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There are those who believe we are created in the image of God

• The noble man is only God’s image. Johann Ludwig Tieck
• Beloved is man, for he was created in the image of God. Rabbi Akiva
• God made us in His own image so that His image would be shown. John Piper
• God will become visible as God’s image is reborn in you. Bernard of Clairvaux
• Honor the image of God. Human beings are not accidents, but creations. Timothy Keller
• The soul is in itself a most lovely and perfect image of God.  St. John of the Cross
• Check your spiritual birth certificate, you were made in the mighty image of God. Joel Osteen
• You are a mirror of the Almighty…this is the reason you were created…your purpose. Aiden Wilson Tozer
• Be human in this most inhuman of ages; guard the image of man for it is the image of God. Thomas Merton
• First, a man is created in his own image, and only afterwards in the image of God. Menachem Mendel of Kotzk
• Everyone has a spark of divinity inside them. After all, we were created in the image of God. Deepak Chopra
• If all are created in the divine image, then our images of God must be fluid and multifarious. Judith Plaskow
• Man was made in the image of God, and nothing will satisfy Man but God, in whose image he was made. Charles Spurgeon
• Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all. Andre Gide
• So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27
• Humankind was created as God’s reflection: in the divine image God created them; female and male, God made them. Genesis 1:27
• When we can see the image of God where we don’t want to see the image of God, then we see with eyes not our own. Richard Rohr
• From all those created in the image of God there is something to be received, and to them something to be given. Colin Gunton
• For it pleased God, after he had made all things by the word of his power, to create man after his own image. George Whitefield
• Created in the awesome image of God, men and women know that life has a meaning beyond ‘eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.’ Eric Metaxas
• We are made in the image of God, and we need to put Spirit back into the equation when we want to improve our physical and our mental health. Bruce Lipton
• If, as many people believe, there is a God, and that God made us in his own image, then of course we are distinct from nature, just as He is. Roger Scruton
• In the first minute that my soul is infused, the Image of God is imprinted in my soul; so forward is God in my behalf, and so early does he visit me. John Donne
• We are made in the image of God; we carry within us the desire for our true life of intimacy and adventure. To say we want less than that is to lie. John Eldredge
• No human being…is ever conceived outside God’s will or ever conceived apart from God’s image. Life is a gift from God created in His own image. John F. MacArthur
• In order to be an image of God, the spirit must turn to what is eternal, hold it in spirit, keep it in memory, and by loving it, embrace it in the will. Edith Stein
• God created human beings. He created them godlike, reflecting his own nature. God looked over everything he had made . . . And it was good, so very good! Doug Hammack
• I believe that we’re all created in the image of God and we’re all fallen sinners. And I think we can recognize that as we look backward in history. Russell D. Moore
• Christ is the most perfect image of God, into which we are so renewed as to bear the image of God, in knowledge, purity, righteousness, and true holiness. John Calvin
• I don’t claim to know what it means to say that we are made in the image of God, but I profoundly and instinctively believe it and all that it implies. Marilynne Robinson
• For Christians, who believe they are created in the image of God, it is the Godhead, diversity in unity and the three-in-oneness of God, which we and all creation reflect. Desmond Tutu
• God and His Son are glorified personages. God the Father is our living Creator, and His Son, Jesus Christ, is our Savior and Redeemer. We have been created in God’s image. James E. Faust
• Man’s life comes from God: it is his image and imprint, as sharing in his breath of life. God therefore is the sole Lord of this life: Man cannot do with it as he wills. Pope John Paul II
• Each of us has a soul, but we forget to value it. We don’t remember that we are creatures made in the image of God. We don’t understand the great secrets hidden inside of us. Teresa of Avila
• Beloved is man, for he was created in the image of God. Beloved are Israel, for they were called children of God. Beloved are Israel, for unto them was given the desirable Torah. Rabbi Akiva
• In the beginning Man created God; and in the image of Man created he him. And Man gave unto God a multitude of names, that he might be Lord over the earth when it was suited to man. Jethro Tull
• God truly is our Father, the Father of the spirits of all mankind. We are his literal offspring and are formed in his image. We have inherited divine characteristics from him. Joseph B. Wirthlin
• True religion is a union of God with the soul, a real participation of the divine nature, the very image of God drawn upon the soul, or in the apostle’s phrase, it is Christ formed in us. Henry Scougal
• I can never know beforehand how God’s image should appear in others. That image always manifests a completely new and unique form that comes solely from God’s free and sovereign creation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• If the average man is made in God’s image, then a man such as Beethoven or Aristotle is plainly superior to God, and so God may be jealous of him, and eager to see his superiority perish with his bodily frame. H. L. Mencken
• Made as we were in the image of God we scarcely find it strange to take again our God as our All. God was our original habitat and our hearts cannot but feel at home when they enter again that ancient and beautiful abode. Aiden Wilson Tozer
• Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head. Gilbert K. Chesterton

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It is especially the human heart that is created in the image of God

• We don’t understand with our brains but with our hearts. That’s where the image of God is. Reinhard Bonnke
• The widest thing in the universe is not space; it is the potential capacity of the human heart. Being made in the image of God, it is capable of almost unlimited extension in all directions. And one of the world’s greatest tragedies is that we allow our hearts to shrink until there is room in  them for little besides ourselves. Aiden Wilson Tozer

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We are created in the image of God for a purpose…

