War on Humour

An ancient and honorable people can take only so many jokes before they simply kill everyone.

The War on Humor was declared in early 2006 when a Fatwa was issued by the Muslim Pope against all jokes, propagandistic humor, cartoons, and anything generally funny about Islam, which isn't funny. The Fatwa specifically states that funny jokes are "okay" but lame, stupid, juvenile, and homosexual ones are not.

The sacrilege that started it all

In February 2006 a Danish newspaper ran a series of political cartoons that were "flat-out bad", according to nearly all who saw them. They showed Mohammad in a variety of positions. This included a picture of Mohammad in a lineup with Jesus, and a picture portraying Mohammad as a suicide bomber. These images were so insulting that Islamists violently attacked Danish embassies, burned Danish flags, and ate Danish pastries. A boycott of all Danish goods was ordered, which led to skyrocketing sales for Danish flags, in order to feed the growing demand created by flag burners. The boycott also left thousands of breakfasters in the Middle East without pastries to eat, leading to exorbitant prices on the black market. While the protests may have seemed counterproductive, they did get the attention of the West – particularly the bombings of European embassies.

Jesus peeing on the virgin Mary from the cross, as shown by the U.S. media

Other religions

The call for destruction of embassies seemed to work, as many governments began banning the images as "hate crimes". This led to other religious groups' attacking and burning embassies whenever even one member was offended. Fundamentalist Christian]]s attacked the New York Museum of Modern Art for displaying a painting of Jesus peeing on the Virgin Mary from the Cross, at which point Bush declared that all depictions of Jesus were "sacrilegious ... I mean, "disrespectful toward Christians" and were to be removed from public view. This led to everything from South Park to Uncyclopedia being heavily censored to remove all Jesus jokes, including the really funny ones such as The Life of Brian.

Zionists

Scotland, England June 2006: Clerics from leading Zionist, Hindu and Muslim communities gather in the nation's capital to demonstrate solidarity in support of the War on Humour. The rally was marred when a burning effigy of Donald Duck ignited a nearby munitions factory, which devastated half the city. Who's laughing now?

The Jews reacted in their usual terroristic manner by pulling out of Gaza. They then focused their efforts on world domination, secretly, with no one but the wary Muslims paying any attention to their "filthy Jewish scheming". The Jews invented humor, so they became the target of every other religions' attacks, rather than attacking anyone else. "Oy gevalt, it's like the whole world is against us – again!"

Hindus

This new group, who had sprung up out of frustration with everyone else having all the fun murdering people "over jokes and what-not", announced a general protest against all jokes related to hamburgers and other beef products. Their inexperience at ultraviolence only served to humiliate them in front of the other religions, however.

Jains

The Jainism sect of India, in sympathy with the Hindus, announced their steadfast refusal to read editorial cartoons in newspapers, for fear of offending or destroying the tiny microbes that live in the newsprint. At the same time, they turned off all three of their computers, two of which were capable of connecting to the internet, rather than risk accidentally frying any tiny insects that might be living in the power supplies.

The Cult of Osiris

After seeing the offensive cartoons on the internet, worshipers of the Egyptian God of the Underworld – already incensed by negative depictions of their deity in the "decadent Western cable show" Stargate SG-1 – cancelled their subscriptions to Fantasy and Sci-Fi Magazine, and also stopped their DSL high-speed internet service. When reached for comment, Comcast (their long-time ISP) remarked, "Bobby's parents haven't paid his bill for three months anyway, so it's no great loss as far as we're concerned."

Atheists

Though not technically a religion, atheists nevertheless leapt into the fray after a disparaging cartoon was printed in The New Yorker: an atheist is shown laughing derisively at a catfight among three people clearly drawn to represent Muslim, Christian, and Jewish stereotypes. A spokesman for the World Atheism Federation remarked, "We don't believe in saying 'I told you so' any more than we believe in an omnipotent supernatural deity responsible for all creation." Later, Pharyngula blogger PZ Myers wrote, "Interfaith violence isn't funny, and hasn't been for 25 centuries, except for that whole Mountain Meadows Massacre thing. I have to admit, we're all still pretty much in hysterics over that one."

Rastafarians

Perhaps the most surprising religious group to voice their support for the War on Humor, more than thirty thousand Rastafarians marched in the streets of Kingston, Jamaica, in what some called the largest protest ever held in that country. Although several marchers had made crude signs bearing slogans such as "Cartoons Bad, Weed Good" and "Legalize Censorship of Anti-Ganja 'Toons'", their actual demands were never made clear.

"Tiki-God" worshipers

Spokesmen for various native religions in Micronesia and Polynesia formed a "Tiki Unity Alliance" and demanded that all ceramic mai-tai drinking vessels bearing the image of their deity be destroyed throughout the world, in favor of German beer steins. They also demanded that New York Giants running back Tiki Barber formally change his name to "Tinky" Barber.

Teletubbies

Upon hearing of the Tiki-God worshipers' demand concerning Barber, worshipers of the Teletubbies mounted an all-out internet-based assault on Tiki-God worshipers. "I say unto thee, let no one dare take the name of a Teletubby in vain," said leader Jerry Falwell. Falwell then announced that any "wiki" site would, from then on, be a prime target of the group's vandalization and infiltration activities, "... because wiki rhymes with Tiki, and because people on wikis keep making fun of poor little Tinky and Po anyway."

Scientology

Everyone told the Scientologists, of course, that they should just fuck off. Scientology was later outlawed, since the religion itself is a joke. However, the religion's new "outlaw" status only added to its popularity, especially among chavs. Meanwhile, Magictologists everywhere flew into hysterics, causing many to suffer aneurisms. Walkentologists, thinking they were next, began hoarding Tomahawk cruise missiles. As a result, Tom Cruise reportedly leapt up and down several times on Oprah's couch, complaining that he "didn't get it" and had to be restrained by the Police, whose lead singer, Sting, stank, as usual.

The last straw

Eventually, people finally began to realize that "offensive" and "humorous" were actually the same thing. As a result, anything that could even remotely be construed as funny, amusing, or capable of causing fits of giggles was outlawed for fear that it would offend someone. Large armies of stormtroopers were conscripted to root out all humorous (i.e., "offensive") people and bring them to justice. Fear and distrust began to spread. Several people began to notice that one of their neighbors "simply wasn't around anymore" after a rumor spread that this same neighbor had once told a joke, making it obvious what had happened to him. However, intelligent people said nothing, and simply pretended that the neighbors didn't exist in the first place if they knew what was good for them.

See also

• Al Qaeda Initiation Rights
• Anti-humor
• Euroipods
• V for Vendetta
• Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy