They suck, as I’ve said before. I realized after I made the last thread that I couldn’t link to the issue at hand because it relates to one of my t-shirt designs.
Then I went camping.
Anyway I’m home now and I can at least explain.
I have a design that I think is rather humorous which says “I found Jesus! He was behind the couch the whole time” (a time honored joke) and has a picture of a guy on a couch, and from behind the couch is some hair with a halo and “z z z z”
Ok so I posted this on a shirt-related message board that I belong to and let’s just say that there are some people out there who claim to be Christians who can write some really vile hate mail.
I borrowed someone’s sig here for my personal email: “God was my co-pilot, but we crashed in the Andes and I had to eat him.”
If Jesus is who Christians believe him to be, he HAS to have a sense of humor. Takign one’s faith that seriously is just pathetic. If God wants anything for us, he wants us to laugh.
You should ask these people if they crack jokes about Islam, Buddhism or other religions and deities. Growing up I heard plenty of people who considered themselves “born again” telling jokes about “Shi’ite” Muslims, among others.
Ambrose Bierce defined impiety as “your irreverence toward my deity”. This would sum up most folk’s sense of humor regarding their religion as well. Are they offended that you had Jesus sleeping? That he was behind a (probably dusty) couch? That it’s a funny play off of one of their standard lines? That you didn’t give all the glory to Him for finally finding Him in such an obvious place?
Piss on them. Any god you can’t laugh at isn’t worth believing in.
Just for your reference, THE BEST t-shirt I’ve ever seen in my life was at a “Big Day Out” music festival a few years back and the artwork was on the back of a bright blue surfy t-shirt being worn by some tall fit happy guy.
The photograph featured a grainy high contrast photo of an ape (like something out of the original “Planet of The Apes”) and this ape was the coolest looking ape you’ve ever seen. He was sitting with ultra cool aviator sun glasses and thick gold chains and a cool shirt at an outdoor table at a coffee shop just playing with his mobile phone.
There were other apes having a laugh at the table in the background.
At the bottom of this picture the t-shirt simply read as follows…
It’s rather like the Salmon Rushdie fatwah: millions of moslems calling for the blood of an author who writes some obscure dry intellectual book of no great consequence which they allege is insulting to Islam but which probably (as I understand it) actually isn’t, according to the Islamic theologians who have actually bothered to read it.
One is left wondering what it is all about. What’s the motivation? What creates such a great burning desire to find something offensive?
I always theorise that it is something to do with:
[ul]1. Proving yourself, as in “I’m a properly reverent [insert favourite religion here] and to prove it I will attack anyone who might just possibly be being irreverent, no matter how picky or ridiculous I have to be to do so. In fact the more picky and ridiculous, the more that proves what an amazingly reverent person I am.”
Working out your insecurity on others. As in “I am not really sure that my beliefs are well founded which makes me insecure, so I have to attack anything that even hints at irreverence, to avoid the possibility of me being prompted to think.”[/ul]
and my personal favorite, as it really pisses off LOTS of people:
“I was going to be born again, but I aborted.”
And yes, I know they are both horrible, designed only for my own amusement at the outrage of others, and I’m ok with that. If you’re not, I will politely remind you that that is the point.
I think it’s cute. I don’t quite trust people who get that easily offended. My dad is the most devout person I know and I’ve seen him laugh at stuff like that shirt, Opal!
(Jesus Loves You… Cthulhu Thinks You’d Make a Good Sandwich!)
Ok, I personally chuckle at stuff like that (having made similar jokes in person “have you seen the Lord today?” “why yes, he’s behind Berkey hall, if you hurry, you can catch up w/him”).
OTOH, I also understand that most of us have areas in our lives which we regard as sacred, and wouldnt’ joke about. This does not make us ‘humor impaired’, but rather, ‘humor selective’ which I suspect would accurately describe most people.
For example, I don’t consider jokes about ethnicity particulary funny. And I tend to not joke about the deaths of loved ones, either.
And one tends to (hopefully) tailor one’s jokes for one’s audience, so when I’m w/my conservative sister, I don’t make the same jokes as I do when I’m with my less conservative brother, and so on.
So, I would suspect that a website devoted to general t-shirt making, would be more of a generalized audience than one would expect here.
Well what some people consider humor maybe others don’t. I would hesitate to call it humor impaired, just different strokes for different folks. I’m sure that there are things you don’t find funny that other people would consider humorous. It’s more a matter of taste and preference than being impaired.