• I believe we are created in the image of God for a particular purpose, and I believe that with all my heart. Sam Brownback
• Every single human being is created in the image of God; created for dignity, created for the Father’s love, created for kindness, created for mercy. Heidi Baker

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…especially to be in relationship with God…

• Man, made in the image of God, has a purpose – to be in relationship to God, who is there. Man forgets his purpose and thus he forgets who he is and What life means. Francis Schaeffer
• What does it mean to be human? It means we are created in the image of God for the glorious reality of being in permanent fellowship with Him. Ravi Zacharias
• God is infinite and without end, but the soul’s desire is an abyss which cannot be filled except by a Good which is infinite; and the more ardently the soul longeth after God, the more she wills to long after him; for God is a Good without drawback, and a well of living water without bottom, and the soul is made in the image of God, and therefore it is created to know and love God. Johannes Tauler

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…made in God’s image and yet wonderfully diverse

• Isn’t it amazing that we are all made in God’s image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people? Desmond Tutu
• We were all created in His image, and yet we were each created different and unique. No two people are alike. No two hearts beat to the same rhythm. If God had wanted everyone to be the same. He would have made it so. Therefore, disrespecting differences and imposing your thoughts on others is tantamount to disrespecting God’s holy scheme. Elif Safak

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In our capacity for compassion, we exist in the image of God

• This idea of compassion comes to us because we’re made in the image of God, who is ultimately the compassionate one. Jackie Tabick
• We must teach compassion and tolerance and encourage kindness, selflessness, and loving acceptance of all who are created in the image of God. Ephraim Mirvis

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In our capacity for peacefulness, we exist in the image of God

• By being peaceful, quiet, and receptive, you pattern yourself in the image of God, and you regain the power of your Source. Wayne Dyer

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In our capacity for love, we exist in the image of God

• The more a person loves, the closer he approaches the image of God. Martin Luther
• Humanity was created in the image of God; our love is a reflection of his. Meir Soloveichik
• To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Thomas a Kempis
• God doesn’t make mistakes and has made each of us in his own image. God is simply love. There should be no fear in love. Martin O’Malley
• All of us who are human beings are in the image of God. But to be in his likeness belongs only to those who by great love have attached their freedom to God. Diadochos of Photiki
• God is not solitude, but perfect communion. for this reason the human person, the image of God, realizes himself or herself in love, which is a sincere gift of self. Pope Benedict XVI
• We are created in the image of our heavenly parents; we are God’s spirit children. Therefore, we have a vast capacity for love – it is part of our spiritual heritage. Dieter F. Uchtdorf
• To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name. Thomas Merton
• God looks at the world through the eyes of love. If we, therefore, as human beings made in the image of God, also want to see reality rationally, that is, as it truly is, then we, too, must learn to look at what we see with love. Roberta Bondi
• When we teach our children to be good, to be gentle, to be forgiving (all these are attributes of God), to be generous, to love their follow men, to regard this present age as nothing, we instil virtue in their souls, and reveal the image of God within them. Saint John Chrysostom
• We know from the book of Genesis that God created men and women ‘in His image and likeness.’ We know from the first letter of John that ‘God is Love.’ Therefore, men and women are made in the image and likeness of Love. This isn’t hard to see. Look at the design of the male and female bodies. They are made for each other. In fact, neither one makes complete sense apart from the other.  Jason Evert

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In our capacity for forgiveness, we exist in the image of God

• Abrahamic religions promote the idea that humans are “created by God in His own image”, at least that’s what Genesis says about Adam and Eve. Of course this statement applies to meanings of “image” that are not restricted to a visual image: love, forgiveness, etc.. Thomas B. Sheridan

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In our capacity for rationality, we exist in the image of God

• Geometry is one and eternal shining in the mind of God. that share in it accorded to men is one of the reasons that Man is the image of God. Johannes Kepler
• Humans alone are created as rational beings in the image of God, capable of a relationship with God and given by him the capacity to understand the universe in which they live. John Lennox
• Historically, people have said to be made in God’s image is our morality, our sense of right and wrong. Our rationality, our ability to reason. Our spirituality, our ability to relate to God. Our aesthetic sense — you don’t find too many monkeys creating Mona Lisas. Our judicial sense, the whole legal system, a sense of right and wrong and justice and injustice. And I think, frankly, all of those are true and aspects of what it means to be in God’s image. John Piper

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In our capacity for imagination and visualisation, we exist in the image of God

• If we consider ourselves “made in the image of God,” the “image” we share in common with God is to be “image makers,” to be able to create, to visualize, to imagine. Carolyn Jane Bohler

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In our capacity for creativity, we exist in the image of God

• It is the creative potential itself in human beings that is the image of God. Mary Daly
• As image-bearers of God, human beings likewise create in ways that reflect our identity. David Kim
• If we are indeed created in God’s image, then we, too, must create and then we, too, must rest. Erica Brown
• Art is a reflection of God’s creativity, an evidence that we are made in the image of God. Francis Schaeffer
• Creativity is not the work of a few. We each carry within us the image of God the Creator; we each have the task of making the earth into a fairer, kinder place. The first step is imagining a better world, and that is most apt to happen when we suffer or look on suffering. Elizabeth O’Connor
• God must’ve had a blast. painting the stripes on the zebra, hanging the stars in the sky, putting the gold in the sunset. What creativity! Stretching the neck of the giraffe, putting the flutter in the mockingbird’s wings, planting the giggle in the hyena. And then, as a finale to a brilliant performance, He made a human who had the unique honour to bear the stamp, In His Image. Max Lucado

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In our capacity for communion with each other, we collectively exist in the image of God…

• God’s image…is found not best in individual humans, but in humans as they relate to each other. Luke Timothy Johnson
• God reproduces and lives out His image in millions of ordinary people like us. It is a supreme mystery. We are called to bear that image as a Body because any one of us taken individually would present an incomplete image, one partly false and always distorted, like a single glass chip hacked from a mirror. But collectively, in all our diversity, we can come together as a community of believers to restore the image of God in the world. Philip Yancey
• God’s image is the married couple, a man and women, together. Not just the man. Not just the woman. No, both of them. That’s God’s image. Pope Francis

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…though some disagree

• Show me a man or a woman alone and I’ll show you a saint. Give me two and they’ll fall in love. Give me three and they’ll invent the charming thing we call ‘society’. Give me four and they’ll build a pyramid. Give me five and they’ll make one an outcast. Give me six and they’ll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they’ll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home. Stephen King

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In our capacity to change the world, we exist in the image of God

• If changing our world is playing God, it is just one more way in which God made us in His image. Aubrey de Grey

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In our capacity for intimacy and adventure, we exist in the image of God

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In our capacity for ambition, we exist in the image of God

• God like Us suffers the ambition to make a destiny more extraordinary than was conceived for Him, yes God is like Me, only more so. Norman Mailer

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In our capacity for truth and justice, we exist in the image of God

• What we have in us of the image of God is the love of truth and justice. Demosthenes
• If God be God and man a creature made in image of the divine intelligence, his noblest function is the search for truth. Morris West

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Through our inner beauty and potential, we exist in the image of God

• Nothing can be compared to the great beauty and capabilities of a soul; however keen our intellects may be, they are as unable to comprehend them as to comprehend God, for, as He has told us, He created us in His own image and likeness. Saint Teresa of Avila

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As immortal beings, we exist in the image of God

• The reason we have this inner conviction that death is not the end – and that Heaven exists – is because we were created in the image of God. Billy Graham

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If we are created in the image of God, there is no excuse for man’s inhumanity to man

• If man is not made in the image of God, nothing then stands in the way of inhumanity. There is no good reason why mankind should be perceived as special. Human life is cheapened. We can see this in many of the major issues being debated in our society today. Francis Schaeffer
• The image of God carries with it the right not to be mistreated or harmed…. Regardless of their record or character, all human beings have an irreducible glory and significance to them, because God loves them…. So we must treasure each and every human being as a way of showing due respect for the majesty of their owner and Creator. Timothy Keller

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If we are created in the image of God, then we are inherently valuable and worthy

• Each child is made in the image of God and has inherent worth. Jeff Duncan
• It is up to each of us to search for and build upon the gifts which God has given. We must remember that each of us is made in the image of God, that there are no unimportant persons. Everyone matters to God and to his fellowmen. Marvin J. Ashton
• Man is important in one sense only. He was made in the image of God: That is his importance. He is not important for his body, ego, or personality. His constant affirmation of ego-consciousness is the source of all his problems. Paramahansa Yogananda
• Every person is created in the image of God and has value. Every person. Every person is to be treated with respect. Every person is also a citizen of some country. In their country, they have rights and responsibilities; in every other country, they are a guest. James Lankford
• Every person needs to feel significant. We want our lives to count. We yearn to believe that in some way we are important and that hunger for significance-a drive as intense as our need for oxygen-doesn’t come from pride or ego. It comes from God because he wants each of us to understand how important we are. … We must seek our roots, our origin, and our destiny so that we can know our present value. ….. …We can help each other realize that we are persons of significance being made in the image of God. R. C. Sproul

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If we are created in the image of God, then we contain great strength and power…

• To live greatly, we must develop the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and triumph with humility. You ask, ‘How might we achieve these goals?’ I answer, ‘By getting a true perspective of who we really are!’ We are sons and daughters of a living God in whose image we have been created. Think of that truth: ‘Created in the image of God!’ We cannot sincerely hold this conviction without experiencing a profound new sense of strength and power, even the strength to live the commandments of God, the power to resist the temptations of Satan. Thomas S. Monson

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…power that can be realised by realising our oneness with God

• Man is the individualised expression or reflection of God imaged forth and made manifest in bodily form. How is it, then, I hear it asked, that man has the limitations that he has, that he is subject to fears and forebodings, that he is liable to sin and error, that he is the victim of disease and suffering? There is but one reason. He is not living, except in rare cases here and there, in the conscious realisation of his own true Being, and hence of his own true Self.  Ralph Waldo Trine

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If we are created in the image of God, then we contain the capacity for divinity and transcendence

• Here is where our real selfhood is rooted, in the divine spark or seed, in the image of God imprinted on the human soul. The True Self is not our creation, but God’s. It is the self we are in our depths. It is our capacity for divinity and transcendence. Sue Monk Kidd
• The mandala is an archetypal image whose occurrence is attested throughout the ages. It signifies the wholeness of the self. This circular image represents the wholeness of the psychic ground or, to put it in mythic terms, the divinity incarnate in man. Carl Jung
• God intended Earth. God intended the waters. God intended you and me. We were created in the image and the likeness of God; we are holograms, if you will. So the power, the presence, the energy is within you and me. The energy of God, as life, is within each of us. Mary Manin Morrissey

