An analogy for christianity.

[Kura Ookami]

I've figured an analogy for christianity out. I want to see what you think of it. Traditionally black represents evil and white represents good right? Therefore it would be alright to say white represents perfect good, God, and black represtnts perfect evil, Satan. We as christians are trying to reach the colour white, which is perfect good. Humans can be represented by colours too. All the colours in the spectrum.

Christians are trying to reach the colour white, through subtraction. Taking out things that we call sins, until we are perfect. Until we are just like God. Depending on the colour we are we've got a certain amount of work to do. It's easiest to deal with one colour at a time and as we take out colours we change. For example, if we're orange, we can take out red or yellow. If we take out red, we'll change to the colour yellow. Adding colours has rge same effect. Adding blue to yellow changes us to the colour green. Lol! Whatever we do changes us and brings us closer to either black or white. How we change depends on what is added to us or subtracted from us.

[Warrior4Christ]

So taking away all your sins (individual colours) will make you black, right?
And doing equal amounts of all sin (equal amounts of the colours) will make you white. Is that what you were saying?

But that doesn't sound right.

There should be something else in the analogy that says only through Jesus can the colours be removed.

EDIT: Yay for spelling colour right!

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Jesus is like the white bleach that removes all the stains from us. (And its not annoying when the bleach transfers to other clothing). That's like the planting of seeds of faith in people's hearts.

[Kura Ookami]

Isn't white the absence of all colour though? And black is all the colours combined. Mix several colours of paint together and you'll get black. Isnt that right?

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

True. But then doesn't Jesus add colour to our lives?

[Kura Ookami]

True. But then doesn't Jesus add colour to our lives?

I guess so. Which is why the only way to heaven is through Jesus.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

True. Glad we got that sorted out. (lol)

[Warrior4Christ]

Isn't white the absence of all colour though? And black is all the colours combined. Mix several colours of paint together and you'll get black. Isnt that right?

White is a combination of all wavelengths of light. Black is the absense of light.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Don't get all technical on us bro. We're talking theology, not science.

[Arnobius]

Besides, coloured light is the opposite of color in many ways

[Slater]

yeah, that analogy doesn't work for me if you get the physics of colors mixed up ^^;

[Esoteric]

The confusion you guys are dealing with in this color analogy arises from the very different theory's of color. Additive and Subtractive.
Additive is the theory of light wavelenghts. All colors add up to white and black is the absense of light.
Subtractive theory deals with bounced light, or shall we simply say printed materials. Adding no ink/paint to paper leaves it white, adding every color eventually makes it black.
These two theorys deal with color from completely different perspectives and herein is the trouble.

[Slater]

actually, both of those theories are the same thing...

We define the color of something by what wavelengths of light it reflects, cause it's only those wavelengths that reach our eyes. For example, my blue binder absorbs all wavelengths of light except for the wavelength of this shade of blue.

When you add (black) ink to a piece of white paper, the same thing happens. The black ink absorbs all (actually, absorbs most) of the wavelengths of light hitting it, so very little light is reflected from that black ink back to our eyes. The sensors in our eyes interpret this lack of wavelengths as black. The paper appears white because our eyes are recieving the reflection of virtually all the wavelengths in the visible spectrum.

Now, in the same example with the paper and ink, imagine that one was shining a red-tinted lightbulb on it. The ink would still appear black for the same reasons, but the paper would not be white; it would be red because it can only reflect red light (since the red wavelengths are the only ones available).

Now, when you add several colors of something to something that is white, you get something that is not hard to explain. Say you mix a red filter with a green one. Very little light will get through because the red filter is only going to let light with a wavelength of red through, and the green is only gonna let the light with wavelength of green through. The result is that the first filter lets some light through and the second filter doesn't let any of that light through because the wavelength isn't right for that filter. This is essentially what happens when you mix several shades of paint, although the nature of the paint's chemical makeup will most often leave you with a sort of brownish shade rather than actual black.

