As for idea of people becoming a god, that’s going to be a pretty tough sell to Christians since it ends up going against the first commandment: You shall have no other gods before me (Exodus 20:3). As for the body as a temple passage, it occurs once (1 Corinthians 6:19) and the context of the verses surrounding it have to do with sexual immorality and reminding Christians that the Holy Spirit lives inside of them and they should remember to practice responsible stewardship of their bodies, since “You are not your own” (end of verse 19). The rest of the temple passages deal with the actual temple building or the corporate church. There is nothing about “looking within oneself” to become a god as man is corrupted by sin and cannot improve himself.

As for man being created in God’s image (imago Dei) traditionally it is the qualities such as reason, morality, creativity (such as art), and capacity for relationships governed by love and commitment that sets man apart from the other animals a well as that man represents God as having the authority to rule over the other animals of the earth.

We can email or IM about this but a phone call sometime might be more practical.

what about islam?

Uh, what about it?

The idea that we're all gods, it's in ourselves, though, really sounds to me like some new-age hippy dippy stuff, and while maybe interesting, doesn't really sound like it has much to do with "christianity" in any meaningful way.

It doesn't sound like hippy dippy stuff to me. It sounds empowering - that each of us has tremendous untapped power. And this isn't something we can type out to really truly understand each other, so… "okay." I don't know what more to say.

I think there's less separating a lot of the religions out there than people seem willing to admit.

(And the 20,000 year thing is from a previous post not long ago. One to which you responded, so I think you know where that came from. I just mean the fundamentalist side of things is on perhaps the opposite end of the spectrum from this way of interpreting the Bible.)

I agree that the christian "image" of god has less to do with physical form (what use would God have with arms?) and more to do with mind. Our drive to create, our understanding of self and death and love, etc. Most of the concepts we see as distinctly "human" things are the way we're made in "God's image." ...that's always been an interesting take to me.

The idea that we're all gods, it's in ourselves, though, really sounds to me like some new-age hippy dippy stuff, and while maybe interesting, doesn't really sound like it has much to do with "christianity" in any meaningful way. Dan Brown seems to use the bible like a numerologist uses a math book.