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If we are created in the image of God, then we should live and behave accordingly

• God created us for this: to live our lives in a way that makes him look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth that he really is. This is what it means to be created in the image of God. John Piper
• It is true that all men are created in the image of God, but Christians are supposed to be conscious of that fact, and being conscious of it should recognize the importance of living artistically, aesthetically, and creatively, as creative creatures of the Creator. If we have been created in the image of an Artist, then we should look for expressions of artistry, and be sensitive to beauty, responsive to what has been created for us Edith Schaeffer
• The point of being created in the image of God is that human beings are destined to display God. John Piper
• Sanctification is the real change in man from the sordidness of sin to the purity of God’s image. William Ames
• To glorify God is not just to do so in religious worship, singing praise and enacting the traditional rites of the church. to glorify God is to reveal his character by Being who we were created to be-the embodiment of the image of God in human form. James W. Sire
• The real question is whether we can learn anything from our experiences upon which we may grow and help others to grow in the likeness and image of God.  Bill W.

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If we are created in the image of God, then everyone deserves respect…

• Even guilty people deserve to be treated as those made in the image of God. Max Anders
• Strive to make every person feel special. After all, every person you meet is made in the image of God. Joel Osteen
• Since all people are in the image of God, all deserve to be treated with the dignity the image affords. John H. Walton
• Every human life is a reflection of divinity, and… every act of injustice mars and defaces the image of God in man. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• There is no dichotomy between man and God’s image. Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being, abuses God’s image. Oscar Romero
• I believe that God breathed life into every person and that every person is made in the image of God and you have accept them as they are, on their journey. I’m not here to preach hate or push people down. Joel Osteen
• he who is insolent towards men is insolent towards God… Respect in Man the grand, inestimable image of God and be forbearing towards the faults and errors of fallen Man, so that God may be forbearing towards your own. John of Kronstadt
• Let us be very sincere in our dealings with each other, and have the courage to accept each other as we are. Do not be surprised or become preoccupied at each other’s failures – rather, see and find in each other the good, for each one of us is created in the image of God. Mother Teresa
• All human beings bear God’s image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one’s being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination. John Shelby Spong
• But the dignity of human life is unbreakably linked to the existence of the personal-infinite God. It is because there is a personal-infinite God who has made men and women in His own image that they have a unique dignity of life as human beings. Human life then is filled with dignity, and the state and humanistically oriented law have no right and no authority to take human life arbitrarily in the way it is being taken. Francis Schaeffer

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…for we all are all equal as the image of God

• We believe that all men are created equal because they are created in the image of God Harry S. Truman
• By equality, one once understood equality in the very same sense in which the Bible speaks of equality: that we are all equal, inasmuch as we are created in the image of God. Erich Fromm
• If all men are made in Gods reflection, then why do some people continue to acknowledge only What is in their part of the mirror? If every Man was created equal and in the image of God, then How can any Man claim that one race is better than another? Suzy Kassem
• We believe that all men and women are created in the image of God. We believe that we are all equally created. So the fact of the matter is that we should assume by default that we reject the support of those who do not support the theory, the notion, the fact, that all men are created equally. Tim Scott

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If we are created in the image of God, we are all of great value

• All men bear the image of God. They have value not because they are redeemed, but because they are God’s creation in God’s image. Francis Schaeffer
• All men bear the image of God. They have value not because they are redeemed, but because they are God’s creation in God’s image. Francis Schaeffer

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If we are created in the image of God, we should love everyone

• We must love our neighbor as being made in the image of God and as an object of His love. Vincent de Paul
• Love every Man in spite of his falling into sin. Never mind the sins, but remember that the foundation of the Man is the same – the image of God. John of Kronstadt
• One of the ways we reflect God’s love and bring him glory is to accept each other just as he accepts us. This means we accept others’ quirks and look past their faults in order to see a person created in the image of God. Rick Warren
• We are not to reflect on the wickedness of men but to look to the image of God in them, an image which, covering and obliterating their faults, an image which, by its beauty and dignity, should allure us to love and embrace them. John Calvin
• If we were able to see God’s image in our neighbor, do you think weapons and generals would be needed? Mother Teresa

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If we are created in the image of God, we should try to see that image in everyone

• The supreme religious challenge is to see God’s image in one who is not in our image. Jonathan Sacks

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If we are created in the image of God, we should embrace life as holy…

• And the Lord says, I have made all men in My image. If you know you are a part of Me, you can live in this world and enjoy it as I do. That is the ultimate answer. We do not see this world as God sees it. Paramahansa Yogananda

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…knowing that nature too is made in the image of God…

• Nature has some perfections to Show that she is the image of God, and some defects to Show that she is only his image. Blaise Pascal

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…and the world too is a living image of God

• The world is a living image of God. Tommaso Campanella
• Because creation was made in the image of a God who is equally one and many, the human race will finally be reunited and our racial and cultural diversity will remain intact in the renewed world. The human race finally lives together in peace and interdependence. Glory to God in the highest goes with peace on earth. Timothy Keller

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Some believe man alone is made in the image of God…

• Man alone is made in the image of God. Mahatma Gandhi
• Being made in the image of God, man was the crown of creation. Walter Lang
• Man, made after God’s image, was a nobler creation than twinkling sparks in the sky, or than the larger and more useful lamp of the moon. David Brewster
• The human person is a unique composite – a unity of spirit and matter, soul and body, fashioned in the image of God and destined to live forever. every human life is sacred, because every human person is sacred. Pope John Paul II
• The Bible tells us that God will meet all our needs. He feeds the birds of the air and clothes the grass with the splendor of lilies. How much more, then, will He care for us, who are made in His image? Our only concern is to obey the heavenly Father and leave the consequences to Him. Charles Stanley

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…and some, in less enlightened times, have even argued that women are not

• The image of God, then, involves gender identity and complementarity. God created gender in duality as male and female. Andrew Comiskey
• Woman does not possess the image of God in herself but only When taken together with the male who is her head, so that the whole substance is one image. but When she is assigned the role as helpmate, a function that pertains to her alone, then she is not the image of God. but as far as the Man is concerned, he is by himself alone the image of God just as fully and completely as When he and the Woman are joined together into one. Saint Augustine
• People will often, almost always, prefer a male God. A male image of God gives them this sense of security, safety, order, no nonsense. So that’s where their psyche is at. Probably it’s something that they’ve got to go through. Not that there isn’t a need for order in the world, but the mystical level seems to be the mature level of religion, and there the question is not order but union – divine union. And so, without some integration of the feminine, usually you never get to the mystical level. Richard Rohr
• How can women be in the image of God If God cannot be imaged in female form? Marcus Borg

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Some argue that our imperfect nature does not detract from the fact that we exist in the image of God

• We can only know one thing about God – that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him. Simone Weil
• The author squares man’s depravity with still being made in the image of God with this word picture. A vase that has held beautiful roses though now broken, will nevertheless hold something of the fragrance it once contained. Aiden Wilson Tozer
• The image of God always abides in the soul, whether this image be obsolete and clouded over as to amount to almost nothing; or whether it be obscured or disfigured, as is the case with sinners; or whether it be clear and beautiful as is the case with the just. Thomas Aquinas
• Never confuse the person, formed in the image of God, with the evil that is in him: because evil is but a chance misfortune, an illness, a devilish reverie. But the very essence of the person is the image of God, and this remains in him despite every disfigurement. John of Kronstadt
• We have to reformulate moral standards. human beings have to impose limits on themselves When it comes to their actions and desires. There is a beautiful and very radical notion in the bible: Man is made in the image of God, no matter How sick, poor or damaged he is. we should try to transpose this maxim to our secular and constitutional self-image. Gotz Aly
• Man is indeed lost, but that does not mean that he is nothing. We must resist humanism, but to make a man a zero is not the right way to resist it … [The] Christian position is that man is made in the image of God and even though he is now a sinner, he can do things that are tremendous – he can influence history for this life and the life to come, for himself and for others…From the biblical viewpoint, man is lost, but great. Francis Schaeffer
• Within each of us exists the image of God, however disfigured and corrupted by sin it may presently be. God is able to recover this image through grace as we are conformed to Christ. Just as the figure of David lay hidden within the marble, discernible only to the eye of its creator, so the image of God (however tarnished by sin) lies within us, see and known by God Himself. Yet God loves us while we are still sinners. He doesn’t have to wait until we stop sinning. Acceptance of His love is a major step along the road that leads to our liberation from the tyranny of sin. Alister E. McGrath

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Some say we are created in the image of God but far from being God

• Man in the flesh is essentially imperfect. He may be described as being made in the image of God but is far from being God. Mahatma Gandhi   
• I go through life as a transient on his way to eternity, made in the image of God but with that image debased, needing to be taught How to meditate, to worship, to think. Donald Coggan
• It’s the fact that your body and your personality are not God. God is you. But you can’t say you are God just as the ocean is all the waves, but you can’t say one wave is the ocean. And so you manifest God in a way that you don’t understand. Man himself is the image of God, but he doesn’t see that image in himself. And you need to meditate, and there will come your answer, not looking in the mirror. Goswami Kriyananda

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Some say we may exist as images of God, but it’s only through virtue that we can say we exist in the likeness of God

• Every man possesses that which is according to the image of God, for the gifts of God are irrevocable (Rom. 11:29). But only a few? those who are virtuous and holy, and have imitated the goodness of God to the limit of human powers ? possess that which is according to the likeness of God. John of Damascus
• This perfection is the restoration of man to the state of holiness from which he fell, by creating him anew in Christ Jesus, and restoring to him that image and likeness of God which he has lost. Adam Clarke
• All of us who are human beings are in the image of God. But to be in his likeness belongs only to those who by great love have attached their freedom to God. Diadochos of Photiki
• God is resplendently reflected in the souls of His chosen ones, and these pure souls, these images of God, like the transparent glass, shine forth like gold in the sun, like diamonds of the purest water, but they shine for God and the angels, not revealing their brightness to men, although at times, by God’s ordering, they do shine even for them, by the light of their faith, their virtues, when necessary, similar to a candle put on a candlestick in a room, and lighting the room with all those who are in it. (cf. Mt. 5:15). John of Kronstadt

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Our human mind can be said to be a mirror reflection of the divine mind…