[Dante]

I've figured an analogy for christianity out. I want to see what you think of it. Traditionally black represents evil and white represents good right? Therefore it would be alright to say white represents perfect good, God and black represtnts perfect evil, Satan. We as christians are trying to reach the colour white, which is perfect good. Humans can be represented by colours too. All the colours in the spectrum.

1st thing, watch your grammar where it really counts, you said:

white represents perfect good, God and black represents perfect evil, Satan.

You should have added an extra comma after God, because otherwise he is placed in the same group as black and evil and you know who... obviously this isn't what you meant lol.

2nd, it sounds incredibly racist, imagine how African Americans, and any other non-caucasians feel about this analogy.

Christians are trying to reach the colour white, through subtraction. Taking out things that we call sins, until we are perfect. Until we are just like God. Depending on the colour we are we've got a certain amount of work to do. It's easiest to deal with one colour at a time and as we take out colours we change. For example, if we're orange, we can take out red or yellow. If we take out red, we'll change to the colour yellow. Adding colours has rge same effect. Adding blue to yellow changes us to the colour green. Lol! Whatever we do changes us and brings us closer to either black or white

. How we change depends on what is added to us or subtracted from us.

3rd, black and white are not colors. White is the equal existance of all colors and black is the lack of light of any color.

4th, while it is up to religious interpetation we can't "remove" sins we have already commited, because we can't travel back in time to do so, this was the reason for Jesus' Sacrifice (the cross) where he paid to have all of our sins forgiven... It doesn't mean that we never hurt anybody, or commited any sin, it just means that they were forgiven.

5th, you just can't remove colors to create white, actually doing that on your computer causes black, you can't just add all the colors together because in paint this doesn't equal white either... it makes... mush.

I would actually say that this makes a good starting point for an analogy but it could use a little work. Let's start by saying that we we have two colors, red and blue. Indians aren't really "red", so we can avoid the racist ellement, and the primary colors of paint are red, yellow and blue, and for computers red, green and blue. notice that the two colors that remain primary in both sets are red and blue, this means you can't just create them out of any other colors either by adding photons on computers or by exluding photons as with paint.

Now that we have two opposites, we see that in life we may start out with one color and slowly, as we begin to sin, we begin to add the other color. Different sins that we commit are represented by different shades of this color (adding or subtracting photon output or adding some white or black to the paint). As time goes on, our souls begin to fade into the evil color as we carry our sins with us. Jesus comes into the picture and notices that we no longer wear his color, but we wear the color of his enemy (you know who). However, through his perfect love of his creation, us, he sacrificed himself and thereby forgave us. It doesn't remove the effects of what we have done, we are only forgiven for the change. However, despite his infinite forgiveness others notice our shades and colors as well, and they are not so forgiving, and even question the validity of our beliefs because of an apparent hypocracy. For we claim to follow God but we all where the color of his enemy. Therefore we try to slow down and elliminate further change by removing one shade of sin after another from our lives. In this manner we stop approaching the tone of Jesus's enemy and our color starts to become constant. However we can also add colors on top of this that is equal to the tone that Jesus is, by doing good works. Even though it doesn't remove the layers of paint below, others begin to believe that we are not hypocrites and therefore they might choose to begin to believe in what we say about Jesus, because now we reflect his truth.

Hope thats good,

Pascal

[mastersquirrel]

Wow, if you ask me ya'll are just looking into this waaaay too much. I think the analogy is pretty good! It's not that we're getting rid of the actual sin, we're getting rid of the taint that it's left on us.

Anyway, I'd like to say a heartfelt thank you to all you who are taking this way too seriously and are picking apart a perfectly good analogy. I applaud you.

Kura, I like your analogy. Good thinking.

[mitsuki lover]

One of the problems with the analogy is if you keep it to a simple white=God or Good and Black=Satan or Evil then what the heck do you do with someone like
Johnny Cash who was a Christian but nevertheless was known for wearing black?

[Syreth]

The absence of light is black and pure light is white (isn't it?). Anyhow, I can see where you're going with this analogy, but no analogy is perfect when you're trying to represent spiritual things -- aren't analogies supposed to compare unfamiliar things to familiar things so that we can understand them better? I think yours does that just fine.

