Reply #306: Humor works .... [View All]

[H2O Man]

"Nowhere, to my knowledge, is this brought home to us more strikingly than with the uniquely human phenomenon of laughter: You cannot order anyone to laugh -- if you want him to laugh, you must tell him a joke.

"But isn't it, in a way, the same with religion? If you want people to have faith and belief in God, you cannot rely on preaching along the lines of a particular church .... you have to do the very opposite of what is so often done by representatives of organized religion when they build an image of God as someone who is primarily interested in being believed in and who rigorously insists that those who believe in him be affiliated with a particular church. .... Certainly the trend is away from religion conceived in such a strictly denominational sense. Yet this is not to imply that, eventually, there will be a universal religion. On the contrary, if religion is to survive, it will have to be profoundly personalized."
--Frankl; Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning; preface to 1st English edition