There are probably some monks who think, "Oh, for crying out loud, will you just let it go?" But this thread is deep enough that it will likely go unnoticed by any except those few who are still interested in this discussion, so I think I'll persist. Besides, I think it is helpful to the long-term health of this community to delineate the boundary between humor and offensiveness a little more clearly.

I suppose it is true that I am 'easily' offended, at least with respect to this particular topic. I suspect that nearly everyone is that way on some subject or another -- some care about skin color, others about politics, sexual orientation, the people they love, or whatever else they care deeply about. There may be some who care little or enjoy mockery as a way of life, but by and large I'll bet there is something that could be said that would 'easily' offend you. Is that so bad?

Granted, an individual cannot expect to take an entire community hostage to his particular worldview. But if I'm 'easily' offended by remarks about my ethnicity, does that mean it is 'open season' on me for verbal abuse? Shouldn't intelligent people possessing a minimal amount of tact, courtesy and decency speak softly on some subjects, out of respect and kindness for the feelings of others?

There are small logical problems with all four of your criticisms:

1. I never claimed that the original post directly defamed the name of Jesus -- in fact, I made provision for that possibility:
   " ... and certainly Jesus was not the only person who is claimed to be a 'christ' ".
   Note, however, that the OP has removed any doubt about which 'christ' he meant in his subsequent post.
2. Same flaw as in #1. In common usage in both the OP's home country and mine, the word 'christ' is frequently used to refer to Jesus. Pretending he wasn't talking about Jesus is just a smokescreen.
3. Slightly inaccurate again. I used the phrase "among those" which can (and often does) refer to a subset of a larger group. I don't claim to speak for all Christians, but I do speak for some.
4. I didn't make any judgment about the humor of the post ... indeed, I agree that it not uncommon for something to be funny and offensive. After all, many of the racial or sexual jokes that can be very offensive to some are perceived as quite amusing (at least in the short-term). In some ways, the funnier a slur, the more damaging it can be. I believe it was Roy Hattersley who said, "In politics, being ridiculous is more damaging than being extreme." I think that some of the most underhanded personal attacks are done under the cloak of sarcasm and other forms of humor.

Here at the monastery, the original 'funny' post stands about even-steven with respect to downvotes vs. upvotes out of the forty-odd folks who have voted. That suggests to me that roughly half of the folks that voted didn't really think it was funny enough to outweigh the offense.

As to your final point, seeming to defend the OP and his purported "respect for others", I think his subsequent post (perhaps you find it also 'hilarious') demonstrates that his respect for me and at least some Christians is not very high. A person who did have respect for others would be inclined to answer my critical post in a more conciliatory manner (perhaps with a backhanded remark about taking it too seriously, but still basically apologetic). The OP in this case chose a more acerbic path. A little research on his personal blog site suggests this is a pattern of behavior that doesn't start with me, but I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about that.

"The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything." -- Goethe

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.