The idea of light being good and black being evil might come from the idea of night and day and doesn't necessarily have to have racial or religious connotations. Of course, we are called to be the light of the world, and Revelation talks about the martyrs recieving white robes.

My art teacher actually told us that they are trying to replace the term value (in terms of amount of light) with the term "key." For instance, a high key color is yellow and a low key color is violet. She said that its a better term because "value" can be misinterpreted as "worth." Sounds a bit nit-picky to me.

Going with your analogy, I think both ways can work. First of all, we don't just sin when we "do" things persay, but we also sin when we "don't do" things. You know, the idea in James when it says "He who doesn't do the good he knows he should do, sins." (my paraphrase). So in that sense, God is adding to you all the colors (His goodness) to make you pure light.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

All the colors and shades are one in nature. And nature is in all colors.

-Crayola, the Pantheistic Crayon

[Esoteric]

When you add (black) ink to a piece of white paper, the same thing happens. The black ink absorbs all (actually, absorbs most) of the wavelengths of light hitting it, so very little light is reflected from that black ink back to our eyes. The sensors in our eyes interpret this lack of wavelengths as black. The paper appears white because our eyes are recieving the reflection of virtually all the wavelengths in the visible spectrum.

Granted. It's all related in the realm of physics, but the two approaches still exist and I was merely pointing them out as the reason for confusion.

Frankly, my problem with the analogy isn't an incorrect use of color theory, but that it leans a bit toward Dualism. The meaning of black/white (exact opposites) could be misconstrued to suggest God and Satan are exact opposites. They certainly are not.

But I also agree that it's being way over-analyzed. I commend your effort at trying to make an analogy. It is very difficult.

[Zane]

Trust you guys to totally complicate things

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Zane? Is it really you!?? My goodness! Welcome back!

[Yumie]

I certainly don't think that Kura was trying to make any sort of racist implications in what he said. Granted, he might have used "light" and "dark" instead of "white" and "black," but then his color analogy goes out the window, so it would have been somewhat counter-productive.

I think it's a good idea, Kura. As many before me have taken the time to point out, there are places where perhaps you could work on it a bit, but taking the time to find ways to relate Christianity on a simpler level with others is commendable.

And on a mod note now, I just want to remind everyone not to make this into a debate. Keep things friendly.

[Slater]

haha, yeah, I found the grammar problems really bad to. I mean, I'm pretty sure that the Bible doesn't say that God is evil

[Dante]

I certainly don't think that Kura was trying to make any sort of racist implications in what he said. Granted, he might have used "light" and "dark" instead of "white" and "black," but then his color analogy goes out the window, so it would have been somewhat counter-productive.

Actually I don't believe she is anymore racist than she believes that God is evil, it could just be taken that way among acadimians who get into a fuss about such things on occassion. The variation just flipped the analogy, color replaced shade and shade replaced color. However, while it isn't apparent, I will concede that it is possible that this variation was counter-productive and reduced certain parts of the argument.

Pascal

[Puritan]

Some academicians will argue whether or not the sky is blue if you let them, so I wouldn't worry about their opinion too much. However, I do think that this is a good analogy to basically explain Christianity. You could even use it to cover the idea of justification (God paints us white or bleaches us to remove the color. We can only add color to the mix without Him, not subtract from the colors already on us, just as we cannot cover our sins, but Christ can cover them and make us righteous before God).

[Mangafanatic]

Yeah, I agree that there might be some overthinking going on in this thread. Honestly, how long have children been taught that the unsaved heart is "black" with sin, but Jesus' saving blood washes it "white as snow." (Although there have been some attempts in the Christian circles to replace the words "white" and "black" with more politically correct terms like "dark" and "light.") Anyways, while I think the analogy does have some kinks to iron out, it could be used effectively to convery the gospel to those who have no prior understanding of its precepts. Glad to see you thinking about how you can deliver the message effectively!

[GhostontheNet]

One of the problems with the analogy is if you keep it to a simple white=God or Good and Black=Satan or Evil then what the heck do you do with someone like
Johnny Cash who was a Christian but nevertheless was known for wearing black?

