"So - why do you suppose God chose to make man in His image and likeness? (Assuming there is a God, of course; though you must admit, the metaphor does have some excellent uses).
"Why else? except that from the beginning He intended man to be an infinitely self-divinizing creature, who must ever be striving to pitch his tent in places of always-ascending grades of difficulty, hardship, inhospitality. Places - such as commonly denoted by terms like 'desert,' 'wilderness,' 'wasteland,' etc - places in which, no matter how strong or even dominant you are, the struggle for life is keen. Perhaps even brutal. If not utterly grueling and exhausting. Places, in short, in which fragile creatures can be neither cherished, nor respected, nor even protected - but only despised. (Including such fragile creatures as man himself was, at the outset of his journey.)
"But not just despised, please note, but shown nothing whatever of what - well, most of us would recognize as understanding, or mercy, or love. The point being that, if man really wants to be loved, and to render himself worthy of being loved (by God or anyone else), he must be prepared to make himself always stronger, and stronger . . . (part I, pars. 5-7)
"How else, indeed, is he ever going to succeed in taking himself - not to mention everything else - to that ever-insatiable next level? How otherwise, do you suppose, is he ever going to make himself 'at home' in the near-total desert and inhospitality of outer space?
"Or perhaps you thought he was going to colonize and subdue the farthest reaches of the universe by being some meek and tender sacrificial lamb?"