Jesus wept (with laughter)

We don't know how we missed this (actually, we do: it's because we don't generally spend a lot of time hanging around Christian websites) but users of ship-of-fools.com have been casting their votes to decide on the world's best and the most offensive religious jokes in the world… ever, etc.

The top ten in each category were performed at the Greenbelt festival last weekend - to mixed reaction. One panellist, there to discuss the jokes, told the audience they should repent for laughing at them.

But, in all honesty, the offensive ones are mostly disappointing. Most of them are concerned with paedophile priests, which has got to be the world's most hackneyed comedy stereotype. You'll get plenty more laughs from the 'good' list. (That's good as in "funny", not "guaranteed passport to heaven".)

Luckily, there is a serious reason behind the whole enterprise: to highlight potential problems with the Government’s new religious hatred legislation. So, at the risk of being sent to prison, here's our favourite:

Jesus came upon a small crowd who had surrounded a young woman they believed to be an adulteress. They were preparing to stone her to death.

He looked angrily and sorrowfully at the mob and told them:

"You who are without sin cast the first stone."

Suddenly, an old lady at the back of the crowd picked up a huge rock and lobbed it at the young woman

Jesus looked over towards her and said: "Do you know, Mother, sometimes you really piss me off."

Click here to read all the jokes, and the theological discussions they provoke in ship-of-fools' readership (which, frankly, is often funnier than the jokes themselves)

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