This has bothered me since I was a child in Bible School. What do you all think???

1:026 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over
all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth.

Who is OUR? And for those who are curious about Ghosts (Spirits...one and the same as ghosts)....

1:002 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was
upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters.

If one was being particulalry picky about it you could mention that *God* forgot to mention the cosmos in all this. My point being that it really does show that it was written by man, man that at the time had little or no comprehension of the southern hemisphere of the Earth let alone the concept of Nebuale, Galaxies etc .

The fact is the earth is nowhere as near as old as the rest of the universe, ergo, what is the void?? Space?? but it isnt a void at all lashings of *Dark matter* for onething.

Now fine, we can all start wandering into the field of semantics. However, the moment we do that we are actually throwing away the idea that it is the *infallible* word of a deity and actually no more than an allegory.

Like i say, while we were happy to think of *space* being exactly that, empty, the word void was pretty unassailable as being a cypher for the cosmos. Now that we know the void is actually anything but a void ,it throws up any number of philosophical traps for the unwary.

My own personal take on it is this. That tract is the first time mankind said... we are not part of nature but something outsie of it, and that being so, we have the right to exploit this worlds resources for our own gain/amusement and all that is of this Earth is ours to use as we see fot and to back this up we are going to invent a new sort of deity that granted us this right.

Remember , at the time w this would be wholly revolutionary as a point of view. Beforehand , as far as we know, all *belief systems* wer esomehow based on mankind being part of the *machine* , ie the Gaia principle, not seperate from it. To me all this is is an early example of Mankind philosophically removing himself from nature and setting themselves up as *Gods*. Then in order to back this feeling up inventing an outside impeachable *force* to give the idea creedence.

On the other hand, if we take those words literally at face value ,one can't help looking at it and surmising that we are the spawn of some cosmos travelling race/machine that goes round seeding sentient life wherever conditions are right. Sentient life, that in its early stages of development is unable to intellectually grasp the concept of just how big the universe is, and seeking *spititual solace* decides to relate its foundations to some mythical *Godlike* figure. Having done this, it then gives mankind the inate right to go round acting like we are on some mission from a higher authority and generally making a mess of the world.

In conclusion, what i read into that verse is this... We mankind, are top of the tree, the canine's testicles, this earth is ours to exploit and, furthermore, we are more important than any other constituent part of it. However, because we are not totally sure of this, and there is this sort of nagging doubt says it's not quite that simple, we are going to create a deity who looks like us, thinks like us, and gives us justification for this train of thought..

well if u were a god would u have everything explained for your creations? That would be way too boring for us to know right off the bat. In order to understand God...u must put his sandles on and walk around a bit. If i were god I wouldn't have explained much of anything I would leave that up to my creations to figure these things out for themselves.

the bible does speak of the cosmos.

"God created" and its speaks of the universe right off the bat.

See, we are back to semantics... if he made us in his image... that means we also have the inate ability to comprehend exactly what god does...

Maybe God is the contractor, and he had his elves workers help him build. Who knows, some say the trinity. BTW, cool avatar fire moon, maybe we're related.

Doesn't it have something to do with Psalm 82 and John 10? That "E" word... Elohm or something like that... Elohim? I forget.

not comprehend...u must understand that when GOD said (dont know if he said this or not but what the bible states) he made us in his "image" this doesn't mean that we look exactly like him. We all have similar features like a head, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, arms and legs. Now god hec ould have the same, but look 100% different in a physical form. God wouldn't allow us to have his power in a physical form...this is why u always start building your pyramid from the bottom and not the top. U must first live in physical form to achieve a spiritual form. this is what i feel and or believe. SOmething had to create us and it was a GOD aka Supreme Being.

The "our" is referring to God Himself and to His angels. That is pretty much a given.

In the Holy Trinity.....God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.......the "Spirit" is not referring to a ghost. It is not that type of spirit, because of course, God has never died. When the Bible speaks of God as the Holy Spirit it is referring to God's ability to be everywhere at once. When it speaks of God's spirit moving upon the face of the waters, it is simply speaking of God's presence there at that time.

^ What I first thought, Father The Son, The Holy Spirit.

Did a higher being create God in his/her image? Just wondering where god came from

By the very definition of "God" (in a Judeo-Christian sense) God is omnipotent, all knowing, all being. God is the essense of *being* (ie, nothing created God, God has always existed). I know it's a difficult concept, like eternity, or nothing, or an endless (or ending) Universe...will drive you crazy if you ponder too long!

There is more than one God.

My understanding is from Baptist bible school. God made man in his image meaning with many of His own abilities, examples.
1. The ability to either create or destroy.
2. The ability to pro-create or take a life.
3. The ability for un-conditional love. "Agape" you may want to research this unique Greek word it does not translate well into English.
Not only did God create us in His spiritual image He created Himself in our image though Jesus. Now that’s a compliment to us as humans and explains by action that He truly is Agape.
Irish

hmm...im really not beliving this bible stuff anymore. I feel the universe is just a dream creaed from a god...which there are more than one god. There was some island where these people believed that we wer ecreated by gods dreams.

^ Confusing. Are you saying you belive in God's dreams but not God?

It makes it easier for christians (or whatever denomination you want to pick off the list) to claim there is a "trinity" that it is 1 god 2 jesus 3 the holy spirit.

many people can also gather from this that we were genetically engeneered by aliens. the term used in its origional language from the bible "ate" also can be used as "to have sex with" endulging in, whatever.

Or it can also lead one to conclude that we were all already existing the time god created this world and that was us with god, as god, or as part of god. example, the bible tells us that god knew each of us before we were born. interpret it however you like. Because thats what most of the bible is, a matter of interpretation.

My Opinion and Thoughts: Right or Wrong, here it is.

Archaeological discoveries and investigation into the Earths past and it's inhabitants holds all the trueth and clues to Who We Are ...
The proof is in the Earth its self, folks. Dinosaurs were here before humans as science has thus far proved. That is factual based on real disovery.
So far there is no evidence showing Man, as we know man to be, walking the Earth 65+million years ago. Stands to reason if archaologists can find dinosaur bones fossilised, then why not human bones in the same or similar deposits? Even in latest periods of Dino history there has been very little evidence to suggest that Human form As We Know It walked the Earth. Discoveries continue to show glimpses into our hazy past, but as for now, the therory of Evolution stands strong.
This Ethiopian discovery takes humans about 4.5 million years back into Human history.

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/1822.html

Therefore, based on tangiable evidence that can be held in the human hand and seen with the human eye, if man evolved from apes, then apes evolved from dinosaur. That would have to mean that God created Dinosaurs in His Image then waited millions of years, wiped out the dinosaurs and created man and woman as suggested.
I am a strong believer in Evolution based on evidence. Perhaps a Big Bang, perhaps a whisper, but everything evolves eventualy, science has shown that. ie: bird like dinosaurs discovered in China.

http://www.amonline.net.au/chinese_dinosau...saurs/index.htm

I feel that we are Not a Creation of God, God is a creation Humans. "Was God an Astronaut?" as asked and suggested in Chariots of the Gods : Was God An Astronaut? By Erich Von Daniken, M. Heron (Translator) If So: Then Earth may have been his greatest discovery.

I'm saying that i've created my own beliefs. The word GOD doesn't actually just mean christians God it can be any religions GOD. I'm stating that GOD to me means a supreme Being or Beings that are way smarter then we could ever dream of being.

NO. God was not an astronaut lol... if you spent any time in the akashic records you wouldn't need to ask any of these questions.. long story short for whoever created this thread. god began to make each of us in his image or a likeness to it. Now he had realised that equally and all together as One being knowing that all of us as 1 Look like god or the god.. apart we are frail and unknowing for the most part. we each have our flaws but together don't make mistakes we are perfect, Only together. God gave us many abilities for reasons maybe beyond our reasoning? Or could it be that maybe there is something we have to do here on earth besides sit around watching television.. Hmm read revelations and the end of days and maybe you'll understand why were' here. I know why but I wont say it because you need to figure it out.

Sorry, I don't buy into it. I'm not saying I don't believe in a higher being, I just don't believe in Every Word the Bible says, only the facts that can be proven beyond a doubt with tangiable evidence to back it up.
Dinosaurs were here before man, that has been proven using science. If God created the Heavens and the Earth, then God created Dinosaurs First.

of course he did...but see there is this one thing that a very smart man once said "For if there is life, then there must be a purpose for Life."

