The Tower of Babel

[Vicki Q]

(2) God expects us to carry out the task of establishing His Kingdom, and Bad Things happen if that's not the case.

So, you're saying bad Christians are the reason bad things happen?

I can see why you might have gone there with the question, but it's not the idea. It happens that one of the implications of the story is a constant theme throughout the OT and NT. It is that disobeying God, in general, ends in tears, one way or the other.

[Rhondazvous]

So, you're saying bad Christians are the reason bad things happen?

I can see why you might have gone there with the question, but it's not the idea. It happens that one of the implications of the story is a constant theme throughout the OT and NT. It is that disobeying God, in general, ends in tears, one way or the other.

Ask Job from the bible or those nine people that Dylan Roof shot down in that church in South Carolina, they'll tell you bad things happen to people who obey god, too. There's no statistically significant difference in what happens to people who obey god and those who don't.

[Vicki Q]

I can see why you might have gone there with the question, but it's not the idea. It happens that one of the implications of the story is a constant theme throughout the OT and NT. It is that disobeying God, in general, ends in tears, one way or the other.

Ask Job from the bible or those nine people that Dylan Roof shot down in that church in South Carolina, they'll tell you bad things happen to people who obey god, too. There's no statistically significant difference in what happens to people who obey god and those who don't.

To begin with, couple of minor corrections.

Firstly, because Job stuck with God, his story finished up very happy indeed “the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before...The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part”.

Secondly, on your statistical claim, 
a) religious people live about 4 years longer than their atheist/agnostic peers.  Link 
b) religious people tend to be happier. Link

We may be naïve and deluded, but we're happier and we get to annoy the pensions people more.



However none of that is relevant to the big problem- you've rather misunderstood what I said. To suggest a strong correlation between following God and being fortunate would be obvious nonsense. I did think my explaining skills were adequate, but since people are misreading on an ongoing basis it appears not. So, let's try again:

'Adam' ate at the wrong restaurant and it went badly. Noah obeyed God in building an Ikea ark, and it went well for him. Israel, depending on how well it behaved, kept going through a cycle of sin/exile/forgiveness/restoration.

Following the return from Babylonian exile, it was expected that the Kingdom would be restored to Israel. But along comes Jesus who says, “The Kingdom is no longer about the Jewish people occupying a bit of land, it's going global. This is the new way of obeying God. Follow me, and be part of the Kingdom; you get to be resurrected into a fully functional creation. Don't follow me, and you won't.”


That's what I mean by obeying God ending well, disobeying God not ending well.

[Minimalist]

a) religious people live about 4 years longer than their atheist/agnostic peers.  Link 

Four more years spent groveling to an imaginary tyrant of a god?  You can keep it, sweetheart.

[Angrboda]

Ask Job from the bible or those nine people that Dylan Roof shot down in that church in South Carolina, they'll tell you bad things happen to people who obey god, too. There's no statistically significant difference in what happens to people who obey god and those who don't.

To begin with, couple of minor corrections.

Firstly, because Job stuck with God, his story finished up very happy indeed “the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before...The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part”.

Secondly, on your statistical claim, 
a) religious people live about 4 years longer than their atheist/agnostic peers.  Link 

From your own link, "Abstinence, meditation and social ties may all be a factor in increased longevity."  Notice what's missing from that list?  Obeying God.

b) religious people tend to be happier. Link

You're drawing a link without accounting for confounding factors.  As noted in the following article, improved health among the religious is explained by their attending religious services, not with obeying God.  It stands to reason that people who are healthier are likely to be happier, as well as those who socialize and get out more.  Again, nothing to do with obeying God.  Which brings us to the ultimate question.  Does simply believing yield benefits over non-belief, or is this evidence of some truth to the beliefs themselves?  Your studies don't even come within a mile of that question.

The science is in, and God is not the answer

Why, then, do people keep saying that religion is good for your health? Well, the reason the non-religious are healthier is because they also better educated and wealthy – the kinds of people who take care of themselves. It’s only if you statistically control for this that religious believers are more healthy than the non-religious.

But an analysis of nearly 60 different studies found that this is entirely to do with attending religious services. There is no connection between the intrinsic aspects of religion (belief in a god concept, religious/spiritual well-being, religious/spiritual experience, and religious motivation/orientation) and health.

[Vicki Q]

You're missing what I was up to. It's the converse I was challenging. The claim was made that “There's no statistically significant difference in what happens to people who obey god and those who don't”. Well, there is.

