Michaelangelo's Defiance against the Catholic Church: Creation of Adam

"Michelangelo put in there as a snub to the Catholic church. They declared it illegal to operate on cadavers for scientific research, but doctors and Michelangelo himself practiced it in secret... he included the fruits of his research in this painting to elaborate on their own metaphor."

There are two theories going around:
1. "The Creation of Adam" could mean the same thing as "the thing that Adam created," NOT "Adam was created." God (and the other heavenly beings) are within man's mind, and thus portrayed within the brain. 

2. The other theory is that portraying God within the brain was stating that the thing that makes man "in God's image" is not a literal physical similarity or anything silly like that, but that we have a mind like God's, capable of ration, emotion, morality, etc. God ought not be portrayed as a man with a white beard so much as he should portrayed as a mind.


Source:  http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/illpk/michelangelo_put_in_there_as_a_snub_to_the/

Relevant:  http://journals.lww.com/neurosurgery/Fulltext/2010/05000/Concealed_Neuroanatomy_in_Michelangelo_s.1.aspx?desktopMode=true