• The human mind matches the cosmic mind. Deepak Chopra and Menas Kafatos
• On seeing one thing, you see all things. On perceiving an individual’s mind, you perceive all minds. Glimpse one truth, and all truth is present in your vision, for there is nowhere at all that is devoid of the Truth. Huangbo Xiyun
• You know how the divine Simplicity enfolds all things. Mind is the image of this enfolding Simplicity. If, then, you called this divine Simplicity infinite Mind, it will be the exemplar of our mind. If you called the divine mind the totality of the truth of things, you will call our mind the totality of the assimilation of things, so that it may be a totality of ideas. In the divine Mind conception is the production of things; in our mind conception is the knowledge of things. If the divine Mind is absolute Being, then its conception is the creation of beings; and conception in the human mind is the assimilation of beings. Nicholas of Cusa
• According to Zen philosophy each human being has two minds, a finite mind and an infinite mind. Frederick Lenz
• Anything that can occur within the greater Universal Mind can be replicated in our seemingly individualized mind. Martin E Moore
• It could be that one mind controls all the others, as the Calvinists thought, and that this mind has decided from all eternity who is to be damned and who is to be saved. For one mind could be the original and all the others could be images of it which would be changed if the original so decided — in the way that a mirror image can be changed by changing the composition or angle of the light used to reflect it. Leslie Armour

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…and in this respect, you could say we are made in the image of God

• Geometry is one and eternal shining in the mind of God. That share in it accorded to men is one of the reasons that Man is the image of God. Johannes Kepler
• The power of thought is one point in which man is made in the image of God. Charles Haddon Spurgeon
• There is nothing more divine than mind, nothing more potent in its operation, nothing more apt to unite men to gods, and gods to men. Larry Dossey
• We can understand Universal Mind and Universal Thought only by analogy, by considering our own particular mind and thought and reasoning there from up to Infinity. William Walker Atkinson
• You are the Microcosm, corresponding in nature and essence with the Macrocosm of which you are the focal point of expression. You partake of ITS nature and being; you are like unto IT in spirit; you are made in ITS spiritual image. Like IT, you possess the Creative Spirit, and you are manifesting (to a greater or less extent) the activities of Creation in your everyday life. William Walker Atkinson
• Within each of us exists the image of God. Alister E. McGrath
• If God be God and man a creature made in image of the divine intelligence, his noblest function is the search for truth. Morris West
• What does it mean that we are made in the image of God? God is an awareness from which perceptions arise and are known, otherwise known as a Universal Mind.  We too are an awareness from which perceptions arise and are known, known as a human mind. The difference is that our field of awareness is filtered and therefore much more narrow that that of God.  Anthony Lambert

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The human mind is a microcosm of the macrocosm that is God’s mind

• A part must be the same in kind and quality as the whole, the only difference being one of degree. Charles Haanel
• As is the human body, so is the cosmic body. As is the human mind, so is the cosmic mind. As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm. As is the atom, so is the universe. The Upanishads
• Divine Mind can manifest in the soul in miniature form—a microcosm of that macrocosm. H. Almaas
• As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm, As is the atom, so is the universe, As is the human mind, so is the cosmic mind. Deepak Chopra
• As the Sun is reflected in the Ocean, and in every tiny drop of the ocean if they be separated, so is the Absolute (God) reflected in the bosom of the Great Universal Mind and in each manifestation of that Mind as a ‘Soul.’ William Walker Atkinson
• All things were together, infinite both in number and in smallness; for the small too was infinite. Anaxagoras
• On seeing one thing, you see all things. On perceiving an individual’s mind, you perceive all minds. Glimpse one truth, and all truth is present in your vision, for there is nowhere at all that is devoid of the Truth. Huangbo Xiyun
• All know that the drop merges into the ocean but few know that the ocean merges into the drop. Kabir
• The near explains the far. The drop is a small ocean. A man is related to all nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• The ocean is a large drop; a drop is a small ocean. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• You are not the drop in the ocean, but the ocean in the drop. Deepak Chopra

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• Instead of holding on to the Biblical view that we are made in the image of God, we come to realize that we are made in the image of the monkey. Lin Yutang
• The real question is, Did God use evolution as His plan? If it could be shown that man, instead of being made in the image of God, is a development of beasts we would have to accept it, regardless of its effort, for truth is truth and must prevail. But when there is no proof we have a right to consider the effect of the acceptance of an unsupported hypothesis. William Jennings Bryan
• Unless one is a religious fundamentalist and believes that man was created in the image and likeness of God, it is foolish to believe that human beings are exempt from biological classification and the laws of evolution that apply to all other life forms. Philippe Rushton

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Some believe it is we who create God with our imaginations

