I’m writing a book. That’s the reason my blog activity has diminished over the past few weeks. The book is sucking up all my energy, creativity, and joy. It’s a lot of work and I’m getting tired. It doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to be finished.
So I’m publishing a chunk of it here in hopes that somebody will read it and say something encouraging. I’m only interested in sincere encouragement like, “This is interesting, John. I think you should finish your book because I’d like to read the rest of it.” Don’t tell me you like it unless you actually do. Pandering to my emotions now will only cause greater suffering in the future when I learn the truth that my book is awful.
Criticism is welcome too. When you offer thoughtful criticism, I know you’re engaged. Criticism means you read my thoughts, processed them, and offered an alternative point of view. That will be quite helpful as I’m finishing up the rest of the book.
The following excerpt is from an early chapter of the book that discusses the nature of comedy. The book is going to be a primer on how to use comedy to make your life better.
Lemme know what you (honestly) think.
In The Beginning...Comedy
If God did not exist, there would be no comedy. That statement is not intended to start a fight. It’s a rational statement of fact based on sound reasoning. It’s no more controversial than saying if cows did not exist there would be no cow’s milk or if mayonnaise did not exist the world would be a happier place.
You’re fidgeting. What’s wrong?
“I don’t want to talk about religion. I want to talk about comedy.”
Then skip this chapter. You’re the expert. If you don’t see any value in talking about religion, there must not be any. You know what matters. Move on to the important stuff and leave me to blather my useless, philosophical drivel.
…
(I see that you’ve decided to keep reading. Good call.) Religion affects every aspect of your life whether you “believe it” or not.
Atheists are fond of saying they have no religious beliefs which is itself a religious belief. Religion is inescapable. If you are a human (and we agreed earlier that you are) then you hold religious convictions. Claiming “no religion” is quite literally the dumbest statement you can make. It’s on par with claiming ”no beliefs” (which atheists also do).
Religion, to put it simply, is just a sequence of rituals. Religion is not actually WHAT you believe. Religion is what you do because of what you believe. Going to church, saying prayers, reading scripture, and singing those abominable “worship” songs are the rituals that point to your religious convictions. If you don’t go to church, don’t pray, don’t read scripture, and never sing worship songs, guess what? Those are also rituals that point to your religious convictions. You’re not “non-religious” simply because you skip church. Sleeping until noon on Sundays is just one of your religious rituals.
You’re confused because you think the word “religion” is just about belief in God. This is understandable because a few years ago a handful of particularly noisy atheists rose from the ashes of Enlightenment philosophy and welded the word “religion” to the belief that God exists. They declared themselves to be informed solely by science. They convinced you that their religious convictions were not philosophical or religious, but scientific. Then they sold millions of books repeating that religious philosophy.
Bottom line: You are a religious person. Everybody is a religious person. Your religious rituals are determined by your beliefs which are sometimes called “faith”.
“Faith” is any belief you hold that you cannot prove. This is a subject that would require another book (or two) and I’m not going to get sidetracked arguing with you about it now. You have faith just like you have religion. That’s it. End of conversation.
Not all religious people have faith that God exists. If you’re one of those people, you’ll never be any good at comedy. Your faith leads ultimately to nothing. Your faith claims the universe is a fantastic accident without purpose or intention. If the universe wasn’t put here for a purpose, then no thing in the universe (like you) can have a purpose. Your existence means nothing. Your dreams, your hopes, your loves, your life’s accomplishments, everything is a steaming pile of feces. No…that’s wrong! Feces is meaningless too. Your comedy is like feces in that it has no purpose.
Good comedy requires you to believe that laughter serves a purpose. You won’t build a house of joy on a foundation of despair. It’s depressing to think that less than a century from now, you’ll be gone. There may be some photographs and videos to keep your memory alive for awhile but two centuries from now, all the people looking at your photographs will also be gone. And some day in the future, the whole planet will be gone. The stars will go out. The universe be a vast, dark, empty space. There’s nothing funny about that.
Believing God exists isn’t something that happens by sheer will. You can’t just concentrate real hard and *poof* faith into your head. You need a reason to believe in God. Actually, you’ll need several reasons before your faith has a chance of having any permanence. Since this is a book about comedy, I’m not going to give you even one reason. I’ll just tell you that good comedy requires a sense of purpose and if you don’t believe in God – you ain’t got no purpose.
