OMG!!! Unbelievable! Have ya'll seen this? (History Channel's Obama/Satan look-alike controversy)
Obama As The Devil? The History Channel’s The Bible’s Stunning Look-alike
Article and screenshot PHOTO here: http://www.mediaite.com/online/obama-as-the-devil-the-history-channels-the-bibles-stunning-look-alike/
Can't believe this crap was aired on the History channel!
Edited to add...
The photo below is from the History Channel's website, the caption to the photo says: Satan
http://www.history.com/shows/the-bible/pictures/episode-3-hope/the-bible-46
= new reply since forum marked as read
Here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/history-channels-satan-looks-a-lot-like-barack-obama
The mole on his chin is in the same place as in the photo from the History Channel website.
Last edited Mon Mar 18, 2013, 11:34 PM - Edit history (1)
I also tutor in almost all subjects in the humanities--art history, history, anthropology, philosophy, Western Civilization, etc.
I am an atheist, but when I teach literature or any of those other subjects, have to make sure my students understand the historical and conceptual background of the material we cover, as well as the relevant allusions.
In the same way that our cultural foundation includes the Greek philosophers (especially Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle), as well as the Greek and Roman myths, it also includes the Judaeo-Christian scriptures and many, many centuries during which all of Europe was Christendom. You simply cannot teach the philosophy, art, literature, or history of the Western world without including the bible. I often have to explain to so-called "Christians" in my classes all kinds of stuff they are supposed to know about from their own religion, but of course they often don't know about those things, because even though they call themselves "Christians," for many of them that is just the name of a club they belong to, like being a Cubs fan or a Girl Scout.
Here's a good one for you. Three times I have been called on to tutor seminary students working on a master's degree in theology. They must study the foundational texts of their particular sect (in all three cases my students were training as Methodist ministers), but reading fairly difficult texts (the kind I call "chewy"
is pretty much beyond a lot of students these days, so I walk them through the texts and explain the parts they have trouble understanding.
They are really lucky that I have such a strong ethical streak. I have often thought about how tutoring future ministers put me in a position to subtly twist their comprehension of the tenets of their faith! Of course I would never do such a thing, but it does amuse me to think about the fact that I, an atheist, am teaching them what they are supposed to believe and to teach to their future congregations!
Both of my kids are also atheists, but when they were young, I made sure they learned all the bible stories, too--right along with all the Greek and Roman myths, as well as the Norse myths and many of the myths of Africa, Japan, China, etc. They also learned the fairy tales and legends of Europe and the American West.
I never directly tried to tell them what to believe or not to believe--I figured that as adults they could make their own choices. Their dad and stepmom took them to Roman Catholic church services and had them baptized in the RC church. But I did make sure that they were familiar with a wide range of mythologies, which undoubtedly helped them to see how the biblical scriptures fit into belief systems of certain times and places. (They also knew that I was not a believer, of course--but since their other family were churched, I figured they weren't being pressured by knowing about my lack of belief.)
My very religious Sicilian-American grandparents kept boxes full of children's books full of bible stories. (They also made sure my 5 siblings and I were confirmed in their church when we ended up living nearby after Dad retired from the Air Force.) I loved to read those bible stories as a child, and when I was old enough to read the original (the bible itself) I read it, too, a lot! To me, it was just more interesting stories, and then when I got older, it also became a glimpse into another time and place, basically an anthropological study. Even as an atheist, my daughter attended bible study classes as a college undergrad, just because like me, she was interested in the stuff as literature and as a cultural study.
Richard Dawkins says he tells Christians that they are also atheists--but he just believes in one less god than they do, because they are atheists with respect to the gods of the Greek and Roman pantheon (and any other mythology they might be familiar with).
It is frustrating to me that my literature students--even "Christians"--cannot be taught to understand and appreciate poetry or stories until I first explain to them what the allusions mean, even when the allusions are to ideas, phrases, or images from their own religion or from their own scriptures! (For example, not one of the Christians in any of my classes for the last two decades has recognized the phrase "three score and ten" or understood that it refers to the allotted span of human life, as referenced in Psalm 90:
The days of our years are threescore years and ten;
and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years,
yet is their strength labor and sorrow;
for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
Just as examples, Shakespeare refers to this allotment in Macbeth, and so does A.E. Housman in "Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now." Here is a stanza from the Housman poem:
<snip>
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
<snip>
See what I mean?
Dark Jedi Obama
goes well with their remarkably light, one might even say European, Jesus. 
This is why I avoid the TV.
Yeah, I share your
As for the evil person of course being dark and the good person being portrayed as light, SSDY(ear).
they did it with some good music and really sexy actors.
dirty unwashed nature-loving hippie socialist!!
He chewed the scenery brilliantly, and had about the same sense of humor/irony/evil that one would expect someone/thing like Lu to have.
Yep, dead ringer for Obama!
There is only so much Righteous Indignation. Let's reserve it for when it is truly justified.
and it might be time for progressives to stage a boycott of the corporate advertisers of the channel.
That shot/actor is not an error, it/he is being used as a deliberate malicious attack on the President, IMO.
