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Was
the physical body we call "man" made in
God's image? Or is it that "human beliefs about
God were made in man's image?"
Ancient humans, like people today, also looked for answers to the
mysteries of life.
Who am I? Where did I come
from? Why am I here. What happens after I
die? Who made this place I'm in? Why do people
die? What causes earth quakes, floods and the other natural
disasters? I must have done something terrible. What
could I have possible done that was so bad that I got sent
here? How do
I escape from all this grief, and all this misery and from all those big,
powerful animals that want to eat me? Life
in ancient days was dangerous, short, and filled with things that had no
explanation. Having no evidence to go on except what they
experienced, ancient humans still searched desperately for
answers. They made up stories to answer these unanswerable
questions. These stories became legends. These legend,
along with what humans were still experiencing, became the basis of what we,
today, refer to as religious beliefs. Many present-day human beliefs
have been handed down to us, generation after generation with little or no
change. As an example, examine the beliefs humans have about
God.° Humans
looked around and noticed that no matter which way they went the Earth appeared
to be flat. Of course, in had mountains and valleys, but these
seemed to be merely ups and downs on what appeared to be a flat
Earth. There was no visible end to this flat Earth; at least, nobody
ever reporting finding an end. Humans
looked up and, most of the time, saw bright sunshine and beautiful, white,
billowy clouds. They felt the sun's warmth and gentle
breezes. They saw the rains that fell and refreshed the land and
caused the plants to grow. They noticed that when some of
their fellow beings experienced what we, today, call near death experiences,
most reported rising upwards in the direction of the sky and into a warm, inviting, welcoming light.
The
people reported seeing friendly beings waiting there to greet them.
They concluded that good things came from above, and whoever lives up there must
be good. Everybody wanted to go there. They
also notice that occasionally the earth they walked on did violent
things. It shook violently and knocked things down. The
mountains sometimes made terrible noises and spewed out smoke and fire
and brimstone. When whatever was down there became angry it killed
people and destroyed things. They conclude that bad thing came from
beneath their feet. They also concluded that whoever or whatever lived
down there must be bad and should be avoided. Nobody wanted to go
there. These
experiences along with the natural human impulse to go toward that which
felt good and away from that which felt bad were the inevitable foundations of
legends, myths, and beliefs. Humans started appealing to the above
to help them with life, to avoid their pain and to avoid whatever was beneath
their feet. Nobody knew exactly who or what was above the clouds or who or what
was below the Earth's surface, but humans believed that whatever was in these
two places controlled human life. Humans
appeared to be victims of circumstance. The
natural tendency was to translate the unknown into something
known. The image of whatever was above their heads evolved
into beliefs such as "God is above in heaven. The
image of whatever was below their feet evolved into beliefs such as
"Satan is below in hell." And naturally the descriptions
of God followed the beliefs and experience of the people of that
era. See the page titled: Imagine
a God.° So,
were these people actually describing God? NO. Why not?
Because whatever it is we call GOD,
is still the ultimate mystery of life.°
Instead, they created an image of God based on human beliefs.
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What
if the reverse were true? What if it was possible to create an image
of man based on the attributes of God. Religious leaders claim to
know what humans are, but are those claims accurate? We don't know
what God is or isn't, but we can we use some common ideas and create
hypothesis of what man might be if he were an image of God. A
logical hypothesis could include
these characteristics: Man
(and woman) is a creator.
He is non-physical and, at the same
time, lives is a physical body as if
he/she were a physical body. He
has/is eternal life.
Birth and death are simply changes
in form. As an analogy,
one could think of birth and death
as similar to the way an egg
becomes a worm and then a butterfly
which lays eggs. Consciousness
controls physical
experiences. Man is
consciousness. God
appears to be
consciousness. Man
(and woman) appear to be a part of God. God
would very likely place his consciousness into a physical vehicle as one
of his/her/it's tools to experience Earth. God would then be a
temporary dweller on Earth. For whatever it is we call God, living a
life on Earth in a physical body would be an experience quite different from the
non-physical world. To experience life as humans know it,
He/She/It would probably need to block portions of His/her/its full
memory. If God is everything, then humans, as pieces of
God, would be walking around inside of God. God would very likely
enter into many bodies and come to Earth numerous times. All
this is speculation, but are any of these possibilities any less believable than
the present religious beliefs about God? What does the
circumstantial evidence indicate? -- that man is a creator -- that
man is a non-physical being who enters and temporarily use a physical body to
experience life on Earth -- that life continues after the death of the physical
body --that man is consciousness -- that man is a part of God.
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All
this is nice, but so what? What do you do with this
information? The N.V.P. team recommends that you do nothing with it
except hold each of these two conflicting perspectives as
possibilities. Treat this information from the perspective of the
beginners mind.°
Neither accept it or reject it. Observe your life and see, hear, and
feel what fits into your personal experience.
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People were highly superstitious and could
only guess about how the universe
functioned.