@sonship saidThe only thing that is inevitable is that some people will think that some things are inevitable. At quantum levels, there is an ineradicable factor of indeterminacy in the universe. The emergence of life adds yet another indeterminacy-factor at macro-levels. Einstein reportedly said insanity is repeating the same cause and expecting something different; I say, children defy causality every day. You can get them to eat their veg on Monday by bribing them with ice cream for dessert, but by Thursday, even this no longer works, they refuse the offer of ice cream to eat their veg ; same cause, same child, different effect.
@Ghost-of-a-DukeIt means that the creation of man in Genesis is a story. We know this because we evolved into our current image.
If the clock of time could roll back billions of years to the universe before any life, do you think it would evolve exactly the same way again?
Do you think evolution in any conceivable world makes it [b]ine ...[text shortened]... time? I mean there is suppose to be blind pitiless chance to it all according to Richard Dawkins.
@sonship saidI would say inevitably not, something else would have happened, why should it not? What do you think would have happened?
@Ghost-of-a-DukeIt means that the creation of man in Genesis is a story. We know this because we evolved into our current image.
If the clock of time could roll back billions of years to the universe before any life, do you think it would evolve exactly the same way again?
Do you think evolution in any conceivable world makes it [b]ine ...[text shortened]... time? I mean there is suppose to be blind pitiless chance to it all according to Richard Dawkins.
@josephw saidBizarre question to be honest.
You really haven't explained what it is man is in the image of except to say ".., our current image is who we are at this time."
If man bears an image, then what or who's image is it he is bearing?
It can't just be the image of himself. How does that work?
I look in a mirror and that is my image, just as a cat looks into a puddle and sees their image. Nothing more to it that that. A human 50,000 years from now will no doubt look in their holographic mirror and see a different image entirely. (Just as primitive humans looked very different than humans do today, in regards to skull size etc).
@sonship saidNo and no.
@Ghost-of-a-DukeIt means that the creation of man in Genesis is a story. We know this because we evolved into our current image.
If the clock of time could roll back billions of years to the universe before any life, do you think it would evolve exactly the same way again?
Do you think evolution in any conceivable world makes it [b]ine ...[text shortened]... time? I mean there is suppose to be blind pitiless chance to it all according to Richard Dawkins.
We are where we are. Things could have developed very differently indeed. We could have evolved very differently indeed. Stripping away any religious connotations, our very existence as a species is miraculous. We are lucky to be here. (But could just as easily be wiped from the planet by a rogue asteroid at any time, such is the nature of the universe).
@indonesia-phil saidI believe God created us and the universe, that the Word of God did it, so we and the universe are understandable to us being Word made. At the same time, the universe is filled with information making it understandable and finely tuned. We were made, and the genetics of all life is coded, so life is an information-based driving system.
Funny, I was talking to this snake the other day, who said that wasn't how it happened at all.
What, you don't believe snakes can talk?
Concerning the supernatural, only those events show us natural explanations alone are not always possible; there are odd one-offs that, if true, more is going on than usual. You may think it impossible that something supernatural cannot use something like a snake, a bush, or even a person to do something entirely out of the ordinary; it would be a reasonable deduction.
If you think the universe got here without a cause, or it was always here, those too would be supernatural, so the supernatural is inescapable regardless. There are no natural explanations for it being here or how life began. Nothing can only come from nothing, so there must be the first cause.
To the OP, what does it mean to be human, made in the image of God, or if you think nothing caused it all, we are just highly evolved pond scum or something from under a rock, considering the odds that too would be a miraculous beginning in the realm of a miracle.
Yes, a supernaturally controlled snake could talk, pieces of metal can fly, something can manipulate, so things otherwise thought impossible can be made possible.
@fmf saidThe OP is about what it means if we were made in the image of God, you say no, no, so that is an opinion based upon hard factual things, or it is just the way you think it is? Well, you know, right, if it doesn't fit your meta-narrative, it has to be the way you see it? I have many fact-based things that point me in this direction. I pointed to a couple already in this OP, so what I have isn't a blind faith matter I have reasons that go beyond just wishful thinking, is yours? Can you with facts say how it all began, how we were made, or are all those just conjecture, a possible this way or that without gaping holes in our it began without a miracle required?
