Religious satire

Religious satire is a form of satire targeted at religion and religious practices.

Examples of religious satire and satirists

• Merry Grav-mass by Richard Stallman
• The Door (satirical Christian magazine)
• The Holy Observer is satirical Christian news and self-proclaims to be "God's #1 source for Christian news."
• The film Life of Brian by Monty Python
• The film Dogma by Kevin Smith
• The play Tartuffe by Molière.
• Several works by Douglas Adams contain examples of religious satire, particularly the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy anthology.
  • Particularly well known is the story of a computer created to determine "the ultimate answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything." After several million years of computation it arrived at the answer of 42.
  • The sentient puddle was an analogy used in an extemporaneous speech, also included in the posthumously published The Salmon of Doubt.
• Job: A Comedy of Justice, a novel by Robert A. Heinlein
• The Simpsons contains some examples of religious satire.
• In the Futurama episode "A Pharoah to Remember", a religious ceremony is depicted in which a priest chants "Great Wall of Prophecy, reveal to us God's Will, that we might blindly obey!," and celebrants answer, "Free us from thought and responsibility."
• South Park has satirized Christianity, Catholicism, Mormonism, Judaism, Scientology, Islam and other religions
• In Drawn Together, the character Princess Clara is a devout Christian who is often used to lampoon conservative Christian viewpoints.
• Jerry Springer: The Opera
• Voltaire
• A Tale of a Tub by Jonathan Swift
• The controversial Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons
• Invisible pink unicorn: (IPU) is the goddess of a satiric parody religion aimed at theistic beliefs, which takes the form of a unicorn that is paradoxically both invisible and pink. These attributes serve to satirize the apparent contradictions in properties which some attribute to a theistic God, specifically omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence.
• Discordianism is a Parody religion centered around the ancient Greco-Roman goddess of chaos, Eris, but drawing much of its tone from Zen Buddhism, Christianity, and the beatnik and hippie countercultures of the 1950's and 1960's (respectively). Its main holy book, the Principia Discordia contains things such as a commandment to "not believe anything that you read", and a claim that all statements are both true and false at the same time.
• The Flying Spaghetti Monster: (FSM) is a parody religion directed at intelligent design.
• The Church of the SubGenius pokes fun at many different religions, particularly Scientology, Televangelism (and its associated scandals), and other modern beliefs.
• John Safran vs God was a satirical documentary mini-series on the Australian television network SBS in 2004.
• Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore.
• The play A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant
• Saturday's Voyeur, a parody of life in Utah and Mormon culture.
• Jesus and Mo, Jesus and Mohammed's body double comment on contemporary life
• Holy Willie's Prayer, Robert Burns Poem based on Willie Fisher during Gavin Hamilton's trials.
• Sinfest, an internet comic strip by Tatsuya Ishida
• Edward Current has done many parodies on religion, during which he pretends to be a highly conservative, creationist Christian, while subtly implying flaws with religious beliefs.[1]

Criticism and censorship

Religious satire has been criticised by those who feel that sincerely held religious views should not be subject to ridicule. In some cases religious satire has been censored - for example, Molière's play Tartuffe was banned in 1664, and the film Life of Brian was initially banned in Ireland and Norway. This has led to issues regarding the limits of freedom of speech.

This issue was hotly debated by the UK Parliament during the passing of the Religious Hatred Bill in January 2006. Critics of the original version of the Bill (such as comedian Rowan Atkinson) feared that satirists could be prosecuted, but an amendment by the House of Lords making it clear that this was not the case was passed - by just one vote.

In 2006, Rachel Bevilacqua, a member of the Church of the SubGenius, known as Rev. Magdalen in the SubGenius hierarchy, lost custody and contact with her son after a district court judge took offense at her participation in the Church's X-Day festival.

See also

• Anti-Catholic satire and humor
• Parody religion
• Freedom of speech versus blasphemy