Where We Come in

The common explanation is that we evolved from a humanoid species (or several of them) and then developed through stages over many millennia to be what we are today. The Bible offers an explanation that's discounted as ancient mythology even though it explains us better than any natural development theory could.

Quite simply, the first chapter of the Bible tells us:

Then God said, "Let us make people in our image, to be like ourselves. They will be masters over all life--the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the livestock, wild animals,[c] and small animals."

So God created people in his own image; God patterned them after himself; male and female he created them. God blessed them and told them, "Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters over the fish and birds and all the animals."
(Genesis 1:26-28)

For centuries, theologians thought that this idea of "image" related only to a similar personality between the personal God and personal us. We have a mind like his that helps him to comunicate with us and us with him. But it's more complicated than that. In the ancient world, kings would set up statues or "images" of themselves throughout their kingdoms to remind the population who was in charge.

A couple of alternatives here - either we are the blind result of mutations or there is a God behind this world who determined to bring into existence creatures in his image who could, in some way, bear witness to the reality that God is in charge. Interesting concept.