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Pahu
Banned
USA
19 Posts |
 Posted - 06/02/2016 : 06:35:23 [Permalink]
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This is a painting by Akiane Kramarik when she was 8 years old. The first time I heard of Akiane, I was watching “Heaven is for Real” by Todd Burpo. In the spring of 2003, the author’s little four year old boy, Colton, suffered from a near-fatal illness and hadvisions of heaven. After Colton recovered, his dad kept showing him images of Jesus, and Colton kept shaking his head and saying "no, that doesn’t look like him". Finally, Todd showed him Akiane’s painting of Jesus, and Colton said, "yes, that's him".
Akiane's life began in an unusual way, with an underwater home birth in a shack on the edge of a cornfield.
Although during her first years the family experienced severe hardships, Akiane grew up in a nurturing home-schooling environment. Her mother was a Lithuanian immigrant teacher and her father a chef from Chicago. In their rural Illinois home the family had no friends, no relatives, no television or radio, and their life was quite simple: long walks in nature, open conversations, and hands on explorations of knowledge.
When Akiane was four years old, even though the family was indifferent to spirituality or religion, suddenly she started experiencing vivid impressions about invisible realms and a great desire to express them through art utilizing whatever medium was found on hand: candles, lipstick, fruits, vegetables, charcoal or pencils.
Though once in while she would share many details about the self-aware universes she was seeing, most of her spiritual experiences, however, she kept secret, so as not to overwhelm her parents. "It is not time yet for you to know what I see. When that time comes, then you will know."
Whether it was Akiane's vivid imagination or real experiences, her realistic drawings of mostly faces, undoubtedly impressed everybody, and during the first local art exhibitions people often had a hard time believing that the work could actually be created by such a young child.
Soon afterwards, Akiane plunged into the world of colors, and a few more years later into the world of poetry leaving her family and audiences puzzled.
Gradually the days became filled with thinking, painting and writing, and at the tender age of eight the self-taught prodigy completed her first five-foot long oil paintings mastering realism equal to that of a seasoned artist.
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Truth Frees! Evolution is evidence free speculation masquerading as science. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2016 : 08:38:09 [Permalink]
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2016 : 12:05:17 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
It wasn't just proselytizing, it was copy-and-paste proselytizing.
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Yeah. I caught that too. I'm rather surprised that Pahu linked to the artist's story and not the preacher's site who supposedly died as a child, went to heaven and came back.
If your aim is to proselytize, Pahu, the artist's story is rather incidental, don't you think?
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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The Rat
SFN Regular
Canada
1370 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2016 : 13:15:28 [Permalink]
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Well, that's iron-clad proof right there. A picture! I'm convinced. I will now devote my entire life to JEEBUS!
[quote]Originally posted by Pahu
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Bailey's second law; There is no relationship between the three virtues of intelligence, education, and wisdom.
You fiend! Never have I encountered such corrupt and foul-minded perversity! Have you ever considered a career in the Church? - The Bishop of Bath and Wells, Blackadder II
Baculum's page: http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=3947338590 |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2016 : 18:10:31 [Permalink]
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| Yes that's right.....Jesus was a caucasian. |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
| Edited by - astropin on 06/02/2016 18:11:29 |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2016 : 20:23:21 [Permalink]
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| Reading this thread all the way to this point was SO WORTH IT. Thanks, guys. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2016 : 20:48:41 [Permalink]
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Okay, so as a classically trained artist who attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, used to paint (now I'm a wood block printmaker) and knows plenty of painters, I have some thoughts in response to the whole Akiane turn this thread has taken.
I know it looks almost miraculous when someone as young as 8 can paint this well, but it's no different than prodigies in many other areas of developed skills such as playing a particular musical instrument like a virtuoso. Prodigies achieve their skills the same way adult masters do - through a certain number of hours of concentrated practice. What makes them prodigies is that they have the drive, obsession, and necessary time and resources enough at such a young age to do it. It's amazing and inspiring, but it's not miraculous. Malcolm Gladwell writes extensively about it with many examples (calling it the "10,000 Hour Rule") in his book "Outliers." In art school I witnessed a small number of students who went from very mediocre to master-level oil painter in the span of a couple years by virtue of the fact that they labored obsessively in their studios for many hours a day. I'm not saying anyone can do it, but I am saying that anyone with the obsessive drive to practice that much and the time and necessary resources to do so can do it. It's as natural and human as anything else.
Some articles about Akiane have made an issue of the fact that her parents were atheists, the presumption being how on earth could this girl have had such religious visions and faith? God must have spoke directly to her! It's a miracle! The thing is, we ASSUME that people turn out like their parents because they model their parents behavior and are taught to accept their parents values. There's actually quite a bit of solid evidence that most kids' similarities to our parents can be chalked up to a blend of genetics and the fact that MOST parents raise kids around other parents who share their values. The problem with the idea that kids pick up values from parents is that when kids grow up immersed in a community that is very different from their parents (such as the case of immigrants who don't choose to live in a immigrant community connected with their native customs and values) the kids overwhelmingly tend to become more like their peers than their parents in terms of values. For example, the kid in my class whose parents were first generation Indian and practicing Hinduists, but they sent him to Catholic school with a bunch of white kids, so by the time he was in 8th grade he wanted to be Baptized, and today he's a full blown Catholic American dude just like all his white friends from grade school. Judith Rich Harris writes about this in her Pulitzer Prize finalist book "The Nuture Assumption." Akiane's parents were also immigrants living in a highly religious region of the USA and initially sent her to public school, so it shouldn't be a surprise that she adopted the faith of her peers and not her parents. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 06/02/2016 20:49:31 |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2016 : 20:58:17 [Permalink]
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| Looking at Akiane's work, she almost certainly also possesses a photographic memory. As an art educator I've had a couple kids with those sort of minds and it is rather amazing. Last summer I had a kid in my summer camp class who was a prodigy at playing piano and he had a photographic memory. I was conducting a lesson about how poorly we pay attention to what we see, so I held up a branch with leaves on it, told the students to look at it very carefully for ten seconds, and then I put it behind my back. Then I asked, "How many leaves were on the branches?" In no more than a couple seconds the kid with the photographic memory said "33." I thought he was joking at first, but then gave him the benefit of the the doubt and counted the leaves, and indeed there were exactly 33! Some people just have freaky amazing brains in certain, specific areas. Again, not miraculous. Just cool examples of human diversity. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 06/03/2016 : 19:16:32 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
I know it looks almost miraculous when someone as young as 8 can paint this well, but it's no different than prodigies in many other areas of developed skills such as playing a particular musical instrument like a virtuoso. Prodigies achieve their skills the same way adult masters do - through a certain number of hours of concentrated practice. What makes them prodigies is that they have the drive, obsession, and necessary time and resources enough at such a young age to do it. It's amazing and inspiring, but it's not miraculous. |
And it's clear from her Gallery that the "realism" so touted on her web site is something she learned over time. Nothing before age 8 even approached "real." And the age-12 tiger is massively better than the age-8 tiger.
