Did the gods (god) create us?

[MMI]

Well who are you blaming? Is it the gods for failing to make themselves clear, or Man for failing to understand. Likewise, will mankind miss the presence of aliens because he's to stupid to recognise one unless it says "Take me to your leader."

[Thorne]

Well who are you blaming? Is it the gods for failing to make themselves clear, or Man for failing to understand. Likewise, will mankind miss the presence of aliens because he's to stupid to recognise one unless it says "Take me to your leader."

I don't blame anyone.

As for missing aliens, that's a hard one. Obviously, the closer alien life forms are to ourselves, the easier it will be to recognize them. So far as we know there is no non-organic life here on Earth. Could there be such life out there, somewhere? If so, how do we recognize it? If we don't does that make us stupid or just lacking the knowledge to recognize it?

Of more interest to me, regarding the current topic, is how religious people will react if we ever do discover intelligent life out there, especially if it is radically different from us. And even more especially if it is also more technologically advanced than we are. Can people who believe that we are made in God's image reconcile their religion with a more advanced form of life which is obviously not made in that same image?

[MMI]

@ Thorne

I think the religions affected by that problem could very well point out that as God has no physical form, "in His own image" must have referred to His spiritual likeness.

[Thorne]

I think the religions affected by that problem could very well point out that as God has no physical form, "in His own image" must have referred to His spiritual likeness.

I'm sure you're right. The religious dogma quite probably refers to spiritual image rather than physical. Especially when the religious leaders began converting people who looked quite different from themselves.

BUT! I'm pretty sure your average religious person thinks of his god as being just like him, in form if nothing else. How many Renaissance artists would have been able to sell their works if they had portrayed Jesus as a 1st century Jew? Would the Sistine Chapel have been considered as beautiful if God had been painted with Negroid or Mongoloid features? No, I rather think that Michelangelo would have more likely burned at the stake as a heretic.

For better or worse, we make our gods in our own images.