valerie wrote: Darkstar2 you're opening another can.
First, to the overused phrase 'let me be clear', I plainly stated that 'IMAGE' as stated in the Bible is debatable. That means people, including myself, tend to wonder exactly what 'image' is meant. Stating in His image, really doesn't tell us a lot. I could go on further and relay the images of people through time and future. Image of a Neanderthal? Image of an Artificial Intelligent Human? Image of Jesus Christ, HIs son? Past, present, future image of a human being....I dunno. To and for me, it doesn't matter who God is or what God looks like. I know humans were created out of love and I do believe in the Word. Not when I am wimpy but when I am severe, I feel God. I mean that as in a down and trodden soul, at the miserable of miserable, I feel God. Not when I am half trodden. Not when I am lowly sad. In a very severe state, I feel God and I have found that He has come to me in those very troubling times when I ask Him. Other times, He may seem to ignore me because it is the times I am not accepting Him due to my lack of need. It's difficult for me to describe. When you know something, when you feel something, when that something is there, no one can tell you different. I don't worship the writing on the cave wall. I don't worship the sun. I don't worship animals, prehistoric or otherwise.
Let's try to decipher this
In HIS IMAGE was not meant as being a clone image otherwise we would all be Gods. It cannot mean physical image, as God is not physical, so in his image could simply mean we were meant to be all loving and all forgiving human beings, so that would make us all Saints essentially, so yes I opened a BIG can and them worms are big
Because there is no way the current world even remotely resembles the image of God, it's more like the world at the present resembles the image of the Devil. Even before all this mess, the world has never even remotely resembled the image of God, because the world has always been full of evil and full of hate, full of unrest, it's just that now with digital media it is easier to convey all the bad news on a daily basis, and certain topics are less sensitive to discuss now than they did before.
In his image is not accurate, it is safer to say we were created with the POTENTIAL to be all loving and all forgiving through our own choices and the paths we choose - BUT again, humans who are capable of that are Saints, and it will only represent a tiny fraction of a fraction on this planet. If you live in an all hate all violence environment, it's hard to have all these attributes - our brain was hard wired and designed in a way to adapt itself to its surrounding environment. If you were brought up in a violent environment full of violence, drugs and F'n alcohol, you will likely be the image of that, unless you are one of the FEW who decide to get OUT of this environment and move away from that said environment.
Now, another CAN perhaps ? What about the alarming growth in convictions from people that were supposed to represent the message of God ? Day after day we hear news about people in very high and trusted positions who were accused of being involved in sex scandals, rape, pedophilia and more, if anything right now the world is steering AWAY from God, and not any closer, if anything some might argue we were the product of some evil alien tosser and running one mad simulation where humans were basically meant and hard wired to hate one another and not get along to satisfy some "experiment" .... God had the option of creating an eternal kingdom of love across the entire universe.
God only gave us some limited power:
WE CANNOT
* Judge
WE CAN
* Love
* Forgive
Now if scripture already has the full story that humans will choose a wrong path, then how the heck can we argue that we had free will, if our destiny is already written in stone ???? If a specific result is already known in advance, no free will can change that.
THEN this opens another CAN, time travel and paradox.....SO if things did not turn out the way we wanted, if we had the ability to just go back in time to change stuff (boy would I badly need this one) then any change in the timeline would have a major effect on everything else, and since time travel is not a thing (yet?) our so-called "FREE WILL" is limited at best.
Here is an example it's like saying "Hey I know in advance you will get a specific health problem, it will come to pass eventually" you can do everything in your life to change and prevent that, BUT it will happen no matter what you do.
Proof of this being true ? You hear medical cases all the time - some morbidly obese people defy all science, they have normal CBC, normal lipid profile, normal blood pressure, normal blood glucose and A1c............BUT.........yet you have fit people who are not overweight, who east sensibly and all the good stuff, exercise, and yet they have heart problems, diabetes, cancer, high cholesterol, etc.......and no matter how much they try to be careful, nothing changes...... Not convincing enough ? What about people who work so damn hard in their damn life and are so unlucky, no matter what they do they fail or do not reach a goal, despite their good will and good gestures, it's like they are a shit magnet (I can write a few books about that) AND yet you have people who are lazy, barely lift a finger, do all the wrong things, and yet they are so lucky, succeed and get everything handed to them on a silver F.... platter.
FREE will my arse - we do have free will but it is limited at best - There is a lot science still does not understand but it appears that through our DNA (which is essentially our firmware that runs everything), our health and other factors are set in stone at the time of birth - we do have FREE will on certain things, but usually not the important stuff that can have lasting and positive impacts on our life.
We are God's CREATION, period, let's forget about the IMAGE or SHADOW or MIRROR part because we are NOT, we are created creatures with a defined destiny and path, some will make it, most won't and so far every little detail in the book of Revelation is coming true, it would be hard for even a skeptic to deny, but they will anyway, because they will oppose truth even if it stares them in the face.