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Post by Electron on Feb 2, 2005 8:37:36 GMT -5
Prompted by a comment in another debate aout creation vs evolution I would like to start another debate about the christian statement that "god created man in his own image".
This seems to be important to people so I'd like to kick it around a little. Here's the problem I have with it:
Man's bodyplan is suited (I'm avoiding the urge to say evolved) to life on a rocky planet around 8000 miles in diameter, with a mass of around 5.9742 × 1024 kilograms. A planet that has mountains, lakes, forrests, savannah - etc. you get my drift.
Our bipedal stance is suited to all these sort of conditions in a suprisingly finely tuned way. For all species bodyplan is far from arbitrary - being strictly governed by the environment the species operates in. Our bodies certainly don't suit the zero-gravity conditions of space as space medics will confirm.
In the presence of gravity not only shape but scale is restricted - making the range of viable heights for the human form fall into a tight range as well. Cross-sectional areas of bone being the limiting factors. The nervous system is also viable over a narrow range of dimensions.
In other words god would not only look like us and be about our height, he would also walk eat and breath on a planet just like ours - a planet filled with places to walk, things to eat and air to breath - stuff known not to be around at the time. Tell me why the christian assertion isn't just plain daft?
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Post by Areopagite on Feb 2, 2005 11:18:54 GMT -5
Electron, God didn't created man in His physical image in the way you are thinking. The Bible is talking about the moral, ethical, and intellectual abilities He created us with. This is in likeness to God (as opposed to animals which do not make moral, ethical, or intellectual considerations in decisions).
God isn't limited, physcially, like we are. He's omnipresent. The only time that you could point to God being like us in the physical sense you speak of was when the Word became flesh through the incarnation. Jesus Christ, the second member of the Holy Trinity.
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Post by H-Zence on Feb 2, 2005 23:04:56 GMT -5
Areopagite, there is no way you can prove that. You can't really tell what parts of the bible to take literally, and what parts not to, so why do you choose not to take this part literally?
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Post by joelhaldeman on Feb 3, 2005 0:36:47 GMT -5
The bible is pretty clear that God is spirit and not a physical being Even apart from the bible, logically that would be limiting to the physical realm making God out to be a lot less powerful then he is
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Post by Shiggy on Feb 3, 2005 0:55:57 GMT -5
There's also the whole "breath of God" thing in Genesis - I have always interpreted that in terms of the uniquely human soul/morality/cognitive ability, whichever you want to call it.
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Post by Electron on Feb 3, 2005 4:45:13 GMT -5
I sense a 'winding-in of necks' over the centuries on this issue. It wouldn't be the first retreat following a better understanding of some physical process or other. Even if it was never meant to be taken literally, this interpretation is subject to a similar criticism:
Who says non-human animals are not moral, ethical or intellectual? Altruistic behaviour has been identified in many species. Concern for the living, respect for the dead and learning are not traits exclusive to the human species of animal.
And I'm not suprised by these findings either. This is classic hubris in action. Personally, when I look into the eyes of certain animals I see more than just a survival machine and I am not proud enough to deny them the thought that they may be just as special as me.
Once again, with the benefit of more "open mindedness" and with better information coming from "sharper analytical tools" I find the ideas and arguments of the early thinkers hard to respect.
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critr
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Post by critr on Feb 12, 2005 20:48:20 GMT -5
Hi electron,
Well I will take a different stance than most for i believe that according to scripture that we ARE made in the physical image of God both man and woman.
1.Jesus is a man and God.John 1:1
2.When made in Eden and up to the Flood it was a different enviroment which changed after the flood and Man adapted to the new enviroment,which we have today.
3.When Jesus said let us make them in our image,He was talking to Wisdom of Proverbs 8.She is a literal Person.compare Her words of Her birth with example of How Eve was made.and She says She is telling the honest truth in those verses in Proverbs 8.This of course means the marrige example is based on Jesus and Wisdom,not just Adam and Eve who are creations.
4.The scriptures say there will be a new eart and new heavens.I take that to mean that this world as it is now,including us will be changed back into The Eden type world.
His and Hers critr
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critr
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Post by critr on Feb 12, 2005 20:48:51 GMT -5
Hi electron,
Well I will take a different stance than most for i believe that according to scripture that we ARE made in the physical image of God both man and woman.