Why that might be is a whole different discussion to the OP. Which I don't feel like getting into because (a) it has no bearing on the truth or otherwise of Xianity (b) The message from Jesus was 'If you're doing it right, it'll hurt and you may die'. But there will be an inner peace that is not the absence of trouble; it is the presence of God.

So I would agree that the statement I made that Xians are happier is definitely over simplistic. It's more complex than that. But the converse is challenged by a lot of research, and there is certainly more than a grain of truth in the statements I was making.

[Drich]

The story about the Tower of Babel presents us with some interesting questions. In this story, the inhabitants of the Earth move further away from the Garden of Eden after Adam's eviction therefrom. They all speak the same language and pretty much stick together. There is no confusion among them. No misunderstanding. No war. The Bible tells us they were all of one mind (Genesis 11:1-9). The God of the Bible comes down to see this. When he notes that they are united and their unity strengthens them, he is displeased. They plan to build a tower up to heaven. The God of the Bible doesn't merely laugh this off as foolish hubris. Rather, he sees it as a serious threat and takes steps to put a stop to it. He confuses their language so they can’t understand one another. I cannot see the Creator of the universe acting this way. But the creator of an Earth-centered fantasy world which does not exist outside the pages of the Bible did act this way. Let's take a look at this passage and see if any of the following questions seem a tad odd.

glob..

Why would an omnipotent God be worried about the achievements of men?

because it would interrupt the time table for the develop he put man on. let's say he planed this own age of man thing out. we were to spend so much time in one age and then move on to the next allowing for our own natural progression and understanding of the world around us. not just in reasoning but in our vocational skills agriculture, farming, our industrial processes and even our ability to make war. now what if one ability grew faster than the others what if our ability to make war grew way faster than our ablity to feed ourselves. so then how do you think this would have changed the face of the earth... what if rather than learning to sustain ourselves we were just a wandering armies Mad Max world anyone? So let pretend idk an all knowing God would understand if we could work together for a foolish persuite such as this then anything we set out to conquer... would be ours to conquer.. What if idk God did want these people taking other tribes. how much easier is it to have slaves if they speak your language? In effect God set back this primary group of men several thousand years, becaue that is exactly what happened when the sumerians ruled or the egyptians ruled they took their culture and spread it over the land, but in the right time, when and where the world could support a world power!

If you have a child you want them to go as far and as high as they can in life.

what a short sighted parent you are. What if you knew your kid to have great power/potential to the point you knew he was going to change the world and either be a superhero or a super villian... you can't tell me you would not restrict his supervillainy aspects.

You teach them how to avoid the pitfalls of pride and wealth.

no you teach a loser how to win and a winner how to loose you seek to strike a balance in whatever you kid is heaviest into . you don't want a unitasker, a little rock who can only do one thing.

But you don't undermine their self-esteem and tear up their job applications.

it depends on the kid. if sister is too proud of her bust line and wants to be a 'dancer' then while still underage living under my roof you do indeed take her down a notch or two even if it means she looses a self esteem point or two.

You don't sabotage their efforts. If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, (Matthew 7:11) why paint this dastardly picture of a god who hates to see his creation (children) achieve?

"good gifts" not give them what they want... sometimes a 'good gift' is a swat on the back side when little junior is caught smoking. Or a 'good gift' is an education and not a life in 'clubs.'

Why would a god who is not the author of confusion be the cause of the most significant factor that separates people?

to keep humanity from progressing too fast in one aspect of our social development and wiping ourselves off the face of the earth because we developed in an unbalanced way.

How many wars would not have been fought, lands not stolen, racism not perpetrated, peoples not subjugated if this god had left us alone to flourish in the peace we had before he decided that he did not come to bring peace but a sword (Matthew 10:34)?

short sighted... if the tower was near complete or they got into idk say 10,000 feet up, they would have automatically put a major strain on their natural resources. Air being the chief among them
then material for mud bricks WATER straw and fuel/wood to bake the bricks.. have you ever played a RTS like command and conquer or star craft? what happens when you are building a massive based and shave down all the wood in your region? or what happens when you run out of tiberium? You invade your neighbor. and if the game did not supply you with an easy way to manufacture workers you would take your neighbors as workers especially if they spoke the same language. and on and on it goes till the tower becomes about basic survival because if everyone is building who is left for crops? neighbors, who is sourcing wood neighbors, who is funding this project with currency? the neighbors.. Same thing happened in 1930 germany and their give away programs. Hitler quickly realized in order to make good with all the campaign promises he had to start invading his neighbors fr the very same reason!

