Sounds like a stupid question right? I thought so too. I’m not the one that came up with it. A friend of mine, who is very religious, and very conservative, seriously asked me that one day. I can’t remember exatcly what we were doing, but it was in English class and there was some assignment to come up with some question you’ve always wondered about. This was not his question to the class, he was at least smart enough not to ask this out loud to the entire class.
Anyway, his reasoning was that “Adam and Eve were both white, so where did Black people come from?” Being an evolutionist, I personally thought this was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. So, I was wondering for people that believe that Adam and Eve were real and the first people ever, where do you think black people came from? What is the reasoning in religion for different races?
Perhaps the better question to your friend would be something along the lines of, “What exactly makes you think that Adam and Eve were white?”
Just a thought. I mean, for all I know, the guy thinks that Jesus looks like some blonde guy with a beard… which, my minister informs me, isn’t very likely.
Assuming you’re asking along biblical lines, the understanding I have is that when Noah’s sons left to repopulate the earth, some moved to africa, where they got the dark skin, et al.
I’m sure someone will correct me on this, but IIRC evolutionary skin color(which is basically natural melanin content) has to with protection from UV to avoid skin cancer vs Ability to absorb UV to create Vitamin D.
Wwll, according to the Bible, each of Noah’s sons went on to found one of the racesm or “Great Peoples”. Shem went on to father the Semetic race (including, but not limited to, the Israelites), while Kush was the progeneator of the dark-skinned African nations. As for the other sons, we’re not quite sure who they were supposed to father (although I believe that the descendents of Ham are mentioned somewhere) but they probably covered all the types of people known to the ancient Hebrews.
IIRC, some biologist a few years back had a theory that white skin was an evolutionary mistake! I don’t remeber what evidence he had, but anecdotally, white skin doesn’t seem to be a very good idea (sunburns, etc.)…
So maybe the question should be “Why are there white people?”
I agree completely with Astroboy14 and andygirl here. Just one thing to add.
If your friend only believes in the bible, and not science or evolution, I have three words for you: Tower of Babel.
The Tower of Babel was when the world got together to create a tower so high, it would reach Heaven and God above. But the people creating it were wicked. They cared more about a brick falling than a person falling. So God punished them. He made them all speak different languages and become different races. He made it impossible for them to communicate effectively. The project was abandoned, but the world now had different races.
Lighter skin enables you to better synthesize vitamin D from UV light. When the first europeans moved north and sunlight got weaker it became beneficial to offset reduced protection from skin damage against chance of getting rickets.
I don’t know who you’re hanging out with, but I have yet to meet another human being whose skin wasn’t some shade of brown. People have different color eyes and different color hair, but all skin is brown. Maybe lighter brown and maybe darker brown and maybe mixed with another tint, but all people are brown.
The whole idea of different color skin is ridiculous and makes me crazy.
In the Crichton’s novel Congo, he states that life begins in the diverse, highly competitive, and deadly rain forest jungle, and when life reaches a certain evolutionary stage it leaves the jungle for more “hopsitable” climes.
From this point of view, sub-saharan cultures pre-date the Euro cultures, where skin change occurred akin to what ticker is referring.
This is one of the funniest threads I’ve seen on SDMB; I’m sorry, but I can’t help it. My God, why assume that Adam and Eve were WHITE!?!? Talk about the need to remove cultural or religious blinkers or to think above and beyond your ideological box. I am not above this habit myself from time to time, but I try hard to avoid it and appreciate when I am told that I am doing it. Hopefully the true value of this particular thread is to help remind people to question their beliefs.
And Ham is the one who “uncovered his father’s nakedness” when the guy was passd out drunk, and so was cursed by noah to be “a servant of servant unto his bretheren”. So later it was claimed that black people were the decendents of Ham, and therefore MEANT to be the slaves of the other races. Althought the bible just says his decendents were the Caananites.
Dignan, I wouldn’t mention that story to your friend, given the danger he might believe it.
Better to ask him the andygirl question: Why the hell does he assume they were white?
Black skin color and body styles are an evolutionary result of living in a hot, high UV, often arid climate. The skin color prevents damage by UV waves. The fat deposits on the buttocks store additional water and nutrient supplies. The broad nose provides more protection by filtering and humidifying the air. The larger lip surface encourages the radiation of excess heat to cool the body.
White skin color and body styles come from colder climates. The predominate tendency to store fat around the stomach is for insulation of the vital organs as well as food storage in the shape of fat. The skin is designed to absorb more sunlight in climates where the body is not only covered most of the time but the weather is often cloudy or days very short. The lips are thin to prevent heat loss. The nose is narrow and ‘taller’ not only to prevent heat loss but to warm and humidify the air.
The tight, curly hair of black people is designed to provide insulation for the brain as well as protection and allow heat to radiate more freely.
The looser hair of white people is designed to provide insulation for the brain to prevent heat loss, which is why it tends to lay flatter.
Both body styles are the results of ancestral climates and environments.
It is suggested that the often noticed rapid motions of whites are the result of the need to generate body heat in colder climates.
The often noticed slower motions of blacks are suggested to be from the necessity to not generate extra body heat in the long periods of intense sunlight during the day. (A more common example is the Siesta taken by many Hispanics traditionally, to avoid the intense noon heat in arid climates.)
Both body styles are marvels of adaptation, with neither being superior to the other.
From what most religious scholars of the Christian and Jewish sects say and from what many scientists agree on, Christ was born in the Middle East and the Garden of Eden was probably somewhere on the African continent. It is probably logical to assume that Adam and Eve were the body types of the Egyptians/Israelites.
If you take a fundamentalist view then Adam & Eve then they were the ancestors of all races so I would not think it safe to assume the racial characteristics of them based on location.
If you take a scientific view then the Garden of Eden did not exist so our first ancestors probably came from Ethiopia so would probably have been more like modern sub-saharan Africans.
In the documentary “Blood in the Face”, which is about American white supremacist groups, one man says that according to the Bible Adam showed blood in the face. He interpreted this to mean that when Adam blushed you could see it, therefore Adam must have had light skin, therefore Adam and Eve were both white, therefore God intended for people to be white. I think all of us here can spot the many flaws in this reasoning even if the Bible verse as quoted is accurate (I don’t know if it is or not), but that’s what some people believe.
