I assure you this is no joke
I offer it as a theory
What you make of it is up to you
I believe that when Jesus returns he will look like how God is portrayed in Western art
To make people think of him more as being God
That's what I'm saying
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They are both the same person!
- Thread starter Eddi
- Start date
I offer it as a theory
What you make of it is up to you
I believe that when Jesus returns he will look like how God is portrayed in Western art
To make people think of him more as being God
That's what I'm saying
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
First off, you are assuming that the artists who painted these pictures actually knew what Jesus and God looks like. This is especially problematic when you consider that God doesn't have a body or form. These are not photographs. They are interpretations.
Then you are comparing superficial things, like the fact that they both have beards. Oh please.
I'm sorry, but your "theory" is so groundless that it is just not funny.
I'm not assuming that, not at all
I believe that God is sensitive to how he is imagined in the popular imagination - such as in pictures like the ones in the OP
So that how he is imagined will be a factor when he decides how to directly interact with us
I think that when he sends Jesus he will make it so that Jesus looks like how people imagine God
If we imagined God as having blue skin I believe that when Jesus comes he would have blue skin
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
God doesn't have blue skin because God doesn't have any skin, becaue God has no body. Sheesh.
And yes, your post did assume that these artist depictions were accurate, and there is no reason to think that.
I'd say he does have a body - the body of Jesus Christ
But obviously you don't believe in Jesus
My point was that if people expected Jesus to have blue skin then God would give them a blue-skinned Jesus if he wanted to interact with them, through Jesus
I think you're getting it the wrong way round
God's appearance is dictated by how he is portrayed in art
Not the other way round
That is what I am saying
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Your argument is that Jesus, whom YOU think is God's son(I don't) is the same person as God the Father, who is usually just called God. And I'm telling you that your argument from paintings has absolutely no foundation at all. None. Artists painting Jesus had no idea what he actually looked like. What you see is their own imagination, not a photograph. Secondly, God the Father is not a human being or anything else from creation. He has no body, no form. Again, all artist renderings are simply imagination.
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
This is among the most ridiculous things I've ever heard in internet forums. Artists do not dictate God's appearence. You have totally made this up, and it's really quite silly.
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
This is, I'm afraid, totally fallacious thinking.
@IndigoChild5559 I think you're maybe jumping the gun a bit here.
All Eddi seems to be arguing is that God will take an appearance people associate with God to make it easier for them to recognise and relate to Him the way they're used to.
All Eddi seems to be arguing is that God will take an appearance people associate with God to make it easier for them to recognise and relate to Him the way they're used to.
To you, yes. But from Eddi's theological perspective, no.
You said in your other post that God has no body or form...
Putting the issue of Jesus aside I agree
However: he obviously does have an appearance - in that when people think of him they have a certain image in mind - namely an old man with a beard
I think this image is pretty universal and not just limited to Western art
He has an (imagined) appearance within the popular imagination
Therefore in the popular imagination that is what he looks like
He is imagined as looking that way, therefore as far as we are concerned that is what he looks like - as we know him (I would say mostly) through our collective imagination
Also, I think it is human nature to imagine what a Supreme Being looks like - and that it is natural for them to do so in anthropomorphic terms
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Rival, there are some notions that I can understand another person having, even if I disagree with them. But for a person to say that the imagination determines what God looks like? (Assuming of course that God is real.) I'm sorry, such a proposition is completely unwarranted. Science has already, in its research of magic, determined that our minds alone do not change reality.
So...
The image of Napoleon Bonaparte that exists in the popular imagination owes nothing to how he has been portrayed in art?
This is not what Eddi is saying though.
His argument, as I see it, is that God will gracefully assent to how people picture Him by taking that form in an earthly appearance should He make one, not that He actually exists in that form, to facilitate feelings of familiarity among that group, rather than shocking them with a strange appearance they don't recognise.
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IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
There is a difference. The artist who painted the portraite of Napolean had Napoleon sitting there to copy. The artists that portray Jesus and God have NOTHING to base their painting on. They are doing nothing but imagining things.
They have previous depictions to go on
And did so in the midst of a certain cultural context
I don't think any of the artists who painted the two pics in the OP thought to themselves "oooh, I'm going to imagine what God looks like" or "oooh, I'm going to imagine what Jesus looks like" - they portrayed them so because that is how they already understood them!
To them, that is what God and Jesus look like
Depictions which make sense - Jesus as a bearded man makes sense, as does God as an old man
I’ll concede to this point…
Jaki rahi bhavana jaisi, prabhu murat dekhi tin taisi.
“In whatever way one chooses to perceive the Lord, in that very way the Lord appears to that person”.