(November 19, 2014 at 8:29 pm)Lek Wrote:

(November 19, 2014 at 7:40 pm)Smaug Wrote: If God didn't wish to allow them to live infinitely in a sinful state he could have literary reverted the history to the point the Serpent told Eve about the fruit and make alterations to the Serpent's mind and character.

Also, living sinless apparently is a live of an animal, a 'vegetable' or a simple robot (considering the fact that Adam and Eve couldn't tell good from evil). Also being unable to tell good from evil Eve couldn't obviously tell that what the Serpent had told her was 'bad'. So it's Yahweh's design mistake that he blamed onto Eve & CO (the Serpent was also 'flawed' and He made nothing to correct it while He obviously could).

Okay. Since God is omniscient, he has read what you're saying here, so maybe he'll take your advice in the future.

He wouldn't need to he knows everything and everyone's actions in advance.. if its something that was going to happen but didn't he would make sure it would like with the pharaohs heart he was going to let them go but god said not i cannot let that happen.

That was a pretty dick move. You know it was more about getting attention than actually freeing slaves, when Yahweh hardens the pharoah's heart so he doesn't agree to let the isrealites go until Yahweh is done tormenting them. Because he really wanted an excuse to kill a bunch of children.

(November 19, 2014 at 8:57 pm)Chad32 Wrote: That was a pretty dick move. You know it was more about getting attention than actually freeing slaves, when Yahweh hardens the pharoah's heart so he doesn't agree to let the isrealites go until Yahweh is done tormenting them. Because he really wanted an excuse to kill a bunch of children.

But this is a god who loves death and the ability to use his power to meddle in "free will" also loves to kill.

(November 19, 2014 at 5:23 pm)Smaug Wrote: Speaking of Yahweh, according to the Bible he got so scared because of a tall tower and some iron chariots for some reason. Does this mean that said things were able to hurt him in one way or another? If so, he would have far worse things to be afraid of by now and a good reason to hide.

The story doesn't indicate his frame of mind, only his concern that the builders of the tower of Babel might achieve the fame they sought, and might become even more ambitious:

Genesis 11:4-7 Wrote:They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. The Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”

It is, obviously, a fable meant to explain why there are so many different languages in the world, and/or why there are so many different nations scattered about the land. There are any number of interesting bits in the story, such as the notion that they might reach heaven by building a tower, or who god was referring to by "us," or what he meant when he said that nothing would be impossible for them.

At least, they are interesting in the context of someone believing it to be a true story, as opposed to the sort of continuity errors you might get in a day and age when writing things down wasn't as easy as tapping the surface of your smartphone.

Tonus, I understand that the purpose of the fable was to explain language diversity, but the interesting thing is not that it has discrepancies or weird (by modern standard) aspects but that it's still believed in a more or less literal way by many people. The most interesting aspect is not the purely mythological.

By the way, though the his frame of mind wasn't specified explicitly there sill wasn't any clear reason for him to interfere.

(November 20, 2014 at 2:02 pm)Smaug Wrote: Tonus, I understand that the purpose of the fable was to explain language diversity, but the interesting thing is not that it has discrepancies or weird (by modern standard) aspects but that it's still believed in a more or less literal way by many people. The most interesting aspect is not the purely mythological.

By the way, though the his frame of mind wasn't specified explicitly there sill wasn't any clear reason for him to interfere.

God was afraid of his own creations wanting to go meet and greet him in mortal person. meaning god himself is a physical being and spiritual and can die so i'm guessing if one of the people had ill will to god you can see what i'm getting at.
In reality a tower that tall could in now way exist not to mention the change in atmosphere would be enough to kill someone going all the way up. or they die from extreme exhaustion walking up steps.

(November 20, 2014 at 11:18 pm)dyresand Wrote:

(November 20, 2014 at 2:02 pm)Smaug Wrote: Tonus, I understand that the purpose of the fable was to explain language diversity, but the interesting thing is not that it has discrepancies or weird (by modern standard) aspects but that it's still believed in a more or less literal way by many people. The most interesting aspect is not the purely mythological.

By the way, though the his frame of mind wasn't specified explicitly there sill wasn't any clear reason for him to interfere.

God was afraid of his own creations wanting to go meet and greet him in mortal person. meaning god himself is a physical being and spiritual and can die so i'm guessing if one of the people had ill will to god you can see what i'm getting at.
In reality a tower that tall could in now way exist not to mention the change in atmosphere would be enough to kill someone going all the way up. or they die from extreme exhaustion walking up steps.

I'm arguing whithin the myth so I put aside real world technical considerations. Your idea sounds quite interesting in that respect.

Speaking of the real world, it's mind-boggling that there are still people who both have access to all kinds of easily-accessible information (including that on the Internet) and take these fables as literal truth even if they do so only to an exent.

(November 19, 2014 at 5:46 pm)Lek Wrote:

(November 19, 2014 at 5:23 pm)Smaug Wrote: Speaking of Yahweh, according to the Bible he got so scared because of a tall tower and some iron chariots for some reason. Does this mean that said things were able to hurt him in one way or another? If so, he would have far worse things to be afraid of by now and a good reason to hide.

He wasn't scared. He was angry. According to the bible, we're not able to hurt him physically, but apparently we're able to hurt him emotionally. When God became man in Jesus, of course, he could be hurt physically; and he was hurt a lot..

Well maybe the bible god should give more of a shit about our emotions, then. After all, it supposedly created us with them and then condemns us in many instances for having them.

And what kind of twat gets 'emotionally hurt' by some ants building a tower? This god needs to grow some balls and man up.

Quote:And what kind of twat gets 'emotionally hurt' by some ants building a tower? This god needs to grow some balls and man up.

That or he just likes to light up defenseless creatures with a lens or flood them with water. Putting that aside as far as I understand the main apologetical arguement for God's interferense is that he was displeased with humans' pride. In conjunction with other Bible's stories this leads to some pretty depressing assertions. Among them is that OT's God is against ambition-based progress. He's pro-swindling though. Also it's rather peculiar how he cares about racial purity of his chosen tribe and does despicable acts of cruelty to assist them (it's not strange at all when you look at it from a sceptical point of view but for religious christians it ought to pose intrinsic moral difficulties). Frankly speaking OT's god looks like someone who plays a strategy computer game with cheats.

The OT God is pretty much me when I was a little kid squashing multitudes of ants to death and enjoying it.