T. E. Lords

By passing the contradictions that seem to arise (at least for me) between an omniscient creator and free will I want to address the idea of man being created in god's image and what that indicates to me about human nature.

Now assuming that we are indeed created in God's image and ignoring for now the more juvenile questions such as does god have genitalia what does that say about Human Nature as it pertains to our mental characteristics. If God truly created us in his image then we have to assume, aside from our "sinful" nature, that we maintain many of the qualities that our creator endowed upon us and that they are a reflection on his character.

The qualities I wish to focus on here are man's seeming necessity to create, to discover, and to understand the world around him through reason and logic. So, it seems to me that not only would god understand the human need to make sense of things (being that he too would have similar qualities if we are in fact a reflection on him,) But he would expect and encourage us to seek truth and to prove what we believe to be true through logic.

The contradiction comes into play if we are to believe, like many of the theists on this board seem to, that evidence for god essentially nullifies the virtue of believing in him. Another contradiction can be seen in the relationship between disbelief and eternal damnation. Would a caring merciful god who truly understands us and even shares in our inquisitive nature condemn us for simply acting out the nature he instilled in us?

If I die and it turns out there is a heaven and I have to stand before god and be judge and he asks me why I didn’t believe I will proudly say, “Because the evidence against your existence out weighed the evidence for. I simply used the capacity for logic that you gave me.”

Big Spoon

In the light of evidence that religious people have more or less activity in certain areas of the brain, I would cite the defective temporal lobe God gave me as the reason why I don't believe!

braces_for_impact

I think this is an interesting topic. What exactly does it mean that we are 'created in god's image'? I agree that in supposing this to be true (for the moment) how are we to decide which traits of humanity are those that come from god, and which are our own?

If we are created in god's image, then would it be proper to assume that all of man's traits, both for good and ill are directly divined from being created by this god?

To simply attribute all the positive characteristics to god and all the negative ones to man is begging the question. The fall does not seem to me to be an adequate explanation for this, as some "negative" feelings can be used for great good and good intentions can go awry and cause great harm.

Any other points of view on this?

BioBeing

The God of the bible apparently has many of the character flaws associated with humans:

• Pride (worship me because I say so)
• Envy (do not worship any false idols)
• Greed (give me the best of what you have, from Cain and Able)
• Sloth (if he able to anything about the suffering down here, he doesn't)
• Anger (causing horrible retribution for any who transgress his will)
• Lust (can't think of one for here right now)
• Gluttony (hmmm - anyone?)

So I'd say we were a fairly well made in his image, yes.

Shadowy Man

Family Man

Lust and gluttony, unlike the Greek gods, do not seem to be among the vices of the Biblical god. He more than makes up for it in the other areas.

Darkblade

• Lust (raping the virgin mary)
• Gluttony (cooking billions in hell until they were esculent to him; after all, how do you think he became omnipresent?)

Keith Russell

Big Spoon, why assume that non-religious people received the defective brains?

Why not assume that the defects produce religious feelings?

Keith.