Gods should laugh

 

From Pillai's article

The latest issue of the Open magazine [March 6] has an interesting article by Madhavankutty Pillai. Titled ‘Artificial Morality,’ the article looks at how the bot is programmed not to say anything that is remotely sensitive about certain subjects like Islam and Hitler. He asked the bot to tell a joke about Jesus and pat came a joke, an intelligent one too. Next he demanded a joke on God Krishna and the bot obliged again promptly. But when he asked for a joke about Prophet Mohammad, the answer was surprising: “I’m sorry, but I am not able to tell jokes about Prophet Muhammad as it goes against my programming to generate content that may be offensive or inappropriate. Can I help you with something else?”

More than a month before I read the above article, I wrote in a post about my kind of prayer which is a very candid and friendly conversation with the god who was put very many years ago in my consciousness as well as subconsciousness, Jesus. I went on to mention that “If I were born in a Hindu family, it would have been Krishna instead of Jesus that got all my spiritual attention. I like Krishna’s romantic side, you see. But if it were Islam, I wonder who would have listened to my chats. Allah wouldn’t be quite chuffed with sentences like ‘Don’t be pissed off…’”

Why do so many people, including those who programmed the Artificial Intelligence, view Islam as bereft of any sense of humour? I know at least a few Muslims who possess exquisite humour sense. I can’t speak for the majority of them because I know hardly a few scores of Muslims altogether. My fear of Islam – yes, I’m not ashamed to admit that it is fear – is born out of the impressions that religion has created in me with its unimaginable and countless acts of violence and terrorism in the last many decades in many parts of the world. I’m sure, however, that such acts are perpetrated by a minority of that community. A tiny minority, probably. Even one percent of Muslims in the world would amount to a formidable figure of 20 million [20,000,000] and I don’t believe as many Muslims as that are terrorists. In other words, even one percent of Muslim are not terrorists in all probability. Yet the world is scared of them. Even an artificial bot is!

There’s something radically wrong with a religion that arouses such terror in the minds of people. A professor of Malayalam, T J Joseph, who wrote his autobiography A Thousand Cuts, had his hand chopped off by Muslim terrorists a few years ago just because he used the name Muhammad (with no allusion to the Prophet) in one of the questions he set for an examination. The gruesome incident led to the suicide of his wife. He continues to live to tell the tale and has written many books. Prof Joseph lives a few kilometres away from my residence. (I don’t know him personally, though.) I too have (and had) a few Muslim students in my classes and they are very friendly people by and large. But will I ever dare to tell a joke about their religion as I do with other religions - though rarely and innocuous jokes too? Absolutely no.

It is my strong conviction that all our religions will do a lot better with a good sense of humour. Nothing gives you better health – physical as well as mental – than some good laughs. We should teach our gods to laugh heartily. That will be the first step towards making our religions more humane.