Originally posted by Holden McGroin
Budda's image doesn't seem to have effected that religion. I mean as Jack Nicholson said, "How does a man who weighs over 600 lbs have the balls to preach self discipline?"
The irony there is that buddha was in fact supposedly an attractive slim guy (he spent some time fasting with those wierd hairy indian holymen), he was also prince from an indian royal family.
All the buddha statues we have at home (my wife and mother in law are buddhist) are of a slim almost efeminite buddha.
I like what seagoon says:
The sad thing about this whole argument over what Jesus looked like is that it is so needless. The Apostolic church turned the whole world upside-down via the preaching of the Gospel. Not once did they use pictures of Jesus. What would Peter or Paul say coming into one of our churches and seeing one of our many images of Jesus? Obviously they wouldn't recognize it as the image of the Savior they knew. Wouldn't they assume that this was yet another example of the kind of Hellenistic idolatry they were so familiar, "Men of America, I perceive that in all things you are very religious..."* Aren't we best served proclaiming the gospel of a Christ who is too glorious to be portrayed as a mere man from any one race?"
This represents to me, as a non-christian, the right attitude. But I also believe it represents a minority of christians, and that most christians would choke on the real images of their religious icons.