Monstrous
Apocalypse Soon => Religions, Cults & Sects => Topic started by: Ravening on January 06, 2011, 11:57:49 PM
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Are we literally created in God's image?
What would that mean, for that to be 'literal'?
See, I think literally, we are created in God's image. I've always felt that way. However, "our image" is far more than the quarks whizzing around in the general vicinity of our bodies. When we get to what the image really looks like, we can see that we literally were created in God's image. It's just like a self-similar fractal or a set of blueprints. One could say that God is the blueprints and the physical universe is the edifice.
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This self-centered pseudo-religious quackery belong in Religions, Cults, & Sects. Try posting in the correct area, Ravening. There's more to this site than just the two boards you seem to frequent.
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Thanks for the tip.
Now..do you have anything to contribute?
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You're welcome.
Nah, you'd just turn it into a Math problem, which is a problem in itself.
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Nah
I thought so.
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Image is subjective to the one looking.
We obviously have similarities to each other, but what is the one thing that we all have in common?
*answers after someone figures it out*
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Well existence for one thing.
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Lady featherclaw, I'm sure despite the christian overtones of this discussion you can surely contribute something worthwhile without outright bashing the subject matter.
He never does state that the Abrahamanic religious were the only ones relevant. Just that the teachings shared this in common and that it might be interesting to search for what they meant when they said that
MAN IS MADE IN GOD'S IMAGE!
Besides. When seen from a different context, we are all spirits anyway, and the ancient Greeks believed that the consciousness resided within the soul thus, we are like the original in that we are spirits. Souls inside shells, waiting to mature.
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God made man in his own image.
This is simply man being egotistical once again. The real question is "Does God even have an image we mortals would be able to recognize/comprehend". Let's look at it this way, has anyone ever seen the physical presence of God? Even when you are before Gods throne are you able to see God? This being said how can we make the statement that we are Gods image and have that statement be correct?
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I don't take it literally, in the usual sense of the word.
But it's not ego or vanity or arrogance if it is true.
If we are made in God's image, then that would lend itself to a form of polytheism.
Or one could say that GOD is the collective of everything that is a god.
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And what if the idea that god was so inebriated that he decided to make us in his image were true? That's a cruel joke to play on anyone, man. Whiiiiich is probably why I find it so amusing.
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Cruel jokes are amusing, aren't they?
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Cruel jokes are amusing, aren't they?
Yeah. Too bad you aren't.
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Too bad I don't amuse you?
Well, I'm afraid that that is fine with me.
Got anything to add to this discussion or are you just going to continue trolling with spam?
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Let me try another question. Why has no man ever seen the true image of God? Why come in the form of a burning bush or a disembodied voice?
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Well, I am coming from a pantheistic perspective: God is a synonym for that which I call reality. Given that hypothesis, God's image is literally everywhere. I doubt the ultimate can be perceived as one particular image but a barrage of images that one slowly comprehends. Or at least, slow for me. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, many images flash like I'm dreaming but I'm wide awake; simply closing my eyes. Added to that, I have had signs of its presence, other than every waking moment. Akin to burning bushes. It didn't exactly convince me that there is a "God" but, instead, that what I perceive, all of it, is just smoke and mirrors. Props on a stage and, in a sense, it didn't feel genuine.
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So then God is everything? This is what you are wishing to state? I tend to want to know specifics.
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There's a slight difference between "God is everything" and what I personally believe.
A defining trait of God is that, whatever it is, it is all-encompassing. (this is a wild divergence from defining God to be a creator)
Reality as I define it is the totality of all that exists (whatever existence means). This totality is all-encompassing in the sense that the forest encompasses all trees in the forest.
That which is all-encompassing is in a sense ultimate.
If two things are ultimate, they are identical or at least congruent. In other words, there can be only one ultimate.
From this I conclude that if there is a God, then it is reality: the totality of all that exists. Or at least it is congruent to reality.
I attribute no human traits to God, nor even necessarily any of the "big O's". I don't anthropomorphize God.
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I found your favorite disturbing video Ravening <:smurf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAtwAWwRZ7U (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAtwAWwRZ7U)
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It is good that you do not allow yourself to fall onto the same fallacies that most individuals do. I too agree that God posses no human traits. But again I ask a question.
You say that God is akin to reality. If this is so, then could we not conclude that Reality, like God, is self aware? After all in order to make decision and to take action on said decisions one must be self aware to do so.
And no machines are not self aware because they act independently once activated. They must be programmed then activated. And no we cannot say "Well that is what we do with children, because unlike children, machine will only continue to do what is programmed not matter what happens. They do not (at least currently) run into problems and then choose not to do something (unless already programmed to do so). Machine are dependent upon what we program them to do, children posses the ability of self thought/awareness. I have added this small blup to forgo those who wish to say "But what about Machines?"
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I found your favorite disturbing video Ravening <:smurf
Yay! Been looking for that for a while. Where it used to be it isn't any longer. Now with the powers of keepvid.com I will never lose it again!
It is good that you do not allow yourself to fall onto the same fallacies that most individuals do. I too agree that God posses no human traits. But again I ask a question.
You say that God is akin to reality. If this is so, then could we not conclude that Reality, like God, is self aware? After all in order to make decision and to take action on said decisions one must be self aware to do so.