No kidding! This really gets screwed over when you take a look at the old Eastern Orthodox icons and realize Yeshua Christ is very often portrayed as wearing black, probably as the Man of Sorrows who is acquanted with grief. Black is also of course the color of mourning, and old cliches rooting in Greek theatre for the audience's convenience are no place to draw theology from. As a fellow Christian gothic who is a member of the band Wedding Party defended his gothic style of dress to a concerned leader at a Christian college, "Down in Miami I've seen guys in the Mafia who wear a suit and tie, but they're murderers." Appearances are often decieving, and there is a Jekyll and a Hyde barely reconciled within everyone. I suspect if movies and plays and all that sort of thing were realistic, all too often the bad guys would be dressed looking rather clean-cut. And in dismal times, sackcloth and ashes (so to speak) can be the best garb to don in lamentation for the way everything has been greatly perverted is a mark of purity in soul - the good guys dressing in black. Light and darkness is a powerful scriptural metaphor, but in the end God created the night and said it was very good, but men have perverted things in the cloak of the elegant stars to commit all manner of atrocities. The true essence of the metaphor though, is undeniably the acceptance or refusal to actually see things in the light (interesting expression) of God and God's way, or to refuse and go one's own way in all stumbling and pain upon self and others. But in the thick fog like the proverbial London fog cast by evil and sin, not even The Shadow knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

[Puritan]

I think you're both missing the point, GhostontheNet and mitsuki lover. The point is not to claim that black is evil or white is good (like you seem to be indicating) but to use the analogy of black and white to make a point. Black and white are polar opposites color wise, and using one to represent sin and the other to represent righteousness is just a method of symbolism. Just as Christ uses the image of birds in the parable of the sower to represent Satan without meaning the birds are evil, so this uses the opposites of light and dark to represent righteousness and evil without meaning black is bad and white is good. Trying to take this analogy to that level will result in all sorts of problems, as it is meant to be a simple analogy with a plain meaning, not a complex analogy with many layers of meaning that can confuse people.

[GhostontheNet]

I think you're both missing the point, GhostontheNet and mitsuki lover. The point is not to claim that black is evil or white is good (like you seem to be indicating) but to use the analogy of black and white to make a point. Black and white are polar opposites color wise, and using one to represent sin and the other to represent righteousness is just a method of symbolism. Just as Christ uses the image of birds in the parable of the sower to represent Satan without meaning the birds are evil, so this uses the opposites of light and dark to represent righteousness and evil without meaning black is bad and white is good. Trying to take this analogy to that level will result in all sorts of problems, as it is meant to be a simple analogy with a plain meaning, not a complex analogy with many layers of meaning that can confuse people.

But, simplicity is questionable when symbolism is applied as a static or absolute thing as hearkening back to traditions tends to do, much like those who take the parable of the mustard seed to mean "The reign of God is like a tree that grows to great lengths from humble origins and then get's infested by Satan - depressing, isn't it?" (Yes, I'm actually drawing from books on the parables for that one). As a Goth, I know the detriments of static application that makes me out to be like Simon Magus or something no matter how much I try to sync with the will of God. In the end, God brings purification from the life of crucifixion and at the same time passing through the resurrection before the time yet all the time - for Christ's ministry and it's aftermath brought God's future into the present. For this reason, I dress for my own funeral daily in rememberance of this and mourning for the high cost of refusal to respond to God upon the world like a poison upon the world, and for what it cost Yeshua too to bring all the pain and evil upon Himself.

[Zane]

I like what you had to say Ghost, as usual, Puritan has a point aswell though, for a simple analogy black/white as opposites holds true. But the original, (Kuras I think it was) of the colour wheel fails to portray the Gospel to non-christians and therefore, imo fails. There are clearer analogies of christanity.

Zane? Is it really you!?? My goodness! Welcome back!

Thanks Mr. SP, I had Uni holidays and they went as long as now... like 3 months, but now I'm back again procrastinating on CAA. Can't do that too much because of the study load and I'm leading a 1st year small group (bible study group) with Christian Union this year. So I might not post alot, but feel free to PM anytime mate.