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For at least 100,000 years, perhaps 250,000, we humans have looked into the night sky and wondered what it meant.

We wondered if the stars were distant campfires of other people. We wondered if they were lights in the Bowl of the Sky for our enlightenment. We wondered if there were messages there for us to decode.

We saw the moon wax and wane, and wondered what effect it had on our daily lives. The women went into menstruation on the full moon, surely the celestial bodies influenced our lives.

We invented stories about the constellations. We knew enough to see their progressions, and the retrogressions of the planets.

But only recently, in the last 15,000 years or so, did we keep records of the astronomical phenomena, and applied this knowledge to our benefit.

We plant when the days become longer, toward that day when the day and night are equal in length. We harvest and store food when the days become shorter toward and beyond that time when the day shortens to the length of the night. We had an intuitive idea of the calendar before the Egyptians and MesoAmericans invented it.

But now we know so much more. In the lifetimes of many people on this forum, we have discovered the Big Bang, the stages of the stars and galaxies, the size and status of our galaxy, and other galaxies.

We have peered into Deep Space and discovered the age and nature and size of the Universe. In only the last hundred years or so, we have been removed from the center of a small and homocentric Creation to a part of much larger, far more glorious Universe.

What hubris exists among us to think that a god capable of creating the Universe we know now actually cares one whit about us, much less sent himself/his son to die a gruesome death for some vague and difficult benefit to us.

The days of religion are fading. It will go the way of aristocracy and feudalism. Slowly, violently, but it must fade. Religion cannot stand to reason, and we are ramping up reason exponentially.

A new, brighter day is upon us. The world into which we were born is not the world in which we live, and the world of even the near future is a glorious and wonderful world of knowledge and exploration.

We are lucky to be alive now, and future historians will confirm that we saw the Awakening to our place in the Universe. What a shame it would be to waste it by clinging to ancient superstition.


DF
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May God Bless America and the universe.

We don't know that God only sent salvation to one world. The passage is "God created the Heavens and the Earth". There may be 1000s of worlds that each have their own Bible, their own God, their own culture. The Earth is one tiny part of an inconceivable expanse. Let's visit the others before we pass judgment.
L,

If there is one god, one ultimate truth, eventually the several planets will agree.


But, seeing as the diverse religions on this one, known, planet cannot agree, it is unlikely in the extreme that interplanetary religion will come to conscilience.

Upon science, there might be some agreement. There's a reason for this.


DF
It's possible that the diverse religions here cannot agree because they all believe they are the only one. If we travel to the stars and find other beings who worship a God, then we will know that there is only one true God for the entire universe.
There has to be only one. No matter how you interpret scriptures or myths or legends, there is always one supreme being with lesser followers.
God, Angels and Demons can be Zeus with Hermes Mercury, and Hera. All religions have common background. I feel this with all my heart, there has to be only One in all the Universe.
Ignore petty differences, ridiculous minute interpretations, prideful boasting, or narcissistic tendencies, there has to be only One.
quote:
Originally posted by LMM:
It's possible that the diverse religions here cannot agree because they all believe they are the only one. If we travel to the stars and find other beings who worship a God, then we will know that there is only one true God for the entire universe.
There has to be only one. No matter how you interpret scriptures or myths or legends, there is always one supreme being with lesser followers.
God, Angels and Demons can be Zeus with Hermes Mercury, and Hera. All religions have common background. I feel this with all my heart, there has to be only One in all the Universe.
Ignore petty differences, ridiculous minute interpretations, prideful boasting, or narcissistic tendencies, there has to be only One.



LMM

Brilliant you are such an intermediary to the unskilled at reason and perception.
“No matter how you interpret scriptures or myths or legends, there is always one supreme being with lesser followers.”

I think I detect an epistemological breakthrough that makes rationalism and empiricism obsolete.

Empiricism: Knowledge is derived from experience.

Rationalism: Reason is the source of knowledge.

