1. notleia says:

    Yeah, it’s one of those beliefs that end up bizarrely deep seated. Apparently my grandma is reflexively nervous about my aunt intending to be cremated. Sorry, Grandma, but embalming is EXPENSIVE and kinda wasteful. Also the embalmer did a crap job on Great-Grandma’s death makeup and kinda scarred Mom for life.

  2. Travis Perry says:

    Mark, I agree with you that the condition of our bodies at death is not something we need to worry about. God is more than capable of assembling all the atoms that were inside us (if that’s how resurrection in fact works).

    I do think it’s worth mentioning that being in the image of God, in my opinion, is not a physical likeness. God is described as being invisible, infinite in expanse, yet having a consciousness present in every location. It is literally impossible for any version of a human body to do that.

    I think our reflection of the image of God is less literal. God does not have physical hands, but has spiritual forces that do what our hands do (yet on a vaster scale). He does not have a physical mouth, but he speaks. He lacks physical ears, yet he hears. No legs, yet he moves, etc.

    In other words I believe that God took things that are true about himself, things that derive from non-physical sources and ingeniously made a piece of walking and talking flesh that on a small scale can do all of the things he does. We are therefore a reflection of who God is, but not a physical or outward reflection–at least that makes sense to me from what I read in the Bible about how God is described.

    Though I do of course recognize that historically speaking, it has been pretty common for Christians to believe we physically look like God.

What do you think?