If there is no God, comedy is a sandcastle. It’s an ornate, beautiful, piece of art that provides momentary pleasure but will disappear when the tide comes in. You can pretend there’s meaning in temporary things but you’re not fooling me. More importantly, you’re not fooling yourself. If the thought of your sandcastle washing away doesn’t bother you at all, why did you take a picture of it? Why snap a picture of your grinning self standing next to your doomed labor of love? Why take pictures of anything, ever?
And why laugh? Laughter doesn’t even last as long as a sand sculpture. Yet you cling to those moments of uncontrollable laughter like they’re important. You speak of those moments years after they’ve been washed away by the tide of time. “Do you remember that time when Dad caught a shark…?” and the laughter starts up again. It’s not going to last, you know. When you’re gone, Dad’s shark story will pass away for eternity. The laughter will fall silent forever.
Okay! That’s enough of that. Godless philosophy is not only depressing, it’s irrational. I’m going to stop talking about it because aside from depressing and irrational, it’s also wrong.
Comedy is proof that God exists and He is good. There is no evolutionary explanation for laughter.
“John, there’s an evolutionary explanation for everything! Science has proven…”
Stop! Shut up! I’ve heard the evolutionary explanation for laughter. It’s hilarious. Scientists tickled some monkeys and recorded the sounds (look it up, I’m not kidding). The theories on the evolution of laughter are quackery of the highest order. I stand by my statement. There’s no evolutionary explanation for the existence of laughter because there’s no evolutionary explanation for the existence of anything.
The only actual explanation for the existence of you, me, and the rest of reality is in the book of Genesis. “In the beginning God,” explains more than centuries of scientific theorizing. If there was no God, there would be nothing to evolve. When it comes to explanations for the origins of life, God is the only suggestion currently on the table.
Science is in a perpetual loop of uncertainty. I’m not anti-science. I believe God exists. God’s existence gives purpose to human life whether it’s creating laughter or doing scientific inquiries. I’m pro-science because investigating the secrets of the universe is a meaningful thing to do. But my pro-science stance isn’t based on science.
Science isn’t ever going to “prove God” because God is a person. People aren’t collections of physical parts. Science can’t be certain about anything that doesn’t fit in a test tube. Your understanding of God will be determined exclusively by…wait for it…
…your faith.
As you’re putting your hand to your forehead and fainting onto the floor, here’s another bombshell. Your understanding of science is also determined exclusively by your faith. And as these shocking revelations rupture your bubble of ignorance and render you unconscious, I’ll emphatically state what I’ve been implying since I first mentioned Genesis : Your sense of humor is determined exclusively by your faith.
Your comedy is dependent on your underlying beliefs (or faith, or religion if you still refuse to accept that those aren’t the same thing). Comedy is inspired. Have you ever thought about what “inspiration” is or where it comes from? The answer to those questions isn’t going to be scientific.
Inspiration, like faith, is not a matter of will. You can’t decide to be inspired. It happens without your permission. Inspiration comes from outside yourself. Inspiration is transcendent. It’s something you’ve experienced that you can’t prove. And it’s something that you can’t force to occur despite your most earnest and sincere effort.
“John, I’m getting bored. This isn’t funny. Plus, I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
My apologies. I underestimated your short attention span. Let me condense centuries of philosophical thought to the length of a Doritos commercial.
The universe exists. The universe did not bring itself into existence. The universe contains laughter which must have been created on purpose. Since laughter was made on purpose, the rest of the universe was made on purpose (including you). The only thing that explains the existence of laughter (and you) is God.
Comedy exists because God exists.
Now, you still may not be inspired to believe in God. Faith is not a matter of will, remember? At some point in the development of beliefs, God has to intervene. That’s a topic way beyond the scope of this book (plus I’m not smart enough to write it). As a professional comedian, I can only suggest you speak to God about your persistent lack of inspiration. All knowledge, truth, and laughter originates from the same source.
Enjoy your Doritos.
16 Responses
Very good piece if writing, John. I’m really looking forward to reading the book.
Also, I thought your take on religions was very interesting and something I hadn’t thought of myself.
We really need an edit button, I can’t go around having people thinking I’m imperfect.
