Heh. Heheheh.


The style of this blog is (what I hope is) high-minded polemic. I stake out a position, and explain why I hold it using news items, other blogs, and/or a painstaking step-by-step analysis of the logic behind the position. One of the techniques I most like to use is to state a counterargument to my position, and then explain why it is false. Regular readers of this site will probably know what I’m talking about – new people should probably just poke around the archives.

However, there has always been a soft spot in my heart for satire. I get a giddy thrill in my naughty parts whenever I see someone skillfully lampoon the folly of others by exaggerating the position and/or claims of those others. I have occasionally dabbled in satire, but I don’t really have a talent for it.

So when I find something like this, I have to share it:

Jesus was white. Yes, He was born in the Middle East, but His father was not Middle Eastern, He was God. God is NOT Middle Eastern. When was the last time you saw a painting of God with a Turban wrapped around His head? Never? Exactly.

Humans are visual creatures. Without a powerful sense of smell, touch, hearing or taste, we are reliant mostly on our eyes for information. As a result, we tend to give more credence to the appearance of visual stimuli than information from our other senses. In essence, the way things look is of primary importance to us when evaluating them.

There is a phenomenon known as the “halo effect” wherein we assume that good-looking people are more moral and deserving than ugly people. It explains why our television and movie stars are hotties, why the villains in books and movies are generally unattractive (unless they are temptresses or royalty), and why the pretty girls in high school are the popular ones (although that one is a bit more complicated than just appearance).

God is white. God has always been white. Every depiction, every description and every painting I have seen of God has been white. God impregnated Mary, NOT Joseph. Therefor (sic), Jesus is white. That is what drew people to Him in the first place. A white skinned man in the Middle East 2000 years ago was surely a miracle and Jesus was and is a miracle worker.

Europe was the seat of Christianity for centuries. The church controlled the vast majority of wealth during this time, and commissioned artists to create religious images (violating the second commandment, but whatever). During the classical period, it was common practice to depict famous figures with the faces of relatives or friends of the artist (sometimes enemies too). So of course, we end up with white Jesus, white Mary, white God, and so forth.

This wasn’t really a problem at the time. Art was not meant to depict reality – realism wasn’t to come into vogue for many years to come. However, it did leave us with a lasting impression that weds whiteness to godly virtue. Jesus, if he existed, didn’t look anything like the brown-haired bearded dude that is our popular depiction.

Of course while we can laugh at this all-too-accurate depiction of the inverted logic of the religious, it’s not a completely innocuous joke. It is in fact a manifestation of a real cognitive blindspot that we have simmering in the back of our minds – that white skin is associated with virtue, and all other skin colours are deviations thereof. Adam and Eve would have been black (of course they didn’t exist, but humanity is African), but they’re depicted white – the implication is that dark skin is a change from the “default” white, when the inverse is in fact true.

Okay, enough heavy-handedness… this shit is just funny:

Now look at Heaven. Heaven is mostly made of feathery white clouds with rays of light shooting through them, which according to most Christians I know, would make the inhabitants white. Also, white is amazingly proficient at reflecting light, which is very important when living in Heaven because it’s much closer to the sun than living on the Earth. This white skin prevents you from getting cancer in Heaven and I’m sure stops many other diseases in their tracks.

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Comments

  1. says

    This white skin prevents you from getting cancer in Heaven and I’m sure stops many other diseases in their tracks.

    this is even more hilarious when you consider the real reason people have white skin. Take, wikipedia!

    The main hypotheses which attempt to account for white skin suggest it is an adaptation to inadequate ultraviolet radiation. As humans moved out of the tropics, a conspicuous latitude gradient of skin tones follows the out of Africa dispersion, it is argued natural selection for sufficient ultraviolet penetration to enable vitamin D production gave rise to the evolution of skin pigmentation by the mechanism of evolution by natural selection. Deleterious health effects of insufficient vitamin D are also pointed to as confirmation that skin lightening was in response to strong selection pressure for maximizing vitamin D.

    That’s right, folks. Humans in northern latitudes have paler skin because they aren’t getting enough sun.

    Oh, fundamentalists.

    Hey, speaking of non-white Jesus! Non-white Jesus images are fun to find. A lot of times, Jesuits would encourage people to depict Jesus/God in their own ethnicity so that Catholicism would be more likely to catch on. (a lot of times it worked, too–unless the Franciscans came in and spoiled all their hard work by insisting on things like “no ancestor veneration”.)

    Ethiopian Jesus!

    Chinese Jesus!

    Haitian Jesus!

    Finally, Japanese Jesus.

  2. says

    Holy shit. I have very, very serious difficulty believing anyone could be that stupid.
    There’s firstly the fact that he not only got wrong, but got backwards. White skin is *better* at avoiding skin cancer?!
    Secondly: there’s nothing special about white skin that it can stop disease. Skin of any colour does that, and I can’t for the life of me see why some virus or bacteria is going to put off by pigment.
    Thirdly though: How the hell could any kind of god be a member of a human race?! It boggles the mind that anyone could think this… Good grief.

  3. says

    Well Fiyenyaa, I’m pretty certain this is a satirical piece, but it wouldn’t be funny unless it had some plausibility to someone actually believing it was true. Pretty funny stuff though.

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