Faithism: A proposition is true solely because of the desire that it be true.
quote:
Originally posted by rramlimnn:
quote:
Originally posted by LMM:
It's possible that the diverse religions here cannot agree because they all believe they are the only one. If we travel to the stars and find other beings who worship a God, then we will know that there is only one true God for the entire universe.
There has to be only one. No matter how you interpret scriptures or myths or legends, there is always one supreme being with lesser followers.
God, Angels and Demons can be Zeus with Hermes Mercury, and Hera. All religions have common background. I feel this with all my heart, there has to be only One in all the Universe.
Ignore petty differences, ridiculous minute interpretations, prideful boasting, or narcissistic tendencies, there has to be only One.



LMM

Brilliant you are such an intermediary to the unskilled at reason and perception.


rram, if it is any consolation, I think she is taken well with those of us who are agnostic and atheist too.

Regards
quote:
There has to be only one. No matter how you interpret scriptures or myths or legends, there is always one supreme being with lesser followers.


It ain't necessarily so about every religion having a single Boss-god, but never mind.

There does not have to be one. Perhaps we social-hierarchical animals just like the idea of a boss-god. We have bosses; someone's at the top. Why not on Mt. Olympia, as well? Just more evidence that the gods are made in our image.

I'll meet you halfway, though. There is, at most, one god. So, when all the people argue about their several gods, most or all of them are wrong.

DF
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him--Voltaire

In fact, man did invent God about 4,000 years to explain those phenomena that were a mystery to him. He soon found that this invention had a myriad of uses. Leaders could keep the populace in line with the threat of God’s furry. Stories about God’s might and love for a warring nation were helpful in frightening their enemies. Best of all “God’s will” could be used to justify any behavior by believers. The latter is widely in use today. While there may be only one god, this one god has mutiple personalities. A multi-facetted deity can be anything that believers want him to be. In some circles He is even a She.
Throughout history there have been thousands of Gods.

Most have been relegated to the dust bin of mythology and rightly so.

We may not see it in our lifetimes, but the remaining few will eventually go the way of their predecessors.

Unless of course Jesus comes down right out of the clouds and hits the road with his "Bona fide" miracle show. I mean it has only been 2000 years, when is he going to tour again???

Regards
quote:
Originally posted by DeepFat:
quote:

If God made man in His image and man sees his own image, then man made God in his image.


This does not compute.


DF

Of course it does, you say man created God to look like himself. I assume that means a bipedal upright creature with more or less bilateral symmetry.

The Bible says God created man in His image. I don't think God is an upright simian. He would be more of a non-corporeal entity able to encompass the entire universe all at once. When God chose to appear to man, He presented Himself in a form that the human could understand. Therefore He picked a form similar to man. So man saw his own image as the image he expected of God. Man's form was made to match the environment that God created for him.

My own idea, of course.
quote:
Originally posted by zippadeedoodah: What does "in His image" actually mean? How are you like and dislike your "image"?

Hi Zip,

God made man in His image (Genesis 1:26-27) -- meaning in His spiritual image, not His physical image -- for God is spirit. John 4:24, "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

This is where man differs from animal; man was created with a spirit -- animals were not. Man was created a triune being: body, soul, spirit. Adam's disobedience broke the spiritual connection between man and God. And, Jesus came to earth to offer restoration of that connection.

Jesus Christ took on the human form of man so that He could be our Kinsman Redeemer, to make propitiation for the sins of the people (Hebrews 2:17).

Jesus, like God the Father, was preexistent and eternally spirit. Man was created in human flesh. Jesus took on human flesh to offer us salvation. Then, He took on His immortal, eternal body. And, those who accept this free gift of salvation -- will one day receive our immortal, eternal body and be like Him. He came to be like us -- and made it possible for us to choose to be like Him; not deity, but immortal and eternal.

1 John 3:2, "Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is."

Yes, He created us in His image. Praise God that He loves us this much.

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill

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I guess the point I was trying to make is obscure. In the common, modern usage, "image" is a representation of something. A photograph is an "image" of a person. But I am totally unlike my photograph, except is one very superficial way. My photo is flat, inert, unchanging, and noncommunicative. On the other hand, I am alive, moving, communicating, thinking, passing through time, learning, experiencing, growing, and way better looking than my photo. In fact, my photo seems to add a couple dozen pounds to me...maybe.