Why does a god who is omnipresent have to come down to look at a city?

wrong question... your question should be why does an alpha and omega God come down to look at a city.. cause he f-ing wants to!

Despite passages which tell us god is everywhere and invisible, we find too many passages that tell us the god of the Bible is corporal, has physical features and has been seen by at least 74 men (Exodus 24:1-15)

Again how Does God himself describe Himself, not how does moses or the prohpet describe God, but how does God describe Himself. He says He is the alpha and Omega and on occasion describes himself as "I am." What does alpha and omega mean? his word is the first and the last given meaning he has the authority and literal power to do what ever the f God wants to do. He is not an omn-max God as those terms belong to man it was our best way to try and understand him. God didn't use those terms for a reason. Alpha and Omga says alot more... more abruptly it is almost disrespectful in that God is saying/challenging anyone or any principle to try and restrict what he can or can not do. while the omni-aspects of God are more holy stoic terms that try and fail to describe God. God says to us as alpha and omega I am whatever I want to be and your little minds can't grasp anymore than that.. which is true because we don't use alpha and omgea to describe God we broke it down even further to this omni max bs that is subject to paradox. While alpha and omega is perfect in every way, and can not be challenged by paradox like our descriptions can.

Why is the god who created the whole universe so threatened by his own creation that he is only happy when we are confused, broken, contrite, helpless and sorrowful—especially when we were none of those things before he intervened. That's like a doctor giving you poison so that you will need the medicine he wants to sell you,

False dilemma not an either or situation.
clearly provided a 3rd option in that  man's extinction was very lily on the line.

The tower of Babel represents an attempt by man to explain natural phenomenon (diverse languages) by creating a god whom they could not raise above their own spiritual immaturity.

no. the tower was a clear misallocation of vital resources. even king nebuchadnezzar knew of the sight of the tower and thousands of years later was able to use the bricks left over from the tower. can you imagine a project so big that everyone took from it's failure for over a period of several thousand years and it still remained as the biggest mess in the region

We could redeem the Tower of Babel story. Instead of looking at it as a historical account of some ancient event, we could look at it through the eyes of Joseph Campbell and see its power as a myth. Imposing modern ideas on an ancient text will not tell us what the ancient writers had in mind. However, the myths studied by Campbell existed long before he was born and the creators of those myths may or may not have been aware of the deeper meanings Campbell saw in their creations.  Divining the intentions of the ancient writers is not necessary to harvest what insights into the collective human psyche may be found in their writings. So what does the Tower of Babel have to say to us?

A power struggle between generations—between parent and child—permeates western mythology. Everything from Zeus and his children to Ibsen’s Master Builder. The incumbent generation feels threatened by the generation that comes to take its place. In Greek mythology the god solves this problem by killing his children. Other gods kill their parents so they can reign unrivaled. Is there any value in a story which depicts man at his worst? Only if we read it with the eyes of understanding. In this story, we see that the end result of generation rivalry is confusion and lack of achievement.

We might also see the synergy of people working together. A community where people work toward common goals—where nobody says “that‘s mine” can be imagined. And if we can imagine a thing, we can build it.

what a simple way of thinking, with a total disconnect of the logistics and material sourcing. With no regard to how social impact economical impact or the doomed nature of those people and the smaller tribes around them. any type of basic builder can tell you the pull on resources of something that big, wages, food for the workers and support staff, housing, water for workers water for animals water for bricks, mud, for bricks mud for straw wood, not to mention the impact that many people would be on a city back then in the way of waste removal or contaminated food and water could have been disastrous then with most of humanity eggs in one basket, the species... may not have survived if a simple plague developed.

Ask any anthropologist our xenophobia and our triable nature is what sustained us till our numbers got to sufficient size.

[The Grand Nudger]

You're contending that the stacking of mud bricks.....was a threat to the species?

[Drich]

You're contending that the stacking of mud bricks.....was a threat to the species?

I am saying that turning our whole world into a brick making machine that would consume all of our resources into tower/bridge to nowhere, would trigger a need to seek out, needed resources to replace what was used in the tower on basic living. which may have trigger a mass migration as all fuel and resources would be consumed by the tower, or worse yet a pull to militarize and take needed resources from  the neighbors. and of course the subsequent enslavement or assimilation of the neighbors into this group. maybe one of those neighbors was the precursor to aberam. No neighbor, no aberham, no jews, no jesus, so either pick a less quality chosen people, or disrupt this group that cause the problems.

[The Grand Nudger]

Just checking.  Chapter and verse?

For extra credit, who would have been a less quality chosen people, and for even more extra credit..who'd have been a better quality chosen people?