And no machines are not self aware because they act independently once activated. They must be programmed then activated. And no we cannot say "Well that is what we do with children, because unlike children, machine will only continue to do what is programmed not matter what happens. They do not (at least currently) run into problems and then choose not to do something (unless already programmed to do so). Machine are dependent upon what we program them to do, children posses the ability of self thought/awareness. I have added this small blup to forgo those who wish to say "But what about Machines?"
That's the million-dollar question, isn't it? I believe it is plausible that reality is self-aware, if not a foregone conclusion. It seems pointless to try to prove it here, for a couple of reasons...one being I haven't got a proof that I like yet. 0:)
Would you say that an if/then routine is a sort of decision-making process? And what about the theoretical A.I.? Is it just not possible? I would think Reality is akin to A.I. though by that I don't mean a human creation but incredibly sophisticated software and hardware. With DNA I think it could be said that the hardware is the software, in a sense. The same is true of reality, I suspect.
This might be a really dumb question but is "This is a sentence" a self-aware statement?
There is a lot of material out there on theoretical machines likened to human-style consciousness that I'm just grasping the surface of. Here's an interesting diversion:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060117081628/http://cs.wwc.edu/~aabyan/Colloquia/Aware/index.html (http://web.archive.org/web/20060117081628/http://cs.wwc.edu/~aabyan/Colloquia/Aware/index.html)
(You might have to click on the Awareness link on the left pane)
Some conclusions:
If an agent of type 4 ever believes that it cannot be inconsistent, it will become inconsistent.
An agent of type 4 knows that it is normal, knows that it is regular, and knows that it is of type 4.
The article also speaks of "logical omniscience," in its own way. Of course, it just gives a definition, which one might reject outright.
So if we could somehow massage our perception so that reality is a type 4 agent, then it will know it is a type 4 agent and thus provide evidence of self-awareness. Converting reality to a description of reality which is in some sense isomorphic to reality (ie, a complete description of reality), is something I've been thinking about (there's a separate thread on this somewhere). Once this conversion is done, it is conceivable to address the issue of reality being an agent at all (my guess is not, but an interesting idea, and I could be wrong of course).
I think that material can be found in the works of someone named Smullyan but I haven't consulted original sources.
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When machines exhibit the property of recursive self improvement then they could be said to be "alive"... :-o
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They're already more alive than you. :evil:
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All I have to say is that God is created in Man's own image. (Man being the human race, so noone take it the wrong way)
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Wasn't it the other way around? Man creating a god in his image and giving him human values in order to have an acceptable familiar way of perceiving the universe around him when he had no decent explanation for various natural phenomena that scared him?
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Wasn't it the other way around? Man creating a god in his image and giving him human values in order to have an acceptable familiar way of perceiving the universe around him when he had no decent explanation for various natural phenomena that scared him?
Raz if I had a door prize you would have won it.
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I miss moloch. he'd tell me i was stupid or something while i attempt to disprove him. Win or lose we'd both walk away with smiles.. Where's he hang out these days?
ITS NOT THE SAME!!!! !!!
Raz if I had a door prize you would have won it.
Thanks! But i'd much rather visit you people so I can take pictures. Prospects look good next year. Maybe then.
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Pretty neat trick, creating an omnipresent being. *<:)
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Didnt Raz just say what I had pretty much said? What ever then, point is yes, very much agree with that point of view.
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I saw it. Raz dose that. Tricky little farker. I miss Mo to, ...... I was almost gona say somethin funny but lost my motivation...
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It doesn't say in any scripture until the medieval period that we are literally made in Gods image. The bible says we are made in Gods image but what part. Want to see the Rabbinical debates throughout time? Read the Midrash and Talmud. It is interesting.
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Why would they add that? To elevate man?
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I don't think they really were doing that, I think it was more that humans feel that they have the deepest connection and relationship with God, so I guess you would want to look like God and be like God because it is your parent and is the ultimate 'perfection'. More deeply, humans want the deep relationship with God but are limited by the physical realm. It is hard to think of God without giving God some sort of way to understand it (meaning giving God physical features so we can develop a relationship). Kind of think of it as you have a parent but have never seen them, they have never talked to you, and you have to have a relationship with them. It is hard so we make up ways of what the parent looks like to help guide us. It takes anxiety off.
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Are we literally made in the image of God?
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thats the question, it says we were made in the image of God but what part? Some Jewish stories also said that this was the "light of God" and that it was taken from us when Adam and Eve left the garden, but it can also be metaphorically.
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Light can be symbolic of truth. But as often as not, humans are not truthful.
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This is just my opinion and it could be way off. I think what it meens is our ability to feal emotion. People say we cant understand god because we dont know how he thinks....what if we do to a certain extent? If were going by god in the bible, and we are for the purpose of this thread, he can feal things like love, anger, ect.
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A good theory, but I find it hard to swallow. If we think on it GOD is so many steps above us there is no possible way for us, as mere humans, to assume to know what GOD thinks. I know we give GOD the title of "HE" (or in some cases a "SHE"), but we are talking about a being that has the possiblity of never having a physical form. After all GOD existed before everything else, so if GOD did have a physical form, where would have GOD Lived?
The bible makes reference that we were created in "HIS" image, but that’s coming from the bible, a text that is really nothing more than borrowed stories rewritten to better suit a Christian mind set. No I am not purposefully bashing Christianity again, if I were going to go there I would say "A priest, a rabbi, and a Father walk into a bar..... What I am saying is that some things are written to give explanation to those who wish to do as little thinking as possible. They ask questions and a person in authority gives them an answer that sounds sufficiently mysterious and yet at the same time plausible. It makes them feel better.