Personal point of preference – I don’t identify as a “person who reads books.” I”ve read one book in the past 4 years. As such, I’m really unlikely to read your book. I’m not what the publisher would call the “target audience” of what you’re posting. That being said, here’s the start of my editorial review:
So… I gave it a few reads to try to put into words what I was feeling about it…
First, and least significantly, I really felt the antagonism toward the reader that Juan was talking about. Which, sure, is just part of the writing style. However, it did feel like I was pressing on through several throat punches (“You’re confused because…” “They convinced you…” ) for what really seemed like no reason when it was blatantly said “Since this is a book about comedy, I’m not going to give you even one reason” for why believe God exists when it seems like that’s what were focusing on in this portion of the text. I guess maybe the intention was to drive away people who won’t like the rest of the book from the start – which is a noble goal. Part of it may also stem from intermixing the general “you” and “you the reader.” However, I feel the approach, combined with the short sentence writing style that you utilize both on the blog and in this book, really comes across to me as arrogant ( “End of conversation”; “Shut up”; even congratulating the reader for continuing to read sounds “used car salesman” rather than giving a sense of cameraderie to me).
Secondly, I don’t get a sense of cohesion in the points you’re making/terms you’re using. You’ve defined religion (a secondary term), but not comedy. Your thesis is that if God does not exist, then there is no comedy. However, you use statements later that refer to “Without God, comedy is a sandcastle” and make several references to “good comedy” which (perhaps incorrectly) I’ve taken to mean “You can have bad comedy without God.”
Finally, you’ve said ““Faith” is any belief you hold that you cannot prove,” you connect the idea that you have faith in God, but that at face value goes against a later thought “Comedy is proof that God exists “.
I can potentially try to elucidate more if you think it may be helpful, but I’ve already spent more time editing this post than I intended ^_^. I think your topic has potential – but the writing style is too fluffy for my (clearly amazing and experienced) taste.
In the future, please specify the pronoun I should use when referring to a non-book-reader.
Your critique is noted. I appreciate the feedback. I especially appreciate your recognizing the need to define comedy. I’ve written a glossary and realize that failing to include comedy in that list would be a huge oversight. Thanks!
Well, E (singular first person preference) don’t want to speak for all of grus (the plural first person pronoun preference), but E don’t hold others to the high standards E sets for eself (intensive first person). Yuin may use whatever yuin like in es (first person possessive) presence.
E truly embodies tolerance. ^_^
(after proofing this post, I know it’s not as funny as I hoped it would be when I started… but now I’ve feel I’ve got too much time invested in it… so… I’m still gonna leave it ^_^).
Glad to provide feedback. I’m glad you can use it ^_^
I enjoyed reading this small part of your book and I look forward to reading the whole thing when you finish. My critique would be when you call God a person. I think that God is A far greater being than being labeled as simply a person. I understand the point you are making but it feels like you are leaning into God being the big man in the sky, which is not at all who God is.
I feel like you’re writing this only for atheists. You already got your fists up. Could write the other positive side of “if you DO believe in God, then, congratulations!”. It’s true though, purpose, meaning, worth, all make comedy possible and do not work in a purely materialistic universe. Lastly, I wonder how it would look if you started with “Why do we laugh?”. That’s a really cool thought.
Why do we laugh might be a whole book by itself.
I do cover the idea that laughter serves as a tool to diminish suffering.
I enjoyed this discussion. I’m curious about what else you have to say. I’m glad you are approaching this topic with your own kind of humor.
“Atheists are fond of saying they have no religious beliefs which is itself a religious belief.”
“Religion, to put it simply, is just a sequence of rituals. Religion is not actually WHAT you believe.”
Ha, ha, ha, this is funny. How on earth can you write a book if you do not even understand the word “religion” Please explain the rituals all atheists perform and while you are about it, Google “religion”
I explained this in the article.
The book is intended for people who know how to read.
Ok I am intrigued. I would like to read more. I do think feces has more meaning than an atheist opinion.
One criticism that I have is that feces does have a purpose. It puts nutrients back into the ground. If it was flung out into space however…
I would read your book. I’m interested in your ideas.
Here’s the painful part, editing. Those precious, precious words that we give birth to must be paired down, slain, erased, so as to make our point tight and concise. Bare bones, as if the attention span of people really is only about 90 seconds. You want to leave them hungry, starved for more, not overwhelmed by the amount of food stretched out before them.
This Is interesting ,John. I think you should finish the book.
That’s some pretty deep reading for my current location at the beach. Still, I found it stimulating and worthy of another read later, when I’m not getting distracted by seagulls! If mine were the only vote that mattered, then you’d be continuing your fine work on this book. Once I get my hands on a finished copy, it’ll be kept right on my desk with my autographed copy of “A Triune Tale of Diminutive Swine.” 🙂