Why do people laugh at dirty jokes? What is it that makes them funny? Now before I seriously explore this question, let me say that I have been conditioned to not laugh at dirty jokes. I certainly don’t tell them and I try not to laugh at them, and I hope you do too. But this is a result of training. If you are not trained to look askance at dirty jokes, you too will be inclined to laugh at them. So to return to the question: what makes a dirty joke funny?
One of the things that makes us laugh is when we see something that seems ridiculously out of place. If you go to the circus, you may see a bear dressed up in a ballet costume and standing on its toes. If you do, it will strike you as funny – the ballet costume on the bear is ridiculously out of place. I would suggest that this is what makes dirty jokes funny. Dirty jokes focus on people, but always on the earthy, physical and animal-like qualities and functions of people. And this is funny because it seems out of place. We all know – deep down, at some level, that humans have some higher and more transcendent quality than what is described in the dirty joke. The Bible calls this quality being created “in the image of God.” However, the Bible also says we were created from the dust of the earth, the same stuff as the animals. We are animals, and dirty jokes remind us of that, but we are also something much greater – eternal spiritual beings, created in the image of God. It’s an image that came all the way from outside of the universe. The earthy nature seems way out of place on a spiritual being. It’s like the bear in the ballet costume. It makes us laugh – as long as we’re not offended. So next time someone tells you a dirty joke, maybe you can explain to them how they’ve just provided an argument for the image of God.
The image of God is something that is on all of us, and it’s extra-natural.
Maybe some of you have had a well loved pet that got very old. I have. Eventually, the pet begins to suffer from one of the ravages of old age, and you have to make the painful decision to have the animal put down. You take your pet to the vet, and the vet kills the pet in the most humane way possible, and you cry about it. The thing you are doing is not cruel – you are doing it out of love. Your animal’s quality of life has gone and you don’t want your animal to suffer.
What happens when a human being gets old and begins to suffer in the same way? It’s very painful for all concerned, but we generally do not make the same decision that we do for the animal. We are likely to choose palliative care to minimize our loved one’s suffering, and we may opt for no heroic measures to maintain a loved one’s life, but we do not – at least most of us do not - choose to kill them. Why not? We love them, we don’t want to see them suffer. We even may pray for their life to end. But killing them is something we can’t do. The reason is that every human being carries the image of God – something so great and extra-natural that we have no right to end it.
The image of God is on all of us, and it’s extra-natural.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this discussion of things outside the universe. I know I haven’t covered them all. A good case could be made for adding extra chapters on faith, hope and love. I’ll leave that for someone else. Thanks for reading.
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