Practice works.| Some articles about Akiane have made an issue of the fact that her parents were atheists... |
Her Wikipedia article asserts that her parents became Christians due to Akiane's faith, but that's [citation needed].| Looking at Akiane's work, she almost certainly also possesses a photographic memory. |
She doesn't need Eidetic memory. Given the number of times this time-lapse video catches her glancing up above the canvas, I think it's clear she's working from a photo (a commenter claims the image is of her brother).
And the fourth photo in the scroll at the top of her About page shows her using a model.
Photos and models (and photos of models) are standard practice for painters, no?
My question about that time-lapse video is this: what is she doing with the hand mirror? If she were just looking at her own face (perhaps to fill in details not visible in the photo of her brother I suspect she's working from), then she wouldn't need to turn around to use the mirror, but she does. Often. Is she trying to see her own face and the painting side-by-side?
Or maybe she needs to turn around so her face gets the same lighting angle as the photo? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 06/03/2016 : 20:02:31 [Permalink]
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Dave, I wasn't aware of the term "eidetic" memory or that it differed from photographic memory. Thanks for the Wikipedia link.
My experience with what I have thought of as photographic memory is meeting a handful of individuals in the visual arts who apparently have a greater than typical ability to draw or paint in great detail from memory. Basically people who can capture a good likeness of someone's face or details in anatomy or other complex forms, without stylizing or getting cartoony.
If the artist used a model for the portrait of Jesus but claims the face is from a vision, then she is either lying or she has at least a very good memory for faces. A lot of the best con artists are people who believe their own con, and it's perfectly possible, especially considering the Caucasian characteristics in Jesus's face, that the face she painted is just a compilation of Jesus-like faces her memory has gathered from modern, Western illustrations of Jesus. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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ThorGoLucky
Snuggle Wolf
USA
1487 Posts |
Posted - 06/04/2016 : 19:39:40 [Permalink]
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I have predicted that eventually Jesus will be depicted as "clean cut" and perhaps even in a business suit.
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
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Pahu
Banned
USA
19 Posts |
Posted - 06/08/2016 : 06:26:49 [Permalink]
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Small Comets
Photographs taken from Earth-orbiting satellites show small, ice-filled comets striking Earth’s upper atmosphere at an average rate of one every three seconds (a).
Figure 33: Small Comets. The Dynamic Explorer satellite took this picture in ultraviolet light showing small comets (the dark spots) colliding with Earth’s upper atmosphere. The comets begin to break up 800 miles above the Earth’s surface, then frictional heating vaporizes the pieces and their descent stops at an elevation of about 35 miles. The water vapor, which soon dissipates, blocks ultraviolet light from Earth, producing the dark spots. The northern lights are shown by the halo.
Each comet adds 20–40 tons of water to the Earth’s atmosphere. If this influx began when evolutionists say the Earth started to evolve, all our oceans would have come from small comets. Actually, impact rates were undoubtedly greater in the past, because the planets have swept many of these comets from the solar system. Therefore, small comets would have placed much more water on Earth than is here today. Obviously, this did not happen, so oceans look young. [See also pages 303 and 312 http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Comets6.html#wp1105567
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Comets10.html#wp15495607 ]
a. Louis A. Frank with Patrick Huyghe, The Big Splash (New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1990).
Richard Monastersky, “Comet Controversy Caught on Film,” Science News, Vol. 133, 28 May 1988, p. 340.
Timothy M. Beardsley, “Ice Storm,” Scientific American, Vol. 258, June 1988, p. 24.
Jonathan Eberhart, “A Bunch of Little Comets—But Just a Little Bunch,” Science News, Vol. 132, 29 August 1987, p. 132.
Richard A. Kerr, “In Search of Elusive Little Comets,” Science, Vol. 240, 10 June 1988, pp. 1403–1404.
Richard A. Kerr, “Double Exposures Reveal Mini-Comets?” Science, Vol. 243, 13 January 1989, pp. 170–171.
Richard Monastersky, “Small Comet Controversy Flares Again,” Science News, Vol. 137, 9 June 1990, p. 365.
For the last 150 years, the age of the Earth, as assumed by evolutionists, has been doubling at roughly a rate of once every 15 years. In fact, since 1900 this age has multiplied by a factor of 100!
Actually, most dating techniques indicate that the Earth and solar system are young—possibly less than 10,000 years old.
[http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/AstroPhysicalSciences49.html ]
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Truth Frees! Evolution is evidence free speculation masquerading as science. |
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Science Disproves Evolution
