Mockery of religion is one of the most essential things…one of the beginnings of the human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority, its indispensable

Mockery of religion is one of the most essential things... one of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority.

God is only mocked by believers.

It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.

Tyrion shrugged. “We all need to be mocked from time to time Lord Mormont lest we start to take ourselves too seriously.

We all need to be mocked from time to time, lest we take ourselves too seriously.

Why should thinkers mock the simple pieties of the people?

Come let us mock at the great
That had such burdens on the mind
And toiled so hard and late
To leave some monument behind,
Nor thought of the levelling wind.
Come let us mock at the wise;
With all those calendars whereon
They fixed old aching eyes,
They never saw how seasons run,
And now but gape at the sun.
Come let us mock at the good
That fancied goodness might be gay,
And sick of solitude
Might proclaim a holiday:
Wind shrieked — and where are they?
Mock mockers after that
That would not lift a hand maybe
To help good, wise or great
To bar that foul storm out, for we
Traffic in mockery.

"Sometimes," I said, "it seems to me that a friend might not take such pleasure in making fun of me as you do." "Dear Odd! If one's friends do not openly laugh at him, they are not, in fact, his friends. How else would one learn to avoid saying those things that would elicit laughter from strangers? The mockery of friends is affectionate, and inoculates against foolishness."

[The "New Atheists"] fail to recognize that mocking religious people in public is entirely inimical to the goals they wish to achieve.

Perhaps I am even envious of Stendhal? He robbed me of the best atheist joke which precisely I could have made: 'God's only excuse is that he does not exist'...I myself have said somewhere: what hitherto been the greatest objection to existence? God...

I'm making a serious point."
"Yes, and I am mocking your serious point to show how ludicrous it is.

Me? I'm a mocker!

I have often come across convinced adepts of Greek mythology who mock our faith under the pretext that we do not say anything else to those whom we instruct in divine things, but merely command them to believe.
They accuse the apostles of ignorance, labelling them barbarians, because they do not have the subtlety of eloquence; and they say that the cult of martyrs is ridiculous, considering it completely absurd for the living to seek assistance from the dead.