OK, I've waited a while for various responses to come in. And (drum roll)... ho-hum. I haven't seen any new, convincing information from the apologists.
Larsguy:
In the case of Babel, there might not have been any need to confuse the languages had they been obedient and dispersed as they had been commanded. So that's the accurate context of introducing the various languages.
OK, so where does god get off "accepting" a challenge and then cheating? That's the question here. Whether man was or wasn't fulfilling god's purposes at Babel was never the issue, supposedly. The issue was (SUPPOSEDLY: ok, I'm going to stop inserting these disclaimers now; you know what I mean) whether man could succeed without god's help or not. Not whether man could succeed in spite of god's interference.
As far as a predisposition to war, one might ask if a peace-loving Spanish-speaking person meets a peace-loving English-speaking person, do they automatically find it difficult to coexist? On the other hand, do persons of the same language ever fight each other? Like the Americans fought the English? Ever hear of a "civil war"? So what's the problem there?
This is a ridiculous oversimplification. I never said that no peace-loving people of different languages have ever gotten along together. DUH. And I never said that civil wars have never happened. DUH. I said that the beginning of different languages would have sown the seeds of distrust, and therefore war (and therefore in this "challenge" god "cheated").
What amazes me about God is that ulimately, everyone can have a differing view of things and criticize God but in the end, MIGHT MAKES RIGHT!
What amazes me about this statement is its vacuousness. Might makes Might. Right makes Right. Neither makes the other.
Duh? Does the might of a man raping a woman make right? Does the might of an airplane slamming into the World Trade Center make right? Oh, but you meant "absolute might" and "absolute right," didn't you? And absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Tell this "he owns it so it's his to do what he will with it" argument to the guy that recently got put away for 10+ years FOR ANIMAL ABUSE. He had his apartment partitioned off as kennels for dozens of dogs, cats, ferrets, etc, etc, all separated from one another, only he wasn't feeding or cleaning up after them. Was he simply fined for the damage he did to the apartment? No, even human justice recognizes evil; even though all this "belonged" to him, he was put away, simply for being an evil bastard. This is analogous to what you're suggesting: God putting us in cages where we can't survive or even enjoy life, because he owns the deed, to prove that we can't get out of the cages. This is pathetic! If you believe this crap, then, still, why worship such a fiend?
You Know:
As the Bible observers, so history has verified the truth of the Scripture that states: "Man has dominated man to his injury." To that end humans have devised various schemes...The most pernicious of which is the empire. The tendency of governmental institutions is toward tyranny with the ultimate expression being absolutist totalitarianism. Accordingly, Jehovah intervened in mankind's behalf early on to thwart Nimrod's demonic scheme to consolidate his tyrannical power upon the entire population. By dividing the languages Jehovah made it virtually impossible for mankind to be yolked under one dictator. From Jehovah's standpoint he knew that if mankind would have been subjected to that sort of absolute power in its infancy that the full potential for humans in this system would never be realized. So instead of Jehovah acting to throttle mankind's development by confusing the languages, he was really acting in our behalf to set up checks and balances that would serve as a temporary bulwark against a world strangling empire.
So... what you're saying is that god accepted the challenge, and then *prevented* a circumstance that would have ruled the challenge in his favor right away? What a nice guy! Rather than accept mankind's defeat within a couple thousand years (forgive me, I don't exactly recall the JW chronology), he decided to STRETCH it all out to 6000 years! Was this for dramatic effect? Or to satisfy his arbitrary sense of chronological symmetry? Or simply to torture human beings who had no idea what was going on? (*OR* is your blablabla just a load of crap?)
:::sigh::: It's times like this that I *almost* wish I still had a bible, even a NWT. But, here, I'll shamelessly rip off aChristian's quote:
"If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." (Gen. 11:6)
hmmmmmmmmm... god himself speaks against the "man proving his ability to rule" theory.
SpiderMonkey
"Vengeance is MINE now" - Front Line Assembly
P.S. Anyone read Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash"? A work of fiction, obviously, but I love its take on Babel! Goes to show that events thousands of years ago can be interpreted any which way you want.