You too, KellyJay, you too. If what you were sharing were "absolute" and "objective" truth, then I would also believe it. But that's not what you are sharing. You are sharing the 'content' of your faith, which is merely a set of opinions and beliefs about yourself and your God figure.
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@Ghost-of-a-Duke
Concerning my question - would evolution could it happen all over again from the start, still arrive at human beings.
Your answer:
We are where we are. Things could have developed very differently indeed. We could have evolved very differently indeed. Stripping away any religious connotations, our very existence as a species is miraculous. We are lucky to be here. (But could just as easily be wiped from the planet by a rogue asteroid at any time, such is the nature of the universe).
It seems that being commited to a naturalistic world view you nonetheless also use the word "miraculous". This is interesting.
This is your supposedly "stripping away any religious connotations" of our existence but still discribe it as "miraculous". Extraordinary coincidence and / or good fortune (or luck) has produced this naturalistic (non-religious) miracle.
I'll think about it. That is what experimental or observable scientific method assures you that nothing like mankind would again evolve should it happen again.
Yet SETI considers that something much like humanity surely should have evolved into other civilizations out there among the stars.
Concerning extinction events, of late my view has developed like this:
God gave man TWO sources of unveiling or disclosure of truth:
1.) the book of the Bible.
2.) the book of nature.
If men cannot take His revelation of Noah - that God could wipe out an entire world and start over again, then to others He wouod show basically the same thing evidenced in the book of nature. Namely, that He can wipe out an entire world of its inhabitants and start all over again.
Think about it. Both the book of God and the book of nature agree. Do not think cataclysmic removal of a world can not happen. We need to know that as God's creatures.
So if you can't take it from the account of Noah's flood in the Bible, take it from the evience of killer asteroids or killer comets or SOMETHING which brought about mass extinction and new world initiation.
That was how scripture says we started.
What does that mean?
I think the rhythm of the chapter shows that all the creatures were created after their kind. But God created man uniquely after His "kind".
There is nothing else on the planet quite like a human being.
Why?
I would say that is because we alone were created in the image of God and according to the likeness of God. (Gen. 1:26,27)
That is not the whole story.
That is an important foundation theme to the story of man.
We are after God's image and likeness. (But we got damaged and polluted by something).
This is like a radio marvelously designed to pick up music, speech, and broadcasting, which was thrown down into the mud and made defective.
Something great and unique is there in the design. Yet now instead of music or speech it plays ugly static because it is a damaged radio.
@sonship saidI strip away religious connotations from the word and you still stretch to take ownership of 'miraculous.'
@Ghost-of-a-Duke
Concerning my question - would evolution could it happen all over again from the start, still arrive at human beings.
Your answer:
[quote] We are where we are. Things could have developed very differently indeed. We could have evolved very differently indeed. Stripping away any religious connotations, our very existence as a species is miraculo ...[text shortened]... i] much like humanity surely should have evolved into other civilizations out there among the stars.
I recently saw a dog dash across a busy street and somehow avoid countless speeding cars. I described its survival as miraculous. Did I mean some divine force had saved him? Clearly not. The dog simply beat all the odds stacked against him.
The same goes for our existence as a species. We have defied mindboggling odds to have evolved and survived while so many other life forms have perished or never existed at all. It is nothing short of miraculous that I am sitting here typing this message.
As for what other life forms exist out there in the universe, well that will be determined by the environment they have adapted to survive in, on which adaptions have been the most successful. For a long time on Earth dinosaurs were the most successful. If not for the asteroid that wiped them out, perhaps they still would be. Perhaps they would have evolved to a more intelligent creature that believed they were made in God's image.
@ghost-of-a-duke saidThat is what proof by narrative?
I strip away religious connotations from the word and you still stretch to take ownership of 'miraculous.'
I recently saw a dog dash across a busy street and somehow avoid countless speeding cars. I described its survival as miraculous. Did I mean some divine force had saved him? Clearly not. The dog simply beat all the odds stacked against him.
The same goes f ...[text shortened]... they would have evolved to a more intelligent creature that believed they were made in God's image.
@ghost-of-a-duke saidYour explanation, the creation account is written down it doesn’t change our explanations can change on a dime. Nothing definitive about them.
Are you referring to the creation account in Genesis?
@kellyjay saidSorry Kelly I was sharing factual information, not fairytales.
Your explanation, the creation account is written down it doesn’t change our explanations can change on a dime. Nothing definitive about them.