Leolaia, thanks for some real meat on this subject. I predict that a new 21st century word-combo for a dimwitted thinker, who has the reasoning ability of a Neanderthal is likely to be a word like this: "jehoobahwitless".
Bible says God confused peoples languages at Babel....is this childish nonsense?
by Witness 007 66 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
debator
Hi leolaia
I disgree a "just so" story is simply a recognition of the reality and can be checked against the reality. Many mythologies have "just so" stories that under simple everyday scrutiny are patently untrue. but Bible shows complex language was given to man straight away. God could talk to adam and Adam could understand language concepts like future, past that are part of language complexity. Then Babel says the Languages are confused by the appearance of different unique languages and this led to a natural separation of humanity.
You own words show this to be a reality we live with when groups separate languages separate. I recognise the constant changing nature of language (it's inate fluidity) but while all languages are different in nature they are inherantly similar in functional complexity. I was trying to keep it simple because I do not have your knowledge on the subject. This inherant complexity of language resists an darwinistic framework that always suggests that simplicity is the first building blocks that lead to later and greater complexity. This doesn't happen with language. Gramatical function and complexity appear with the earliest languages we know of and they in their environment are as complex as any language used now. This fits with it being a unique specific divine ability we are given rather a seeably evolved attribute.
There are no missing language "links" it appeared a fully formed in the earliest known forms as it is now in the later ones.
On the table are two or three offers for language origin.
1/ Bible - claims a fully complex given ability from it's start that also explains how completely unrelated languages linguistically to each other with no obvious connections appeared at the same time by divine intervention. (the examples you give would still have shown that connection with the original language they diverged from) When you look at any language it is a history book in itself showing what it roots were linguistically.
2/ Darwinisms - always claims simplicity gives way to greater complexity. Survival of the fittest demands the need to evolve more complex ways to deal with situations. Then as something evolves clear links connecting these ancestral roots can be seen. Darwinists are constantly looking for connections and similarities that can show the original formations. You get nice pictures of skeletal heads apparently growing in complexity and brain size etc you have People using simple tools and then more complex tools, hairy ape-like men giving way to smooth-skined humanoids. Language complexity resists this type of calculation. Language was as complex thousands of years ago as it is now with all the same abilities to describe unseen concepts and have gramatical structure etc.
Not only this, you cannot see the links between the disparate early language groups. You say they could just emerge but the examples you showed (Pitkern and Norfuk) like I said above would have shown their original language root despite how much they diversified. Language is a history book of how it diverges in itself you can see the links to previous languages thats how I know English is of indo-european growth. My point is your cannot see the the connection as you go back further in time. It is just as if many disparate unconnect languages appeared similtaneously at the same time.
You say theories can be checked well for me so far the winning one is the bible simple explanation it was a God-given complex ability.
3/ Many scientist point to some extraordinary event that caused a change either extra-terrestrial or otherwise as yet unknown that triggered everything. this simply lends itself to the creation of modern mythology to explain the unexplainable.
-
bohm
Debator wrote:
"Language complexity resists this type of calculation. Language was as complex thousands of years ago as it is now with all the same abilities to describe unseen concepts and have gramatical structure etc."
I fail to see the point - evolution predict allmost no evolution in humans during the past couple of thousand years, and we find little change in our ability to speak. How is that not in agreement?
-
debator
Hi bohm
Is that the new explanation for us not to actually see evolution now? it sounds very convenient. So evolution happened before any time that we could check it against? that just makes it a mythology. It basically pushes language into an accepted assumption. Very convenient.
-
Cold Steel
No, it simply says God "confused" the languages, which means he simply erased the language tracks in the brain.
Also, it's not so much that the tower offended God, but that they were gathering in one location instead of spreading out upon the face of the land. By confusing their languages, He encouraged them to spread out as they were supposed to. Even to this day, mankind tends to come together in large cities. Since God is completely incapable of creating evil, He could never be accused of creating French. In fact, kdaffes ceestaccke maslts fkakfje kadffewer kafagaee....
-
jaguarbass
I have been trying to figure out what is going on here on earth for the past 58 years.
I have probably heard all the explanations everyone else here has heard, becaue I've been coming here a lot for the past
several years.
I dont think the story of god and the bible and the flood etc is any more foolish or childish
than any other explanation I've seen.
And I give it 51 out of 100 vs
49 out of 100 that I give to the story of atheistic evolution.
I havent heard any explanation regarding this human experience that isnt full of holes and problems,
and which the other side says youd have to be an imbecile or a child to believe.
And the bible story has the best upside and pay off.
So as close as I figure the odds I'll error with God and the bible.
Some people call that faith.
-
Pistoff
Man was told to 'spread throughout the earth'. They tried to stay in that one spot and not move, that is my understanding of why the languages were confused.