Of course, that is the modern concept of "image", but I doubt it's been really changed in its history. Perhaps we're as completely different from God as my picture is different from me, but with subtle similarities.
It's been my understanding that by "image", we mean not only our physical image, but our psychological image as well.

We appreciate the same things as god, we despise the same things as god, we, as common images, understand the same things as god.

This makes ultimate sense when we realize that we made god in our own image. Of course we understand him.


DF
quote:
Originally posted by DeepFat:
L,

Here's a well-known image showing man creating god in his image.

You're reaching. Either god made man in his own image, and he's a bipedal, laterally symmetrical Primate or he's not. The bible says he is.

If you disagree, welcome to the atheist club.

DF

The image is a great painting, nothing more.

I'll skip the club, might interfere with my chocolate and wine tasting clubs. Wink
Michelangelo presented his own interpretation of various scenes from the Bible and non-Biblical scenes.
While his work is beyond genius, it is still an artist at work.
Spark of divinity? I would think more the passing of a soul from God to Adam. Man is not divine by any stretch of the imagination, but after God crated Adam, he still needed a soul.
Not completely independent, but he had leeway. He was a humanist.


Link



In his personal life, Michelangelo was abstemious. He told his apprentice, Ascanio Condivi: "However rich I may have been, I have always lived like a poor man."[20] Condivi said he was indifferent to food and drink, eating "more out of necessity than of pleasure"[20] and that he "often slept in his clothes and ... boots."[20] These habits may have made him unpopular. His biographer Paolo Giovio says, "His nature was so rough and uncouth that his domestic habits were incredibly squalid, and deprived posterity of any pupils who might have followed him."[21] He may not have minded, since he was by nature a solitary and melancholy person. He had a reputation for being bizzarro e fantastico because he "withdrew himself from the company of men."

Michelangelo used bright colours, easily visible from the floor. On the lowest part of the ceiling he painted the ancestors of Christ. Above this he alternated male and female prophets, with Jonah over the altar. On the highest section, Michelangelo painted nine stories from the Book of Genesis. He was originally commissioned to paint only 12 figures, the Apostles. He turned down the commission because he saw himself as a sculptor, not a painter. The Pope offered to allow Michelangelo to paint biblical scenes of his own choice as a compromise. After the work was finished, there were more than 300. His figures showed the creation, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the Great Flood.
Any of the entries of him mention the profound influence that the Renaissance had on him and his art and it was a beginning of a movement of humanism. The intricate details of the body, the showing of Adam, not afraid of the Lord, but waiting as an equal for him. His David. There are many, just do a google search of 'Michelangelo humanism'.



The philosophers that Michelangelo heard at Lorenzo de Medici’s table were called “Humanists” because they made a hero out of Man. They put aside the abstruse considerations of the Middle Ages about theology, about God, and concentrated on Man, on his achievements and on his place in the divine plan of the cosmos. Everything from the “human” point of view, hence “Humanism” their doctrine. What place does man occupy in the chain of being that God created, from angels down to the beasts? Why, he is the summit, the very purpose, of God’s creation. He is the link between the worlds, heaven and earth, the divine and the human. Even the angels up above had better envy him because he was made with the capacity to choose his destiny.

Michelangelo’s David is that proud Man of the Humanists, of the Renaissance—no longer a boy but newly a man, a man awakening from thousands of years of childhood, of servitude; a man independent, beautiful, and strong. He scowls as he makes a choice, the choice that is his own unique prerogative. Never again will man see himself so enlarged, so wonderful—never again could he. In the Middle Ages he was a part of an ashamed, sinful community, lowly as a worm, shapeless as a pig. Just look at the men and women in Giotto’s Final Judgment painting or at the poor wretches on the walls and choir stalls of the old Romanesque and Gothic churches. In fact, the artist couldn’t even look at them, at himself. None of those nameless artisans even seems to have looked closely at either sex, which were mere cartoons. They painted the Devil with more precision and curiosity.

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