• God waits for us to create him. – Dominique de Menil
• Man created God in his own image. Ludwig Feuerbach
• When men make gods, there is no God! Eugene O’Neill
• The universe… is a machine for the making of gods. Henri Bergson
• God was created by evolution, inside the imagination… Steve Fowler
• I do not believe in God, but I believe God is man’s greatest idea. Camille Paglia
• Our notions of God are tinged by our own characters and ignorance. Austin O’Malley
• Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders? Friedrich Nietzsche
• It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him. Arthur C. Clarke
• People fashion their God after their own understanding. They make their God first and worship him afterwards. Oscar Wilde
• What gods are there, what gods have there ever been, that were not from man’s imagination? Joseph Campbell
• Man is quite insane. He wouldn?t know how to create a maggot, and he creates Gods by the dozen. Michel de Montaigne
• All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours. Aldous Huxley
• Faith is a very clever concept. We invented God from our imagination and we use faith to justify His absence from reality. J. Anderson
• Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. Robert Heinlein
• To imagine the world without gods and religion is reasonable enough; to imagine mankind without them is an entirely different matter. Anthony Marais
• There is no place in the Humanist worldview for either immortality or God in the valid meanings of those terms. Humanism contends that instead of the gods creating the cosmos, the cosmos, in the individualized form of human beings giving rein to their imagination, created the gods. Corliss Lamont
• Grant that the idea of God is the most splendid single act of the creative human imagination, and that all his multiple faces and attributes correspond to some need and satisfy some deep desire in mankind; still, for the Inquirers, it is impossible not to conclude that this mystical concept has been harnessed rudely to machinery of the most mundane sort, and has been made to serve the ends of an organization which, ruling under divine guidance, has ruled very little better, and in some respects, worse, than certain rather mediocre but frankly manmade systems of government. Katherine Anne Porter

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We create God in our image…

• Man created God, not God, man. Giuseppe Garibaldi
• Man makes god in his own image. Friedrich Nietzsche
• All your images of God are your own creation. Rajneesh
• Each man creates god in his own image. Mordecai Richler
• We created god in our own image and likeness! George Carlin
• Gods always behave like the people who make them. Zora Neale Hurston
• God made in the image of Man is an imperfect master. Laurence Overmire
• Gods always behave like the people who make them. Zora Neale Hurston
• If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor. Voltaire
• God made man in his own image, and man returned the favour. Frank Wedekind
• If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated. Voltaire
• On the sixth day God created man. On the seventh day, man returned the favor.
• If god created man in his own image, how come I’m not invisible? David Powers
• On the sixth day God created man. On the seventh day, man returned the favor.
• If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated. Voltaire 
• In the beginning Man created God; and in the image of Man created he him. Jethro Tull
• If God has created us in His image, we have more than returned the compliment. Voltaire
• Man created God in his image: intolerant, sexist, homophobic and violent. Marie de France
• Moreover, we are showing a dismaying tendency to recast God in Man’s image. James L. Buckley
• God created man in his own image. And man, being a gentleman, returned the favor. Henri Rousseau
• God said, Let us make man in our image. Man said, ‘Let us make God in our image. Douglas William Jerrold
• We say that God is the Uncreated One and then proceed to create God in our own image. Morris T. Johnstone
• You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. Anne Lamott
• God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the process: they create God in theirs. Georg C. Lichtenberg
• It is not as in the Bible, that God created man in his own image. But, on the contrary, man created God in his own image. Ludwig Feuerbach
• It is said that God has created man in his own image. But it may be that humankind has created God in the image of humankind. Thich Nhat Hanh
• There is an old joke that went around- it goes, in the beginning God made man in His own image, and since the fall, man has been seeking to return the compliment. Alistair Begg
• Man made ‘God’ in his own image. The eternal, the infinate, the unnameable was reduced to a mental idol that you had to believe in and worship as ‘my god’ or ‘our god’. Eckhart Tolle
• It was the greatest honor God did to man that he made man in the image of God; but it is the greatest dishonor man has done to God that he has made God in the image of man. Matthew Henry
• In the beginning, Man created God In the image of Man created he him And Man gave unto God a multitude of names, That he might be Lord of all the earth . . . When it was suited to Man. Jethro Tull
• God is not a Being who exists independently of us, but is instead a product of our language and ideas. This can be restated: God did not create us in God’s image; we created God in our image. Don Cupitt
• I believe that a triangle, if it could speak, would say that God is eminently triangular, and a circle that the divine nature is eminently circular; and thus would every one ascribe his own attributes to God. Baruch Spinoza
• Man first creates the universe in his image, and then turns round to say that God created man in his image… As Voltaire quipped, if God created man in his image, man has returned the compliment. Neel Burton
• God did not create man in his own image. Evidently, it was quite the other way about, which is the painless explanation for the profusion of gods and religions, and the fratricide both between and among faiths, that we see all about us and that has so retarded the development of civilization. Christopher Hitchens
• During the youthful period of mankind’s spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man’s own image, who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence, the phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favour by means of magic and prayer. Albert Einstein
• We often create God in our own images. That is not to say that it is good or bad that we do so, but simply to say that we do it. It is something our spiritual ancestors did. It is something we do today. We project onto God traits that are human. Of course we do. We can understand human, and we cannot understand the Divine. Doug Hammack
• In the face of nature’s overwhelming forces, humans needed a God who would protect them from harm. When they felt that they had broken the law or committed wrongdoing, people turned to a God who would judge them on the one hand and redeem their sins on the other. In this way, purely from self-interest, the project of creating God in our own image proceeded–and continues to proceed. Deepak Chopra
• There’s an old saying that God made us in His image, and we’ve been trying to return the favor ever since. People often view God in a human image. This God changes His mind, gets upset, answers some prayers but not others, loves some people but not others. But even with that limited image, if we pray sincerely, we’ll eventually realize that God is changeless.  He’s the same all the time because He’s not in time–time is in Him.   Michael Beckwith
• The awful atrocities of religion happened when people assume that God shares your likes and dislikes. The Crusaders went into battle to kill Muslims and Jews and cried, God wills it. That was their battle cry. Obviously God willed no such thing. The Crusaders were simply projecting onto a deity they’d created on their own image and likeness, all their hatred and loathing of these faiths and made it endorse some of their most awful prejudices and lethal prejudices. Karen Armstrong
• There is no God separate from you, no God higher than you, the real you. All the gods are little beings to you, all the ideas of God and Father in heaven are but your own reflection. God Himself is your image. “God created man after His own image. That is wrong. Man creates God after his own image. That is right. Throughout the universe we are creating gods after our own image. We create the god and fall down at his feet and worship him; and when this dream comes, we love it ! Swami Vivekananda

