Adora

Okay, Um, I'm not sure if this topic has been done before... The thread title was mostly to get your attention, but people who matter will know what I'm talking about.

Does anyone else get really annoyed at pictures, statues, posters etc that depict Jesus as some blonde/redheaded pale-skinned tall white guy?

I mean, whether you're a theist, christian or otherwise, that has to annoy anyone with half a brain cell. It especially irks me when you walk past christmas displays in shopping centers and everyone in the stable looks like they just walked off the English moors. Even my dear Catholic mother knows he would have looked more like Osama or a person from the Punjab valley than even a modern Palestinian would.

Sorry, it's just a pet peeve of mine. And no, I am white, I'm just... weird.

Proctors_Gambit

Me, I dont give a toss either way.
It's one of those little things I chalk up to human nature... make their god look as much like them as possible.

I do however find it funny when a smear that looks kinda like the steriotypical picture of caucasion Jesus or Mary rocks up in a tortilla somewhere.

Why would god bother sending a sign to his followers that is obviously false?

Why does Mary only turn up wearing her nativity headdress?

People who seek answers will convince themselves of anything.

-Gambit.

Pouye

This applies to you, too -- PG, but you have to start somewhere if you want to find the truth.

I've always believed that Jesus was Middle Eastern looking, even before I became a Christian.

I have never tried to make "God in my image". In fact, I wasn't even looking for God when Jesus got my attention and changed my life. Before He did that, I could care less about God and the Bible.

I don't agree with pictures of Jesus. I would never have one in my home, and I don't like statues and images of Him, either. I believe in the commandment to not make any images of God -- period. Pictures, statues and icons of Jesus are off my list.

Pictures and statues of Mary have never bugged me, since Mary is not divine, but merely human -- just as the Bible depicts her.

Rock

Gregg

But what do you think about folks praying to these images of Mary and asking her to intervene with her son on their behalf?

I think the Church actually encouraged the cult of Mary in order to bring Goddess-worshippers of various kinds into the fold.

lpetrich

First, I agree with Pouye about making Jesus Christ in one's likeness; as Xenophanes had pointed out long ago, people tend to imagine that deities look like them and act like them and even have similar styles of clothing.

But I agree that Jesus Christ's mother got turned into a mother-goddess figure. Many of the saints may also be deity ripoffs; St. Brigid was originally a Celtic deity.

Some saints even have biographies that seem plagiarized; St. Catherine seems like an imitation of Hypatia, and St. Josaphat an imitation of the Buddha.

Even real people who became saints would get lots of miracles attributed to them. St. Genevieve was probably a real ascetic of 5th-cy. Paris, but she could reputedly calm storms, drive out demons, cure blindness, strike blind people who stole from her, miraculously fill oil lamps, point out monster-containing trees, etc. A millennium later, St. Francis Xavier had reputedly had the gift of tongues, being able to speak in many languages without having to learn them, while accounts close to him stated that he had worked through interpreters and that he had found Japanese to be a difficult language. He was also credited with several other miracles, like desalinating seawater, returning a lost boat, and having a crab return a lost crucifix to him.

Adora

Depends. The cult of Mary is many and varied. Most assimilations of Christianity that have turned her into a Goddess-like figure (ie- Africa and South America) tend to involve ideas about here that are not kosher with the Clergy back in Rome. They'd rather keep her as a un-human, safe, female ideal for their own cloistered purposes.

mark9950

Which jesus are you talking about?

There were more than 21 as this link shows.

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=68490

Magus55

Mark, I think you know very well what Jesus we are talking about, stop being a troll..

As to the OP, I agree that Jesus was no caucasian. While I don't think He was black, as in African American, I think he was a dark olive skinned color, customary of people living in the Meditarranean area.

wade-w

Accusations of trolldom are off topic. Please refrain from this behavior.

iFeel

That use to bug me too.