Thread: Who are the 'Us' In let us make man in our image?

I believe that the "us" is referencing the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and...uhhh...probably Santa Clause.

God the father and Christ the son and their Spirit also known as the Trinity.

BradyBaker, question for you:

Were you snubbing "The Great Pumpkin" for any particular reason?

Why do all these religions snub my son, their _actual_ savior, The Great Pumpkin?!?!?

He who was made into soup for our sins?

mmm pumpkin soup.. sacrelicious

But on the topic, I'd say it suggests polytheism. I sure know yahweh was worried about other gods (the first commandment and all), and it seems there is a bit of evidence to support it.

You guys think your funny. When the lord comes back and you haven't repented you will be looking for a place to hide and there won't be one.

Nothin like the threat of hellfire to get someone to sincerely believe eh. And the "lord" has been sceduled to come back every few years since he died. Didn't show up when he was originally supposed to, no reason to suspect he'll do it now.

And anyway, if it turns out to all be true, I'm sure those other gods yahweh didn't like might let me on their team. Or satan. Go team satan!

Bring 'em on. I'll crack open an entire sixpack o' whoop-ass on 'im.

Yea Verily, I'll have to get medieval on his ass.. What's he gonna do about it anyway? mr. wussyass passive resistance dork. Let a couple little romans stake his ass to a stick. There's a scary image. If you're a goose or a rabbit...

Oh - so I'm going to hell, huh? Great - I'll save you a seat. Just like in business, I'll be running hell inside of 6 months, have it profitable in 10mo, conduct a forced takeover of heaven in 18mo, and you'll all be reporting to me anyway.

As it is so proudly posted on the back of cars now-a-days NO FEAR of God. Will be the measuring rod with which God will use to judge the wicked. Its sad that they can't see what their doing...

There is so much lost in the translation from Hebrew that we miss a lot of the original meaning, leaving us with this surface image that sometimes doesn't make much sense.

In Hebrew there are many different names given to God, none of which actually refer to the Creator Himself (except Ain Sof meaning the Infinite Being, or the Infinite) but refer to the various ways through which God manifests Himself in creation.

The name used here, in the first chapter of Genesis, is Elohim. The Creator Himself is absolutely simple, containing no plurality whatsover, but when the scriptures speak of creation, duality, the plural name Elohim is used. For this particular quote, the significance of using "Us" (Elohim) is because man's form parallels the structure of the delineating forces that define creation.

I have an idea, research the term 'I AM' I think it will uncover the term 'Us' in that verse.

Just a thought...

Haha...Easter bunny, and Santa Clause....lol. I mean, that picture is really funny to think about, with God in the middle of them.

Dreamtamer has the theologically correct answer, but who doesn't know that?

Why is this question important? It'll probably spark arguments for the agnostic/atheist paradox-inducing-question "So is God one or several?"

Originally posted by AirRick101

Why is this question important? *It'll probably spark arguments for the agnostic/atheist paradox-inducing-question \"So is God one or several?\"

Oooo pick me, pick me!

As Saint Patrick said (and know i'm not a catholic) God is like a Shamrock. The Trinity is one, but there are three parts to it. And no it doesn't count 4 leaf clovers. There are three leaves but they work as one. Same way with the Trinity.

The further pursuit of this topic would give a greater degree of clarity to those who have not yet learned of their eternal purpose. But if it is a dead subject then ‘you can’t make a horse drink even if his life depended on it.’

Just a little footnote:

It will be so horrifying to know that those who reject the unseen realms, because of it being unable to meet a limited set of criteria within a single arena of thinking, and as a result of this, spend the rest of their immortal existence whaling and gnashing their teeth because they failed to extend their own abilities into that which they were created for…

*sigh*

Regarding 'fear of God' - if God is so loving, why would he use such a negative emotion as fear to keep us in check? Answer = because he isn't. It's the fear of doing something that would displease him, not the fear of being smited
That's assuming that God actually exists as we understand it.

Regarding threats of hellfire and damnation... I agree with spoon. That sort of argument tends to make me ill. It's so.... TV evangelist. Nothing like hellfire to keep people in line.

Just for the record - I'm officially a christian, but unofficially unsure what I believe. So you can say I know quite a bit on both sides of the fence. Choosing a side is often a complicated family issue.

It's not the hellfire argument in and of itself that disgusts me, but the pushing of it in light of unreliable evidence. The possibility of them lying is what pisses me off, not a logical reason that justifies their preaching.

Perhaps God needed a tripartite description of "image of US" to make the creation he wanted. It could be parallel to mind, body, and spirit.

Originally posted by AirRick101

Perhaps God needed a tripartite description of \"image of US\" to make the creation he wanted. It could be parallel to mind, body, and spirit.

And as such, parallel to the pagan mythos that christianity clearly 'jacked for their own purposes. Not the least of which was to convert the rabble that were emotionally invested in paganism for hundreds, maybe thousands, of generations.

So, yeah, I'm onboard with you. If there's one thing I can say for christianity - they've done a hell of a sales job. All they need to do is raid Phillip Morris, Coca Cola, and Nike for their marketing firms and they'll have the world pretty much 100% sewn-up before a generation is out.

I was merely giving a "spiritual" interpretation in a rather new ageist fashion of the Judeo-Christian beliefs in their pure form. I wanted to reply for once in a reasonable way rather than try to neglect the questions' intent.

Now, don't be threatened by Christianity taking over large industrial corporations. I feel just fine having my junk food being areligious (except for what I see under In'N'Out Burger cups and trays)

IMO, Christianity buying other organizations is a potent way of putting stink in their reputation as a spiritual reform. Just to clarify, not all Christians do such sneaky things. In fact, most do not. Try not to overgeneralize, there's bad and good "Christians" as well as bad and good "unbelievers"

Naw, I'm not saying they'd want to buy up corporations. Just poach their marketing departments. Christianity has gotten kinda stale, and it's clear to me that the marketing geniuses at Phillip Morris and Nike could really rocket it back up the charts.

Seems like a no-brainer!

None of the last few posts seem to have much relation to the original topic. If you don't have a relevant comment, then rather leave the thread alone please.

PS: This applies to myself too

Please explain how:

"And as such, parallel to the pagan mythos that christianity clearly 'jacked for their own purposes. Not the least of which was to convert the rabble that were emotionally invested in paganism for hundreds, maybe thousands, of generations.

So, yeah, I'm onboard with you. If there's one thing I can say for christianity - they've done a hell of a sales job"

doesn't have anything to do with the topic?

If the topic poster doesn't want to hear how christianity has poached the pagan mythos, maybe they should go back to preaching to christians? I thought it was a discussion rather than a pulpit. Was I mistaken?


(And Google spellcheck is just insistant about capitalizing "christianity'"...)

(Hopefully answering the original question, although I agree with Kimpossible's viewed, all Abrahamic religions are almost definately piked from paganism)

If you look at the way Genesis' tale was laid out I think we can assume that Genesis is in fact the sequel to events that aren't exactly described properly... since the politics in Heaven aren't likely to be discussed with us mere mortals there's no reason to include them.

First thing we come to realise is that although man is said to be descended from Adam and Eve the problem is that Cain is fearful that when he meets anyone they will kill him from killing Abel. Now the question is, where did these "others" come from? Indeed Cain's wife is one of these such people that seem to appear from out of knowhere? We can only assume that, God created other men and women to populate the earth and although they were not responsible for eating the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve did, they retain the knowledge and burden of having to be left out of Eden.

Now... turning matters skyward. We know that heavenly beings exist as God places two beings (either Cherubim or Seraphim depending on sources) to Guard Eden. Such it is that they have no introduction in Genesis apart from this. Genesis 6 also tells us that Heavenly Beings desired the mortal girls, they've come to be called the Grigori and their offspring the Nephilim.

