And God said, Let there be light: and there was light

Ya know that guy who used to walk around Victorian London lighting the gas lamps? You see him Jack the Ripper movies all the time. That guy.

If you don't take Genesis literally, then it is just a bit of poetic imagery... not unlike other fantastic creation myths from all over the world.

If you do take Genesis literally, then there are only a few possibilities. He was talking to himself. Or maybe he was speaking to the various throngs of angels. Or maybe he was speaking to Satan.

Can't think of anyone else around he could have been speaking to.

Serious answer (and Async will probably be along to expand and explain in depth)?

He was declaring something that was not to be as if it were. Because of the declaration, it was. The audience at the time was the angels but, even if they hadn't existed, the act of declaration made it happen.

As an aside, the Gospel of John spends a lot of time referring to Jesus as the Word made flesh. It's another strong tie between the Old and New Testaments.

Let me guess, you want to pound Mrs. Garrison's badge, don't you?

You want to pound it hard, make him squeal like pig, you randy little bugger. You'll have to wait in line until the classier Richard Dawkin's is done with, but you guys have a good party when you get there, 'kay?

Girly little troll, go back to protesting people hurting other people, it's more natural, and with a slightly higher ground up on the hill.

What Bock said. God was speaking into the nothing that preceded creation, and by the thought and word made nothing into everything.

He was talking to Daffy Duck.

Who are you communicating with when you are thinking to yourself?

I'd like to say that the point was that God merely has to say something and it becomes so, but that wouldn't explain this:
"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..." Gen 1:26

Catholics would argue that "our" refers to the Holy Trinity. Marxists would say that religion is an opiate for the masses...

Wouldn't you know it? My 666th post is about religion. Go figure.

Himself?

When you create a sammich for yourself, do you not visualize it beforehand, maybe ask yourself what you want on it?

Let there be......ROCK!

Tellin' ya... Daffy Duck.

Didn't mean to be mean spirited- South Park featured a mock of a guy named Richard Dawkins, apparently a noted athiest who doesn't just disbelieve, hehas to shove it into everyone's face how much he disbelieves. Your thread, which makes about fifty thousand trolling Christianity, many of them involving the same kind of childish ones where you make a big deal of some words in the bible, and apply extreme or literally meaning, reminded me of this Richard Dawkins, who in that SP episode happend to find a gay tranny teacher named "Mrs. Garrison" attractive, so he hooked up with him/her and did all kinds of unnatural things to the elementary school teacher.

So, in answer to your question, a bit deranged perhaps, but definitely not insane.

It's called a rhetorical device, Dan.

Indeed, who has not, when home alone, said out loud "I'm hungry, what do i want to eat?"

Ar we thus insane?

We are discussing religion, are we not?

A few possibilities: 1. He was speaking to the Holy Trinity, as suggested, but that doesn't make sense if the Holy Ghost is taken literally -- he'd have no body, therefore wouldn't be in God's image.
2. God was using the royal we tense -- referring to himself in the third person.
3. There is a parthenon and council of gods, irrelevant to Man (Thou shalt not have any other Gods before me) and their worship, and this is the only mention of them.

Ansync, I still owe you a response from the other thread, in terms of Mormon ascension to Godhood. I haven't forgotten; I just haven't gotten to it yet.

Actually, it's called a metaphor.

The audience of other Gods who were attending his magic show.

So God called over some mates one day. Allah, Ba'al, Tiamat, Krishna, Odin, Cthulu, Osiris, Quetzalcoatl, Satan... the usual crew. His redneck friend Zeus was too busy fucking his sister Hera to come over.

Anyway, God got a little drunk and started performing some magic tricks. Most were amused, but Satan just rolled his eyes and kept chugging his beer...

But when God got around to creating the Garden of Eden and Adam, Satan was all like, "fuck I'm bored! Gonna change into a snake and mess some shit up..."

By that point, God was in a drunken stupor and snoring away happily... when he woke up and saw what Satan had brought to his world, he was really annoyed. And he needed to relieve himself. Thus began the Great Flood...

The Judaeo-Christian creation myth is actually two different myths fused together, and there is material from as many as four sources in Genesis, some of it polytheistic, as mentioned. They predate the concept "logos" that someone also mentioned.

I don't think there's any special significance to who God "said it to". It's basically equivalent to "God decided".

When atheists or even antitheists take the bible literally and try to ridicule Christianity in this way, it is even more absurd (and funny...) than hearing fundamentalist Christian wackos defending every little word of their sacred book with bizarre theories.

The letter kills. As far as I remember, this is even mentioned somewhere in the bible...

What is trvth?

Why does anyone use metaphor when speaking/writing?