Makes perfect sense that we were put here for a purpose...everything has a purpose we are just too stupid to figure out our own purpose for life.

Simply because human bones are not as dense as dinosaur bones, and most human bones tend to break down and decompose rather than become fossilized. That is why fossilized human bones are such a rare find and so much is made of them when they are found.
I'm not saying humans did occupy the earth at the same time as the dinosaurs, but if they did we may never really know, since the evidence has long been reclaimed by the earth.

i wondered about this myself."we"refers to the father,son and holy spirit.

Maybe humans don't need to know everything. How's that. go on about your lives, live and let live, and leave it alone, your not God, your not a god, and you will never understand the divine until your dead. 95% of the worlds population believes in a divine being. The other 5% believes the other 95% is suffering from mass delusions.

Cut and dry, you nor I need to know what created God, if he were created, or what he is.

The way I look at it, everything that we know as matter is matter....Life is a sheet of paper

every sheet of paper has 2 sides, living and the spiritual. Top side we live and die, etc. bottom side, is the spiritual world. our subcontious (soul) somehow passes over into this world, via worm hole, or something, which is where there is another body waiting. You are then judged by God. you goto heaven or you goto hell.

Heaven and Hell aren't physical tangible things in OUR world.

Also, I believe God has a way of tapping into our world that the created.

Same way psychics, or parapsychologists tap into other worlds/realms.

I believe in the Holy Bible, i'm a christian, no i'm not part of a denomination. I believe what I believe and i interpret what the bible says differently that others.

I always find it funny when atheist's stick their noses in religous peoples beliefs and call them crazy because they want a feleing of belonging or greater purpose. I sometimes think most (not all) atheist's are sad, overly overdramatic people who probably have no sense of belonging or greater purpose in the world except to live and die, and i think they have no concept on the fact that they are living in a world that was built around God, everything to the date of the year, A.D. B.C. to the middle east, why we goto war...etc...

like today technically is Friday May 19th, 2006 A.D.

AD stands for Anno Domini or Year of our Lord referring to the year of Christ’s birth. BC stands for Before Christ.

BC: before the Christian era; used following dates before the supposed year Christ was born; "in 200 BC"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&saf...nition&ct=title

Adverb

* S: (adv) BC, B.C., before Christ (before the Christian era; used following dates before the supposed year Christ was born) "in 200 BC"


What's wrong with believing in a better place after we die? We all look at death as a bad thing, and in some cases it is, but I would rather believe in a magical make believe place and a man who is supreme being that loves me with all of his heart, than believe that oh i just live and die.

Some things in this world are just to beautiful and amazing for there not to be a God.

Life is too complexed...Some will say its not and then point over to some science website. I dont care about science. Science has tried to prove religion wrong for 1000's of years and has yet to prove it. Until there is 100% proven without a shadow of a doubt facts shown there is no god, then I believe everyone should look at the world and religion with an open mind, and ask yourselves...

is it possible?



http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/science.shtml

a link for science that supports the Bible

o.O

I don't think that would be right. We still get remains from quite small dinosaurs

Compsognathus was from 28 inches-4.6 feet long (0.7-1.4 m), about 6.5 pounds (3 kg) and was about the size of a chicken. Its femur (thigh bone) was only 4. 3 inches (11 cm) long.
Compsognathus lived in the late Jurassic period, about 155 to 145 million years ago.

Not to mention Microraptor (16 inches), Saltopus (60 cm 200 million years), Lesothosaurus (1 meter 200 million years), Wannanosaurus (1 meter 73-83 million years).

The size of the bone really has nothing to do with its density.

In astrology.. we have 12 sign divided to four basic.. Water(fish of the sea) Air(fowl of the air) Earth(over all the earth) and Fire.. But now they consider Space too..

And all human body have these five senses in their own body.. If we succeed in a sixth sense.. we may lead all this five sense... may be they are talking about this... no idea!

No offense to anyone who has posted to this topic, but shouldn't this type of thread be in a Bible forum and not the Extraterrestrial Life & The UFO Phenomenon forum?

Think there's a line of thought that aliens were our creators and "God" and "Gods". In that light I dunno which forum would be best!

