In 2005, Ship of Fools launched a quest for the funniest and most offensive religious jokes in all eternity. We called it the Laugh Judgment.

The context was the UK government’s attempt to pass a bill outlawing the vilification of religion, the Incitement to Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. Our aim was to show that at least some Christians were happy for their faith to be criticised and even mocked as part of freedom of speech.

Over the course of five weeks, over 1,000 religious jokes were sent in by Ship of Fools readers. We posted the best on a dedicated bulletin board, where people could vote on how funny or offensive they were, and debate the wider issues of Christianity, comedy and offence.

We revealed the top 10 funny and offensive religious jokes at the Greenbelt arts festival. See here for the final list of jokes, and an account of the Greenbelt show.