rabbit.  The rabbit was forbidden to eat the orange hanging from a Bodhi tree!  The rabbit was told that if he did he would be sent to the spirit world, and reincarnated into a young virgin to be sacrificed.  The rabbit gave into temptation and took a bite of the forbidden orange. Since he had already sinned he decided to make sweet love to a snake, and the two of them ran from this "God" they know, formed hundreds of religions around the world to confuse everyone.  They did all of this not for the love of religion, God, or the devil, but to give stand up comedians lots of material to work with!

While none of the above is likely true, to some it makes as much sense as the other religions.  Comedy and religion go together like bread and olive oil.  One does not need olive oil to eat the bread, but the oil makes it so much better.  Some of the best stand up comedy I have seen challenges contemporary society, and religion is always decent fodder.  One of my favourite's is Jim Jeffries, who takes on religion in a funny and blasphemous way.  Carlin, Stanhope, and all the greats have done original material on religion, and made it their own, and made it art.  

Here in Ottawa I see a strong trend of atheism amongst comedians.  While not all have sets on religion, through facebook and other social media outlets (including drinks after shows.  Some social activity still occurs in real life), it is common knowledge that many are atheist.  Some take atheism to religious levels such as Russell Barth, and no one makes more noise with their atheism than Dave McConnell, who would make the top ten atheist comedians without a doubt!  (if such a category existed, and only covered the area of Ottawa)

So tomorrow, we celebrate Easter, through Pagan idols such as chocolate bunnies (okay that was a Veggie Tales episode) and other thing not rooted in Christianity.  For those celebrating Easter, they are celebrating the death and subsequent resurrection of their God, well the son of God, and by that they are celebrating the holy ghost of the son of God, who is actually God himself, so God himself wanted to make himself a "real boy" and then torture himself and die on a cross all to let people continue sinning as long as they say the ABC prayer then they can go to heaven.  Or something like that.  Jewish people are also celebrating their holiday at this time, Passover.  I have no details on Passover; I am from Saskatchewan and we only have three Jewish people there.  No excuse, I should really educate myself, as in comedy alone their are a few Jewish folks!  So happy passover to you, and happy death of your deity to the others.  

Ironically, I am not an atheist.  Sure, I dabbled with independent thought for awhile, but in the end, I cannot believe that the Creator does not exist.  I do believe that likely my story of the rabbit is as true as any of them.  We as people have distorted any truth, because we will only 100% know the truth when we are dead.  If at that time we learn that any religion was correct, we likely aren't allowed back to earth to tell people.  (i mean, someone would have done it already)  If atheists are correct, then when we die we go black like the ending of the Sopranos.  Until then, people will speculate, fables will be told, and maybe in the end, a little of every religion was right, or all roads lead to the same place.  Disneyland.

In truth I have to hold on to spirituality as a form of hope.  I can believe and stretch my imagination to the length that science in fact may be derived from the Creator, and that some kind of spirit exists in the world, and that the end is not truly the end.  I do wonder if atheists have lower suicide rates than the rest of society; if they think they aren't going somewhere, there is no incentive to die.  This could in fact be a suicide intervention tool:  there is no god, so don't jump!  

Back to comedy:  there was a time when doing comedy on religion was risque, but times have changed.  Times have changed to indicate that society as a whole is more cynical of religion.  Atheism itself has grown through people learning more about science and facts from the internet.  I would, at this time, argue that jokes about Catholic Priests being molesters is pretty "hacky" unless coming from a new and original way.  There will never be a problem with comedians using art to challenge beliefs.  To do this we need the atheists, we need their dead souls to poke holes in other's hopes and dreams and beliefs.  We need this to create an ordered society, so  God bless the atheists and all they do!

Anything in life can be funny.  From lint to suicide and everything in between, a good comic can make it funny.  Funny starts from the material, so everyone in life has a base of material to work from.  Funny then grows to the specific writing.  Then comedy has to be part of you as a person, or you as a person on stage.  I could not do sarcastic religion humour, because on stage that is not who I am.  An atheist obviously will want to do "religion is dumb" jokes, and religious folks will want to do "atheists are dumb" jokes.  Whatever, do what you want, but make it funny, because in the Church of Comedy, the Gods insist on laughter.

Happy April 24th

Jenn H.