What's So Funny?

Context is what makes anything funny, since humor is not really a trait that any particular thing really has (some watch the Simpsons and roll their eyes, others watch it and die laughing).

There was an example that a philosophy professor once gave, of a photograph with a bunch of nazi soldiers standing over a beaten, naked Jewish man. The soldiers were laughing, and it was evident that the man was to be killed immediately following the photograph.
Now, to pretty much everyone, there's nothing funny about that scene at all. For the nazi soldiers at the time however, there was a shared context for the experience... and as limited and convoluted as it was, if anyone else could view the situation in the exact same context, it would be just as funny.

...the other thing which makes things hilarious is REcontextualizing things. That's what a lot of great stand-up comedians do. When they talk about ordinary things that happen every day, they make it appear funny by recontextualizing the situation - by revealing how absurd certain emotional responses are in the big picture. It doesn't necessarily degrade the subject of the laugh, it simply deflates the inflated importance or severity that we frame the circumstances with.

Religion, poltics, and other conflict-ridden subjects are all ripe with opportunities to recontextualize the way we view things, since there's a lot of inflated emotionality and importance which is associated with them.

The beauty of recontextualization is that it helps us to grow - which is why laughter is such an effective medicine.
If we can look at our circumstances in a humorous light, they don't seem so dominating, opressive, or severe.
Humor dissolves resistance, and reinforces resolve... by facillitating an acceptance of a situation it enables us to deal with it more effectively (non-acceptance is basically prolonged ignorance of the reality of a situation).

Get it? LOL

-Rob