"The Look"

[Benny Hill]

Has anybody come up with a theory to explain the mechanism that causes that look that some Christians get? You know what I mean- either:

1. eyes wide open, blank stare and half smile, eyes directed slightly upwards
or
2. eyes squinting, as if looking into a bright light, and a facial expression that says "I'm bursting with happiness"

I've never seen the look in Muslims, Hindus, or Jews.

What is it about Christianity?

[drmatik]

For me, a fervent christian, is someone who is so insecure with the life they live that they must find solace in believing that no, it is not their choices that have brought them to the point where they are in their lives, rather the will of god.

The analogy behind free will, being in control of your own life, frightens a christian believer.

The belief that all is well due to the everlasting of god's presence causes a constant radiation of happyness. Knowing that they lead a sinless life, imaginating their afterlife in heaven.This could relate to your first point. These people are the happy christians.
Sorry, i cant relly identify the second type you mention : \


matik

[Ojuice5001]

More and more, I've begun to display a sort of combination of those two looks: eyes squinting like the second look, but the half-smile like the first look. It's connected with an increase in closeness to my patron goddess, Postverta. More and more I understand why it is good to kill the egoism of the soul and offer the soul to the gods.

Regarding drmatik's explanation, I think it's fair to say that "the look" is connected with a preference for having our lives controlled not by ourselves, but by god(s). The idea that that's always a bad thing, I consider a lie of our culture. And if it is insecurity, it's a kind of insecurity that transcends many of the problems that come from moderate insecurity. For example, there's no tendency to believe the worst of oneself or need to believe the best of oneself.

"The belief that all is well due to the everlasting of god's presence"...well, the gods I believe in aren't omnipresent like Christians believe God to be. And it is not the case that we're merely anticipating a happy afterlife; I have no idea what I expect the afterlife to be. The present state of connectedness with the gods and the world is what matters, and if you do look forward to the afterlife, it's because you expect it to be similar.

[Biff the unclean]

Originally posted by Benny Hill
Has anybody come up with a theory to explain the mechanism that causes that look that some Christians get? You know what I mean- either:

1. eyes wide open, blank stare and half smile, eyes directed slightly upwards
or
2. eyes squinting, as if looking into a bright light, and a facial expression that says "I'm bursting with happiness"


I've noticed the same expression on the faces of Downs Syndrome victims. Our local supermarket has an arrangement with a local adult day care center and some of the baggers have DS. They are the happiest people I have ever met and they all have the expression you describe to a "T"

[Hopeful Monsters]

Good Post :D :D

- because I’m certain it really touches on something quite revealing.

I agree with you about both looks and it’s something that has always struck me.

Let’s face it Benny, if you went around believing ‘Jesus died because of His Love for me and I shall go unto the Lord’ or some such nebulous fuckwit nonsense, wouldn’t YOU TOO have slightly moist, misty eyes and a silly smile on your slightly over-pacified looking face?

I think locking one’s mind onto vague, fuzzy, fluffy concepts that help access warm self-comforting feelings would give anybody The LookTM.

PS. Benny - do you run very fast after scantily clad girlies by any chance?

[Kruzkal]

How about this look?

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-8/304044/Peek.jpg

__________________

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
- Galileo Galilei

[Benny Hill]

Originally posted by TruthIsTold


PS. Benny - do you run very fast after scantily clad girlies by any chance?




Every chance I get. :D

[Waning Moon Conrad]

They're trying to convince themselves that they can "really feel the lord" and they have a fuzzy notion that when people can really "feel the lord", there's this divine light that shines forth from within.

It's just another manifestation of their self-deluding histrionic bullshit.

[Arken]

Originally posted by Benny Hill
Every chance I get. :D

Your rival called. He said, "honk honk!"

http://science.martianbachelor.com/pics/MB_Harpo.jpg