Was man created in god's image, or was god created in man's?

Man anthropomorphized aliens (note how most alien stories are not similar to the Adromeda Strain). Whether or not man created gods I think it's fair to say we anthropomorphized them.

Mr. Scopes, of the famous 1930's "Monkey Trial," got himself in trouble for quoting one of the French wits (forget which one):

God created man, and, man being a gentleman, he returned the compliment.

Well, up to a coupla million years ago there was no creature called 'homo'. Like the tree falling in the forest, could the intellectual concept of a deity exist without someone actually thinking about it?

God is not created but exists. Humans understand God in their own images.

God in man's, prolly.

But I'm not sure. Thank you for the music, satt (with apologies to Barry Manilow. Or Abba, whoever.)

"Was man created in god's image, or was god created in man's?"


Perhaps we evolved rather than being created,
and all four of those things (god, god's image, man, and man's image)
evolved together in symbiosis, gradually over a period of time.

So it might be that the creation is still actively going on, right now,
and that the creation process has actually run only a small fraction of the way towards completion.

In that case, god mostly does not exist, because the creation of god has barely just started. The same could be said of man. Most of man has yet to be created, therefore he mostly does not exist at this time, until we get really fornicated.

We might expect, however, that man will be created in god's image, when the time comes, and that image will have the same texture and resolution as man's image. Neither image, however, will bear much relation to reality because image-making is usually such an egotistical and shallow process, pursued mostly in vanity. Image is phony.

Nor could we expect that man would be created from man's *own* image, or god from god's image, because the entity must exist before it's image can be projected, judged and sold.

Therefore, we can infer that man will someday be created, but not from any image at all. If god follows proper evolutionary theory, he will be created without following any blueprint or prior expectation as well, and simply evolve into godliness by accident or trial and error, based on a more primitive god components that exist in nature today.

I hope to god I'm right, because what passes for man today certainly won't pass away again tomorrow. And what passes for religion is more like a kidney stone so far ... especially when compared to what it could be.



That's about all I could figure out so far. Maybe you can take it a few steps further.
Oh hey, what was the point of asking in the first place?

Who created the PR guy who created the image? Did God and man use the same agency? Do you think it can keep both accounts or is the conflict of interest too great? I think the God image is a little obscure and the man image is tarnished. I think both should go elsewhere. Ain't it great when PR firms tell us what we are and what we want and who we should adore. I think God made mistakes and man made God but I'll not be sure until the market research is complete.

Human beings, in time immemorial, have been attempting to understand the world, and their place in it. Primitive man had very little knowledge of the scientific world, and therefore had to develop a rationale for the natural phenomena that were happening all around them.

In addition, the ancients, as they evolved into civilized beings, needed to codify rules and regulations that would help people live in a civilized manner. It was not a great conceptual leap to assume that whomever or whatever caused the natural phenomena, would expect his creations to behave in a certain way. And, IMO, that was how the concept of God developed.

We needed gods to understand change because our experience told us that change was brought about by external action. We lit fire with flint, god lit fire with lightning. Whether there is a true God or not our gods were created by us to explain our experience. In time we invested our moral sense in them giving great privileges to priestly castes who knew the ways of the gods. Religion is primitive science.

Cannot tell how gratifying it is to see so many people who are not sure!!!

There is indeed hope for humanity...and its name is A2K.

I think the idea is that God cannot be comprehended by man as He is spirit, and so God himself necessarily came to Earth in a form we could comprehend, mainly our own.

All I know for sure is that anyone who can manage that immaculate conception thing is trickier than David Copperfield.

Careful there, Bear.

The immaculate conception has nothing to do with God coming to Earth.

Perhaps BPB meant God coming on earth . . .

The jury is still out.

So far, we have only heard Man's version.

The Immaculate Conception has nothing to do with God coming on[/[] earth either.

The Immaculate Conception has to do with the birth of the Virgin Mary -- not Jesus.

Just made it up?
Don't you think God would be a pretty wierd thing to make up? I mean, God's who roll thunder across the sky etc. you can see the imagination at work. But Gods like the Christian God, how in the name of all that is wonderful are we supposed to have come up with that idea?

Re: Just made it up?


Fear! Blind, numbing fear!

Strictly form the point of view of theology as presented by the Catholic church, your statement is utterly wrong. That does not surprise me.

Oh heck, we know the answer. We are all little bits of "God" trying our darndest to get back to where we belong. But, we've forgotten who and what we are. Admit, all of us enjoy, enjoy, our denseness, our intense seeking for just a smidgin' of something that would make us feel happy, like money-power-sex. But, it's love that we look for, and we can't give it til we've got it.

We probably create ourselves, every day.