The Serpent is a perplexing mystery, since he is condemned to slither on his belly for eternity as punishment. Its possible the original "snake" may have had legs? Another idea could be that this snake was possessed by the Devil (common theory) or that he might have been a shapeshifting Djinn taking the form of a serpent to trick man.

Taking us onto...

Lucifer, the Seraphim that was expelled from heaven for his pride, failure to make the Djinn worship Man and instead taking their side, saying (according to the Qur'an) that "Why should a Son of Fire bow before a Son of Mud?". This could have only happened before the eating of the fruit and after the 6th Day when Man was created. So already we can assume that the Angels must have been created before man.

Clearly we have to assume that there must have been a point before the Earth was created that God created the heavenly beings, as well as a point inbetween Angels and Man when God created the semi-deitous Djinn spirits, and long enough for Lucifer to become overly hacked off with the whole thing and become the headstrong rebel that the Devil is...

So I think thats the "US" that He is referring too... but doesn't this just raise more questions about why none of this was ever elabortated in the Bible? The Greatest Book ever written really does need some better plot narration and general exposition... lol

Now that is interesting. I have never seen it in a way of Lucifer being too prideful to bow down to man, as merely an angel of God. It makes sense, since God created man in his "image". (I'm not going with either side of the argument, I'm coming from a comprehension of the Christian beliefs)

About Cain's feared predators, the conscience fears impending punishment or exposure, whether there is people around him/her or not. And about his wife, it's pretty much likely he had to commit incest for the moment, they hadn't made a law for it at the time. (having his wife possibly killing him, what a wacko marriage!) Adam and Eve could have had several branches of kids that would eventually divid into many tribes.

There is indeed the implication that the serpent used to have legs (but if you ask me, I think the snake still moves with excellent precision even now)...." another one bites the dust!"

Yes, there was a political structure in "heaven" before earth was created. This is talked about in a book after genesis, but as sort of a flashback. (sorry, I can't put my finger on it now)

It's the Greatest Book because it's given faith to people, not because it's merely impressive as a piece of literature. If it was, it wouldn't rank so high as a guidebook to life for millions. Besides...if they talked about everything possible in the Bible, it wouldn't fit the pages, remember the end of John, where it says all of Jesus's acts could not be contained in all the books of the world.

Originally posted by AirRick101
Now that is interesting. I have never seen it in a way of Lucifer being too prideful to bow down to man, as merely an angel of God. It makes sense, since God created man in his \"image\". (I'm not going with either side of the argument, I'm coming from a comprehension of the Christian beliefs)

I was drawing from Gnostic, Christian, Jewish and Islamic sources when I was wrote that about Lucifer. Early Christian belief was that Lucifer fell because of his pride and wanting to be God, the Qur'an refers that this was also because of his refusal to bow to Man and failure with the Djinn (the latter something that Muhammed also tried to do). Interestingly, although I didn't mention this earlier, Jewish belief says that Gabriel himself was also punished like Lucifer (though obviously not as severely) for not following orders to the letter. In the Talmud Yoma 79a Gabriel is sent out of Heaven for 21 days as penance and then readmitted after that time.

If anyones seen The Prophecy, Gabriel is somewhat portrayed similiarly to Lucifer, even being mocked by another character at his rants being similar. When Humans were purged of sin by Jesus' sacrifice it made then elevated higher than Angels, something that causes Gabriel to also not wish to bow before the \"talking monkeys.\" Constantine is also another film that deals with falling from grace, making Gabriel the antagonist and the Devil ironically the saviour. Its interesting that even now in our fictional mythology we still want to knows the ins and outs of heaven and what makes these supernatural beings tick lol.

Yes, there was a political structure in \"heaven\" before earth was created. This is talked about in a book after genesis, but as sort of a flashback. (sorry, I can't put my finger on it now)[/b]

Cool, if you could find out what book I'd appreciate it, I want to give it a look.