Edit: Nordics breeding with local apes? Dunno if I've heard that one. Nordics talking to themselves? Isn't the whole Stitchen thing based on something like that? Genetically altered.

there are a couple different views on why it is that moses chose to use the singular/plural in unison when describing "god". one is that he did it to indoctrine peoples that, in that particular time, believed multiple gods existed. it is a way of saying, all the gods are one god. all phenomena is of one source.

there is also the possibility that moses got this information from an earlier source and reformatted it to his particular view for the jewish population that was in dire need of laws and guidance. moses was being trained as the grand architect of egypt so he was a very educated individual, with access to alot of knowledge (much of which was lost at the library of alexandria, way to go early christians ).

of course, perhaps its even deeper than these possibilities, and there is something to learn from the concept of (us/we/them/I) being one and the same, from a philosophical perspective of course.

the problem with the holy trinity notion in my mind is why is jesus's name ommitted from moses's version of events....one would think that would have been included.......

and of course, if higher technologically beings exist and have come to this world, perhaps some of this is written of that. but when it comes to religion.....its a dangerous game to look for historical certainty in facts. yes, there are historical facts within it, however, they are often sandwiched between occurences that some can only believe due to faith. i dont have the faith that what is written is of actual real events, therefore i must say i doubt moses is refering to aliens, or even to some form of real knowledge of the universe's actual beginnings.

but good point. i dont know.

There are fossils of mammals which probably have the same bone density as humans, so why not humans.

Jesus is called the "Firstborn of God's creation" in the Bible. He would have been given life long before anything else. So thats what could have been meant by making man in "our" image
.
.
I would conclude that Jesus and Jehovah/Yaweh are the "our" in that passage in Genesis

I didn't say there weren't any. I said fossilized human bones are rare........fossilized mammal bones are also far more rare than dinosaur bones. Mammal bones, including human, need certain ideal conditions to become fossilized before they actually break down......which is why they are more rare.

1. Define "greater purpose" in life. That can pretty much be anything someone wants it to be. Maybe an atheist's greater purpose in life is to learn and understand everything around him instead of being told that an in-animate object put him here and that he will go to "hell" if he messes up (even though "God" created him and therefore anything he does would be blood on "God's" hands).

2. Atheists, "overdramatic"? The Christian religion might be the single most dramatic thing to grace this earth. Blood here, dying/killing there, sadness here, going to the top of a mountain and talking to a bush there (get my point?).

3. Give an example of something that is "too beautiful and amazing for there not to be a god". If you're talking about things in nature, like say mountains, then you're mistaken. My friend Bill died at the age of 17 yesterday, his mom committed suicide by sitting in her running car in their garage until she died, the fumes got to his room and killed him in his sleep. That sure was beautiful. But I'm sure your reply to that will be "THE DEVIL DID IT!".

4. You lost mucho credibility by saying "I don't care about science" and then providing a link to a website that manipulates words in the Bible to coincide with modern day science haha. The Bible is SOOOO scientific that in Genesis 1, the light was created on the first day, the plants on the third, and finally the sun and moon were created on the fourth day. I can pick all kinds of science out of that!

A quote from a dude named Mike: "The burden of proof is on the person claiming that something does exist".

Well after reading through most of the posts on this thread , i still belive in Darwin's Theory Of Evolution over some book of fairy tales

And yes, true, "the size of the bone really has nothing to do with its density". still I would have thought that such lighweights would surely be comparable?
Archaeopteryx had feathered limbs suggesting a porous skeleton.
Small mammals also existed alongside dinosaurs which I would also would have thought to be comparable.
I don't think man and Dinosaur could have shared the earth, enough evidence exists to prove otherwise. My way of thinking is that some fossils should survive, if they did walk the earth together. I also thought human fossils were not all that rare to find, but very fragile, as would be any fossil.

We also have a reasonable record of humans development begining about 3.5 million years ago but the last dino died about 65 million years ago. Big gap.



There are many types of bone in the human body all of different construction, one would think that different bones might fossilise better.



Funnily enough I still put a great deal of stock in that book of fairytales.

Like that "Book of fairytales" Evolution is not a perfect story either.

How does evolution add information to a genome to create progressively more complicated organisms?

How is evolution able to bring about drastic changes so quickly?

How could the first living cell arise spontaneously to get evolution started?