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…as part of our search for meaning

• In the search for meaning we must not forget that the gods (or God, for that matter) are a concept of the human mind; they are the creatures of man, not vice versa. They are needed and invented to give meaning and purpose to the struggle that is life on Earth, to explain strange and irregular phenomena of nature, haphazard events and, above all, irrational human conduct. They exist to bear the burden of all things that cannot be comprehended except by supernatural intervention or design.  Barbara Tuchman

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If triangles had a God, He’d have three sides

• There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three- sided. Charles De Montesquieu
• If cows and horses had hands and could draw, cows would draw Gods that look like cows and horses. Xenophanes

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As a result, our images of God are flawed

• Everything flows from God, but we are limited by imposing our human perceptions upon him. Man designs God according to his own image and the image man has of himself is flawed. Tobsha Learner
• Imagination magnifies small objects with fantastic exaggeration until they fill our soul, and with bold insolence cuts down great things to its own size, as when speaking of God. Blaise Pascal
• It is only partly true that religion does more harm than good in society. The community makes God into the image it wants, vengeful, or milky sweet, or scrupulously just, and so on. Mary Douglas
• A God whom we could understand exhaustively, and whose revelation of Himself confronted us with no mysteries whatsoever, would be a God in man’s image, and therefore an imaginary God, not the God of the Bible at all. J. I. Packer
• Deities are invented by fallible and finite beings in the hope and desire to create immortal perfection; unfortunately, such deities only reflect their creators and inspire their followers to similar imperfections. E. Modesitt Jr.
• Yet a personal God can become a grave liability. He can be a mere idol carved in our own image, a projection of our limited needs, fears and desires. we can assume that he loves What we love and hates What we hate, endorsing our prejudices Instead of compelling us to transcend them. Karen Armstrong
• No, let us not make God in our image, poor inhabitants that we are of a distant planet lost in infinite space. However brilliant and sublime our intelligence may be, it is scarcely more than a small spark which shines and in an instant is extinguished, and it alone can give us no idea of that blaze, that conflagration, that ocean of light! Jose Rizal
• The gods we make in our own image are tribal gods. They tell you how very, very little you should tolerate outsiders, who are less favoured of the Lord. Amazingly, there are no recorded cases of the holy man going up the mountain and finding that it’s the others who are right. It always turns out that God wants unbelievers to suffer, and what could be more noble than to help him a little? When religion rules, toleration disappears, for you cannot cherish the verdict of death to the infidels, yet also tolerate those who disagree – for those are the very same infidels… Simon Blackburn

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We humanise God

• Some of the most beautiful and moving writing in history speaks of God in human terms. It is one of the best ways we make meaning. We compare something we don’t know to something we do. We use what we can experience to understand and talk about that which we cannot. So humanizing God is not a bad thing. It’s just an incomplete thing. Doug Hammack
• The word “anthropomorphism” comes from two Greek words: anthropos (humanity), and morphous (having a shape or form). It means to give a human form to something that isn’t human. In religion, it points to our tendency to project human characteristics onto God. We get angry, so we assume God gets angry. We treat people according to how they treat us; God must do the same. Doug Hammack

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God becomes a projection of the human mind…

• How we see God is a direct reflection of how we see ourselves. If God brings to mind mostly fear and blame, it means there is too much fear and blame welled inside us. If we see God as full of love and compassion, so are we. Elif Safak

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…a projection of our human frailty

• I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own – a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty.  Albert Einstein
• The traditional God is a patriarchal, controlling authority figure, an often angry man who you should live in fear of, as the Old Testament suggests. This God is a projection of the human mind. Eckhart Tolle
• To think that God is compassionate is a terrible mistake. To think that God is wrathful is equally stupid. God isn’t emotional. You are. To superimpose your emotions on infinity is typically human. Frederick Lenz
• We have made up a God in our image. Because we are angry and judgmental, we have projected those characteristics onto Him. But God remains who He is and always will be: He is the energy, the thought of unconditional love. He cannot think with anger or judgment. He is mercy and compassion and total acceptance. Marianne Williamson
• The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Richard Dawkins

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Our images of God tells us more about ourselves than about God

• Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him. Thomas Merton
• Whatever conclusions we reach about the reality of God, the history of this idea must tell us something important about the human mind and the nature of our aspiration. Karen Armstrong

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• How convinced are you that man was created in the image of God when you can’t see the image of God? Michael Bassey

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• Man was made in God’s image. Do you really think God has red hair and glasses? Woody Allen
• Being made merely in the image of God but not otherwise resembling him enough to be mistaken by anybody but a very near sighted person. Mark Twain
• If we were created in God’s image, then when God was a child he smushed fire ants with his fingertips and avoided tough questions. Buddy Wakefield
• Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a moustache. Gilbert K. Chesterton

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