Teehee, really. Get this from CNN, did you?
-
OnTheWayOut
The Babel story is mythology to explain the different cultures/languages of the day. Ancient people had no concept of how isolated humans would develop isolated communications.
I find the mythology of the early Bible to be creating a God who is very much to be feared and obeyed OR ELSE. The snake in the garden told the truth and God was mad at the humans for disobeying. God was mad at humans and "sons of God" before the flood and destroyed all kinds of innocent creatures in his rage, men were managing okay without God at Babel so he wreaked havoc.
So, YES IT IS CHILDISH NONSENSE. It could easily replace Greek and Roman mythology except that it is still believed by many where nobody believes their childish nonsense.
-
Pistoff
I disgree a "just so" story is simply a recognition of the reality and can be checked against the reality. Many mythologies have "just so" stories that under simple everyday scrutiny are patently untrue. but Bible shows complex language was given to man straight away. God could talk to adam and Adam could understand language concepts like future, past that are part of language complexity. Then Babel says the Languages are confused by the appearance of different unique languages and this led to a natural separation of humanity.
You are asserting that the Bible account is reality (how to check this, by the way? Can we go back in time to see the Babble[Babel]? Are you asserting that the pun is a coincidence?) by saying that because language is diverse, the account saying god caused the diversity must be true. That is a circular argument. The bible offers up the account of the ziggurat by saying god confused their languages, incensed that they were in the city, (that their intent was to reach up and kill god, when the intent of the ziggurat was the reverse: to allow the gods down to man). In any case, it is a story, a device, to explain what was to ancient man as yet unexplainable, the diversity of language. It is also a device used by later Bible redacters to assert that Hebrew language was the pure language, and all others secondary, cast off.
Darwinisms - always claims simplicity gives way to greater complexity. Survival of the fittest demands the need to evolve more complex ways to deal with situations. Then as something evolves clear links connecting these ancestral roots can be seen. Darwinists are constantly looking for connections and similarities that can show the original formations. You get nice pictures of skeletal heads apparently growing in complexity and brain size etc you have People using simple tools and then more complex tools, hairy ape-like men giving way to smooth-skined humanoids. Language complexity resists this type of calculation. Language was as complex thousands of years ago as it is now with all the same abilities to describe unseen concepts and have gramatical structure etc.
1. I am not sure you know what you are talking about. Language functions along different lines than pure darwinistic theory; language survival and/or prominence does not have the same characteristics as survival of species, I have not heard any advocate say it does. Language functions differently; it can be manipulated and controlled by outside or internal forces along different paths than strict survival of species. Language is fluid; language moves forward by the forces of creation and destruction that do not necessarily mirror darwinistic theory; language looks for ways to describe in ever more simple AND complex ways, and in ways that will register with people more deeply, as current expressions lose currency and become passe. And it is not sane in any way to think that modern language will develop the same as old languages; the environment for current language now includes local and global influences in a way that did not exist in ancient times.
By the way, it is ironic that you involve Darwin; scientific analysis of primates shows clearly why humans developed language; it is a function of advanced brain biology, identified by our track along the evolutionary model.
2. Over and over, you miss the point that Leo makes: isolation enhances diversity of language; you say that language made men move away, in effect, that language created isolation, caused by God. Leo is making the point that scientific analysis of language shows that this process of differentiation and diversity continues today, with no intervention by God; it is a process easily explained by isolation, geographic and otherwise.
3/ Many scientist point to some extraordinary event that caused a change either extra-terrestrial or otherwise as yet unknown that triggered everything. this simply lends itself to the creation of modern mythology to explain the unexplainable.
This statement leaves me speechless; MODERN mythology for explaining language diversity? As opposed to 6th century BC descriptions of even older mythology, turned upside down to favor the israelites? How does the irony of that statement escape you? Science can document the process of diversity of language; instead you believe that god, the extra terrestrial, caused it.
Do you have a list of scientists who think that extra terrestrials caused language diversity among humans?
P
-
Yizuman
I recalled from the series on the last and final episode of Battlestar Galatica (the new one) when Admiral Adama suggested that the people spread out in various locations of the new Earth because this way, the people stood a better chance of surviving and thriving as a human race rather than sticking together as a whole in the same location.
This makes sense since God had the same idea as Adama did, this helps narrow down alot of possibilities with starting out as a small population, for example, diseases and other disasters that could occur. If all stayed together and if it spreads, then the possibility of the human race as a whole would get wiped out.
So instead, spread them out and if one becomes sick, only a few may be infected and not spread to the rest of the people, at least not as easily.
That's my take for the reason why God confused the language because he's protecting us as a whole rather by spreading us out rather than keeping us together on the same location.
Yiz