What if God needed planning permission to make the world?

Many years ago when I was in what was then called Standard 5; when schoolchildren were pupils, not learners; when people hole covers were manhole covers; and waiters and waitresses were not called waitrons I got a smart clip behind the ear from a bishop for giggling in church.

It wasn’t my fault. You know what it’s like when you’re a youngster and one of your fellow altar servers pulls a face at you behind the priest’s back. No matter how pious you are, you simply cannot stop giggling. It is, in fact, easier to entice a herd of elephants through the eye of a needle than to stop giggling in church.

Thinking about that incident a few evenings ago, I wondered why religions took life so seriously. I got on to the Internet to see if religious humour actually existed among the gazillion bits of information on the World Wide Web.

I was astounded: thousands of pages of religious and particularly, I am delighted to say, Catholic humour.

While I promise not fill this column week after week with religious jokes, I simply could not resist repeating these two which come off a Catholic website in the United States.

First up, a religious slant on the old changing-the-light-bulb-joke:

How many charismatics does it take to change a light bulb? One. His hands are in the air anyway.

How many Calvinists does it take to change a light bulb? None. God has predestined when the lights will be on.

How many Pentecostals does it take to change a light bulb? Ten. One to change it and nine others to pray against the spirit of darkness.

How many Catholics does it take to change a light bulb? None. We only do candles.

How many Amish does it take to change a light bulb? What’s a light bulb?

How many polygamous Mormons does it take to change a light bulb? Five. One man to change the bulb, and four wives to tell him how to do it.

How many Jehovah’s Witnesses does it take to change a light bulb? Three. One to screw in the bulb and two to knock on your door and ask you if you’ve seen the light.

How many Unitarians does it take to change a light bulb? We choose not to make a statement either in favour of or against the need for a light bulb. However, in your own journey you have found that light bulbs work for you, that is fine. You are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your light bulb for the next Sunday service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent, fluorescent, three-way, long-life and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence.

Next, I was fascinated to learn what might have happened if God had to put up with today’s politically correct bureaucracy.

In the beginning God created heaven and the earth. Quickly he was faced with a court case for failure to undertake an environmental impact study. He was granted a temporary permit for heaven, but was stymied with the restraining order for the earth part.

Appearing at the hearing, God was asked why he began his earthly project in the first place. He replied that he just liked to be creative.

Then God said: Let there be light. Officials immediately demanded to know how the light would be made. Would there be strip mining? What about thermal pollution? God explained that the light would come from a huge ball of fire.

God was granted provisional permission to make light, assuming that no smoke would result from the ball of fire, that he would obtain a building permit and to conserve energy, he would have the light out half the time. God agreed and said he would call the light Day and the darkness Night. Officials replied that they were not interested in semantics.

God said: Let the earth bring forth green herbs and seed-bearing plants. The Department of Environmental Affairs agreed, as long as indigenous seed was used.

Then God said: Let waters bring forth creeping creatures having life; and the fowl that may fly over the earth. He was told that he would require approval from the Parks Department as well as the International Bird and Wildlife Federation.

Then God insisted that he wanted to complete the entire project in six days. Officials informed him it would take at least 200 days to review the application and carry out the environmental impact study. After that there would be a public hearing. Then all the resultant problems would be addressed. They estimated it would be about 12 to 18 months before

At this point God created hell.