MAN/WOMAN AS IMAGE OF GOD and WHY THIS IS NOT THE HONOUR IT SEEMS TO BE

The Bible says that we are made in the pattern of Adam and Eve, in the image of God. God reflects us and we reflect him.  Christianity says you are not just an animal.  Something has been added to you so you need God.

The us as image of God notion says that if we do certain things to ourselves then that is a direct violation of him. He has copyrighted us. If I copyright my photo and somebody tears it up in front of me that is like what we are doing to God.  The Church bases its ideas of human dignity on us being made by God and designed by God.  The idea that God wants us to have body autonomy and shape our bodies into cats if it makes us happy or makes us feel more authentic to ourselves renders this notion meaningless.  An image of God that can mean anything is useless.  But if we are not made in the image of God or if our choice is what matters not his then religion and God belief are oppressing millions.  If you don't feel oppressed they are still potentially oppressing you.  It is oppression to run after what is not oppressing you for it can't find a way how to.

Genesis teaches God made us male and female in his own image.  Read Genesis 1:26-27.  There it says let us make mankind in our image and in our likeness that they may rule so God made mankind is his own likeness and in his image he made them and male and female he created them.  This text is saying something different from Eve being made in God's image.  And Adam being made in the divine image.  Here, TOGETHER they are God's image.  Marriage is declared to show man and woman both are in the image of God.  That is one reason for the poetic way here how God is referred to at the start as not he but we. 

Some trying to read what we now know of gender not being the same as sex try to read it back into the text.  They chant, "Genesis uses a merismos.  This is a device in scripture and other texts where you get the impression they are only describing two different things when they are in fact describing them and all in between.  You will be told God made night and day meaning them and everything in between."  But this assumes that man and woman in the Bible are just a merismos.  This is not as obvious as night and day is.  If you think of Adam and Eve as very like apes what happens then?  And what of Jesus having said a man must stay with his wife for marital sex is body fits body and becoming one flesh?  A man who is not truly a man but a woman cannot be asked to do that.  If you marry somebody who does not know who they are and that is revealed in time then the marriage should perhaps end.

Jesus spoke of himself as God's image and referred to that teaching to ban divorce.

Jesus regarded Genesis as having full authority and referred to it to defend the idea of man being man and woman being woman and so the two bodies are meant to fit together in marriage for life and divorce is impossible in the eyes of God.     The same material in Genesis says God made man in his own image and likeness and in the image of his own self he made them male and female.  So the idea of man and woman as expressions of one God implies they picture God and this is his plan.  They are to unite to show the picture.  Now to say he made them in HIS image when they are male and female implies that woman is nothing in herself and what matters is that she complements man.  She is the same sex as him but an inferior model.  Her body exists for his penetration and invasion and she must serve by his side - no wonder Eve was made from Adam's rib.

Genesis has God using "we" but nevertheless stresses God's unity and oneness.  The idea is that all of man and all of woman pictures and reflects God.  Take sex characteristics.  For a woman to change her body to become like a man is a sin.  For a man to change his body to become like a woman is a sin.  In those days, male transgenders would have been castrated in many cases.  All that is condemned.  The implication is that you should be at peace with your body for all of it is from God and the picture he has made of himself.  This attacks the experience of gender or sex dysphoria.  Today, we rightly see such teachings as hateful and bigoted.

So it is said that God made man in his own image and male and female created he them.  As Genesis says God has no rivals and is one it is believed the image of God is shown mainly in how human nature is a unity.  The entire human being is the image of God.  As human is man and woman there is a hint here of how male and female bodies fit with penis and vagina.

We read that Adam had a son after his own image and likeness.  Some compare this to God making Adam in his image.  But the wording being similar does not mean that its the same thing.  Genesis is clear that Adam had no father. Thinking the text is saying God has a male body is going too far.

Religion tells us your dignity is based on you being made by God in his image. If God did not make you and if you are not in his image or this image is too vague to mean much or to to be of any clear use the implication is that you have no dignity. Instead of just seeing you have dignity religion needs to come up with a theory to base it on. It is artifice. It is artificial. It is shallow. It is about seeing you not as you but through a religious prism. The major basic question we have is what consciousness is. The God idea tells us nothing at all about that. 

So far we see that the Bible does not dignify woman as woman but only in relation to men and in relation to a God who prefers he/pronouns and to be a picture of manhood.  It does not matter if God is not literally male.  In fact his wanting to be pictured as male is what matters and is the problem.  Get it!  Genesis says that God, HE, created man and woman in HIS likeness.  What an extraordinary use of pronouns!  What would it mean to say a woman is in a male identified image?  She is to be the mirror of man that he can enjoy his vanity with.  It is like how Paul wrote that man is the direct image of God and woman is the image of man who is the image of God.  She is the image indirectly.  This unpacks the male and female structure and nothing else is allowed.  It is patriarchy.

Though the Bible at its very start says all men and all women are in the image of God - God is in them so we learn what he is like from learning about people, Jesus is portrayed in the New Testament as the word or image of God. The evil thing about that is that it implies he is the only image of God you need. It totally makes the image of God doctrine obsolete or if not obsolete impractical. If Jesus was a fraud then we must not lose sight of how cruel that fraud is. And what if that fraud was aided by evil spirits?

Christians claim that there is more dignity if you are made for God than if you are made for an ignoble thing such as yourself so those who say we must love people not God or more than God are wrong (Radio Replies, Vol 3, Question 1001). In other words, you don’t have any dignity of your own at all. You need to believe in God to get dignity. The Christians are saying, "You are rubbish. You have no dignity. God made you for himself and God is good. Therefore this gives you dignity." That is a complete contradiction.

To say that God gives dignity is a lie because he is only believed in. It is belief in God that gives the dignity. And it is artificial dignity for nothing can give you true dignity if you are not entitled to it. If you need belief to give yourself dignity then you have not got the dignity at all. You are only trying to rationalise your dignity into existence. You have as much dignity as the pauper who thinks he is the emperor of the world enrobed in majesty and glory.

The Genesis doctrine is supposed to be that God made all from nothing. The sun for example was made by magic.  Man however is not directly created but made from the earth.  It would be odd if he did that when he used dirt, probably excrement as there were animals around, to make a man. Then he used the man’s rib to make woman. Whatever this is, it is not very affirming of human nature.  The idea is that the physical is rubbish and it is only what God adds in, the breath of life, that the man and woman start to matter.  I repeat, man was not special enough to be made by divine magic.

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