Humor in Science and Theology

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

This has theological implications, if you’re familiar with the epistles attributed to Paul (it does anyway, even if you’re not ):

Complaining is not allowed in our household. (We do have discussions, though, about whether something is a complaint or a statement of fact. “My marshmallow is charcoal.” Some people like their marshmallows burnt to a crisp, so if one of them said it, it would just be a statement of fact or approval.)

When my younger son was in elementary school, maybe the third grade, he came to get me and took me to his bedroom. He had a clamp-on articulating draftsman’s type desk lamp fastened to his bed, and to keep it from shining through the doorway into his mother’s face where she was reading in the next room of our little house, after he had pushed it aside to get out of his bed to make a pit stop, instead of turning it off, he put it down on the bed, not realizing the consequences.

So when he got me to his room and showed me where the incandescent bulb had melted through the sheet, the mattress cover and into the foam mattress, he said, “Dad, this stinks!!” He was quite aware that it was a statement of fact and that it was not a complaint. We had a good laugh and we were thankful that there had been no more serious consequences.