1.Jesus is a man and God.John 1:1
2.When made in Eden and up to the Flood it was a different enviroment which changed after the flood and Man adapted to the new enviroment,which we have today.
3.When Jesus said let us make them in our image,He was talking to Wisdom of Proverbs 8.She is a literal Person.compare Her words of Her birth with example of How Eve was made.and She says She is telling the honest truth in those verses in Proverbs 8.This of course means the marrige example is based on Jesus and Wisdom,not just Adam and Eve who are creations.
4.The scriptures say there will be a new eart and new heavens.I take that to mean that this world as it is now,including us will be changed back into The Eden type world.
His and Hers critr
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Post by Electron on Feb 13, 2005 6:16:04 GMT -5
When all the above quotations are taken into account, I find it difficult to accept any subsequent interpretations distancing god from man. The observations I made when starting this post have only relatively recently become a viable 'gotcha' in the light of a better understanding of biology, gravity etc. I don't normally dig out this sort of stuff - but this struck me as being a quite typical example of a 'built in defence' - James can obviously be excused from his own statement, which anticipates the arrival of unseen flaws being revealed in the scriptures.
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Jedikiller
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Post by Jedikiller on Feb 27, 2005 17:17:23 GMT -5
When God said we are of his own image, it was in the sense of 2 arms, 2 legs, 1 nose, 2 ears, etc. God is not limited with the laws of the Earth.
Think of it in this way. In the Old Testament they are all living the Law of Moses. When Christ comes and teaches he teaches of a higher law, the Law of Christ. it is the same idea. God is living a higher law, one not governed by time, or by gravity, or anything else. Christ was able to live this law at times, such as when he went 40 days with no food, and when he fed the multitudes with almost no food. there are other examples.
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Post by Electron on Feb 28, 2005 5:00:56 GMT -5
When God said we are of his own image, it was in the sense of 2 arms, 2 legs, 1 nose, 2 ears, etc. God is not limited with the laws of the Earth. So you say god has a bipedal stance? One which appeared around the time that forests on this planet turned to savannah? You don't get out of this by simply saying that god doesn't have to obey earthly laws: you are ingnoring the fact that our bodyplan is contingent on our environment - one in which we most certainly do have to obey such laws, so for us to share gods appearance would place similar contingencies upon him. I would point out that the writers of genesis lacked the technical knowledge that precludes certain possibilities - like 100 foot high giraffes for example. They could easily imagine god as having our form blissfully unaware of the consequences. The temptation to use this device to reinforce the notion that humans are special creatures, favoured as the objective of creation, was too great in the absence of better science. Areopagite denies that you should see god as having 2 eyes and one nose becasue he appreciates the hot water that this puts god in, but I wonder what James would say if we could ask him?
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Jedikiller
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Post by Jedikiller on Feb 28, 2005 14:51:05 GMT -5
I don't know if this would count, but Mormons have another set of scripture, called the Book of Mormon, which is where i get most of my reasoning.
It is just as easy to say that God does have the bipedal stance and gave it to us, and created the earth with the limitations that he did. He knew exactly what type of terrain was best for our bodies, and created if for us.
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Post by Satori on Feb 28, 2005 18:35:22 GMT -5
It is just as easy to say that God does have the bipedal stance and gave it to us, and created the earth with the limitations that he did. He knew exactly what type of terrain was best for our bodies, and created if for us. What do you believe he created the rest of the universe for then?
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Post by Satori on Feb 28, 2005 18:45:20 GMT -5
Whilst we're on this subject, what's the prevailing Christian view about life on other planets?
Is it viable in Christianity? If so, could we expect them to have their own 'Bible'?
I know the Bible claims that we're 'unique', but does that just mean that we're the only ones that actually exist or does it mean that life might exist on other planets, but won't have a special place in God's eyes?
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Jedikiller
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Post by Jedikiller on Feb 28, 2005 21:12:55 GMT -5
Well, in Mormonism we "know" that life exists on other planets than our own, and that God is their God as well. I personally think that this also means that they have their own Bible, but I'm not so sure.
All I do know is that we are the worst world of them all. We are the evilest, and we are also the most rightous (if that makes ANY sense) which is why God sent his only begotten to THIS world, and why he flooded THIS world.
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