Is Happiness the Meaning of Life?

Agnostics are people who are generally undecided on what they believe in. Or at least, they are people who would not say they have committed themselves to one of the major world beliefs. In western culture this indecision seems to result in them inventing their own belief system, but in a vague kind of way.

One of the most common things I hear agnostics say or imply, if they are ever talking about belief, is that life is all about happiness. This may be dressed in phrases like "follow your heart" or "be true to yourself". The core thing that decisions come down to, says this belief, is that I should be happy.

Unfortunately, there are issues with this belief.

Swearing

I wouldn't claim to have the cleanest sense of humour, but I do have cleaner-than-average language. I try to avoid swearing whenever possible, and generally succeed. The reason for this when I was a child used to be simply "because I am a Christian" but this isn't actually a very clear reason so as an adult I eventually had a think about my choices with the language I use.

When I gave it some thought, I realised that the question of "Is it OK to swear?" isn't going to have a single answer because there are two different types of swearing, and I need to answer this question for each of them separately.

Bad Christian Jokes

Sometimes it's fun to laugh at how bad something is, including jokes. So I have created the following list of jokes, which are common jokes given a rubbish twist by some imaginary Christian with no sense of humour...

Why did the chicken cross the road?

To convert the unbeliever on the other side.

What is black and white and rolls down a hill?

A zebra that God smited because it was proud of being on top of the hill.

Doctor, doctor, I feel like a pair of curtains!

I worry about the state of your soul.

An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The Englishman points out that three men going into one place bears some resemblance of the Holy Trinity, but the Scotsman warns that such a metaphor would be heretical, and the Irishman prays for the Englishman's soul.