Evolution of Religious concepts into cartoon caricatures.

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seagypsy

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This is the first thread I have have started so bear with me.

I think it is well known that the mythology of Santa Clause originated with a real person, a bishop named Nicholas. And that over time, the mythology of Santa Claus has evolved quite a bit.

There is plenty of information available online to anyone who wants to find it on the history of Santa.

But I learned during my time as a Muslim, that the cartoon caricature of genies actually stems from the Islamic concept of Jinns. Also the caricature of a good angel and a devil being on opposite shoulders both giving advice is also indirectly related to the concept in Islam that there are angels on each shoulder. the one on the right keeping track of good deeds and the one on the left keeping track of bad deeds. Not that they give guidance but that could be something that evolved into the cartoon.

Does anyone have any thoughts on how this happened over time? I am not questioning whether it is right or wrong to caricature religious themes, I am only asking about how one thing managed to evolve into another.

Perhaps someone knowledgeable in Islam could first explain what a Jinn is as well as explain about the two angels.
 
EDIT:I theorize that the angel, and devil on your shoulder speaking to you potrayd in popular media stems from the idea of man being stuck in between the eternal battle of good and evil. Having the free will to choose a side, good or evil. I believe we are the ones fighting, I have no devil on my shoulder.

homer_simpson_angels_and_demons-11209.jpg
 
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what he said..

i think the angels are a metaphor for the struggle within each of us to do good or bad..
 
Maybe my relating the angel and the devil to Islamic concepts was in error. I will try to get some one who is Muslim to clarify my perceptions on that. However, Jinns (genies) are definitely from Islam. But I never saw any place in the Qur'an that suggest they live in bottles and can grant wishes. The Qur'an has an entire Sura (chapter) about Jinns. I wonder how they went from being beings of smokeless fire on an alternate plane of existence to being a partially disembodied magician living in a bottle and granting wishes.


Surat Al-Jinn, Qur'an
 
seagypsy said:
I wonder how they went from being beings of smokeless fire on an alternate plane of existence to being a partially disembodied magician living in a bottle and granting wishes.
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While you're at Wiki, read up on caricature, parody, satire, logical fallacies ...

People have the ability to caricaturize, and they sometimes act on it.

I'm not sure there is much more to say here, other than perhaps try to trace back the specific caricatures.
 
wynn said:
While you're at Wiki, read up on caricature, parody, satire, logical fallacies ...

People have the ability to caricaturize, and they sometimes act on it.

I'm not sure there is much more to say here, other than perhaps try to trace back the specific caricatures.
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Since you didn't really have anything productive to offer I am assuming you just popped in to say hi then I guess... :wave: can you close the door on your way out, don't want flies coming in.
 
It's hard not to see all religious figures as cartoons, because none of them are real or act realistically.
 
jinn are different from devils, devils are the bunch of satan, all bad. as opposed to angles, who are all good.
jinn are the invisible counterpart of humans, they live and die, do good and bad, and will be punished and rewarded in their afterlife, they live with us on earth though they rarely cross paths with humans(exorcisms anyone?).

the two mini-you on each shoulder are AFAIK are some christian representation of angles and devils, while both muslims and christians believe in them, i think some christians define them as merely the forces of good(or evil for devils) in human beings, meaning they're not seperate entities inthemsleves. in islam angles are different creatures with their own minds and seprate from us, even though many of their assignments include or relate to us.
 
spidergoat said:
It's hard not to see all religious figures as cartoons, because none of them are real or act realistically.
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On the contrary, its hard to take any statement of strong atheism seriously .. or do you want to conveniently retreat behind a softer rampart (again)?
 
lightgigantic said:
On the contrary, its hard to take any statement of strong atheism seriously .. or do you want to conveniently retreat behind a softer rampart (again)?
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Unless you yourself can manifest true superiority and perfection,
you should take atheism (in all its forms) seriously.
 
Um guys, I really didn't mean to debate the veracity of theistic vs atheistic viewpoints here. There are plenty of other threads where that is already taking place. I was trying to find understanding of how the religious "characters" (for lack of a better word) transformed through literature and cultural representations from how they are described in religious texts to how they are depicted in modern literature and on to cartoons (animated literature).
 
Gustav said:
what time would that be?
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from about 2000 to 2007 if you want to get into technicalities of official declaration and official renouncement. I know it was only 7 years but I had no life and pretty much devoted my every waking moment to understanding Islam. I had read the English translation of Qu'ran and had probably at 70% understanding of what I read, that's a rough guess, and what the imam told me at the mosque at one point when I spoke to him. He said that was pretty high for a recent convert. and that most people who are born in Islam never really gain any better understanding than that. So yeah, I'm not an expert by any means. But I do know some stuff. Where I got "lost" as he put it was in my understanding of Hadith. But that was because I rejected Hadith. By my understanding of the Qur'an the Hadith was a bidah, an innovation which was strictly forbidden by the Qur'an.

But either way, that's why I am asking for Muslims who would know better than me to explain how Jinns became Genies. It seems there is some doubt as to whether or not the shoulder angels actually do originate in Islam so if the actual origin is known by anyone and then how the cartoons came to be, again I am terribly curious about it.
 
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