I am delighted by your list. You couldn't have made me happier.
At 12:20 PM 5/26/98 -0400, Jim Bell wrote:
>Glenn writes:
>
><<Exactly what objective criteria would you advance that we can see in the
>fossil record which would allow us to infer the existence of the Image of
>God?>>
>
>I think Henry's list is a good place to start:
>
>1. rational understanding (Gen. 1:28ff.)
Lets see. Rational. If I make a stone tool, chop down a tree, make another
stone tool and use it to whittle on the tree making a point (out of the
hardest part of the wood) and then fashion the rest of the tree into the
back part of a spear, and then balance it just right so that it won't flip
over when I throw this spear, and then I sneak up on a deer in the woods
and throw this spear at him, and it sticks in his side, I can then follow
him until the deer bleeds to death. Making another set of stone tools I
can skin and butcher the beast and take him home where I can build a fire
and cook him.
That is rational thinking. Homo erectus used EXACTLY that line of
reasoning at Schoningen, Germany 400,000 years ago. OK, he was rational.
>2. moral obedience (2:16-17)
This one we can't find fossil evidence for but then I can't prove that the
Egyptians from 4500 BC were morally obedient either. They left no evidence
of moral obedience.
>3. religious communion (3:3).
"But Mania's most intriguing find lies under a protective shed. As he
opens the door sunlight illuminates a cluster of smooth stones and pieces
of bone that he believes were arranged by humans to pave a 27-foot-wide
circle.
"'They intentionally paved this area for cultural activities,' says Mania.
'We found here a large anvil of quartzite set between the horns of a huge
bison, near it were fractured human skulls.'" ~ Rick Gore, "The First
Europeans," National Geographic, July, 1997, p. 110
In any other context we would describe this as a religious altar. Homo
erectus built a religious altar 400,000 years ago. And this was found in a
'village' with 3 huts. Sounds like they were communing with each other
also. It is quite logical to assume (as we would for the Egyptians), that
H.E. was engaged in a religious practice.
I know you don't like these things but are you sure that your really
looking at the data?
>
>Note that #2 requires a code, and #3 requires an object of communion, not
>mere "consciousness."
The quartzite was the object of communion upon which they may have
sacrificed humans.
>
>You know what this means, of course. There may NOT be any evidence in the
>"fossil record." The evidence may go back only so far as the Sumerians.
>Hard as it is to accept, Glenn, you may not be able to find evidence for
>everything you desire.
And you may not be able to recognize it. :-)
>
><<Is the definition of the image of God someone who looks exactly as us?
>If art, religious articles, burial, and altars won't convince someone that
>there is a spirituality among a given ancient human, I fear that nothing
>will.>>
>
>What is "spirituality"? What is "religious"? These amorphous terms can be
>mangled to mean just about anything. They are not rigorous enough to help
>us here. Find a Neanderthal site with the 10 Commandments, and you're onto
>someting.
Find a pre-dynastic Egyptian site with the 10 commandments. YOu can't. They
couldn't write and neither could the Neanderthals. Are you suggesting that
writing is the Image of God?
glenn
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm