Can someone explain to me the story of the tower of Babel? (page 5)

MungoBaobab

noko, when slaves were brought from Africa to America, none of them spoke English, and I suspect they had a few different languages themselves, so not all could speak to one another. But you know what? Their slave masters and overseers had whips, and the harsh crack of a whip on human flesh is a message understood by everyone. So Nimrod wouldn't feel obligated to release his slaves just because they suddenly spoke another language, would he? Language isn't an issue in slavery, it's power.

noko59

Why yes, remember this was a totally new thing so to speak. The slave drivers later knew what it took to force someone into complying and had centuries to figure it out. Now if the new languages could get along so well then why would they split to all of the earth and not just locally? How about a total collaspe of the command structure of the city where people ended up banding together due to their language. I guess I could conjecture all night and that is not the point. It became obvious to most folks then that populating the earth was probably the more prudent thing to do I take it ;).

MungoBaobab

But certainly the slave drivers had children, who are born unable to speak and obey a parent's commands. Just by listening to others speak children pick up language, and parents teach them there is a proper way to speak (grammar, pronounciation, etc.) At first, children do not obey parents, so they must learn discipline. And how do many parents communicate this? WHACK!

In short, being around people unable to speak and unwilling to obey was nothing new to the Babel-onians. Also, who decided which language group got to stay put in Babel?

noko59

I think Genesis 10:5 answers your question there. The children of the parents spoke the same tongue. Also in short the plans of Babel kinda fell apart in the end.

MungoBaobab

I guess you have a right to believe what you want, noko. The truth is I respect that. But I also believe that a person's beliefs should hold up under scrutiny and conform to logic.

How did the plans for Babel fall apart at the end? There are many "towers" all over Mesopotamia (ziggarauts). Now we have buildings many, many times taller. Why doesn't God try and stop us from building skyscrapers now?

noko59

No need to, at least yet I take it. Do you think I speak for God? His son is the one for that.

googlemagoogle

people believe what they want to believe. it's hard to understand, but some people reject reason for what it is.

noko59

Or reason somewhat differently

Abaddon

noko59

So in your own words you judge God in the Bible as an Asshole if the Bible is true? Correct?

Why ask questions when I am really quite clear?

I would dissagree with the message the Bible gives with your witnessing of it.

You don't bother to analyse the reasons I outlined that bring me to that conclusion, but just disagree.

This is a discussion board. You can make statements if you like, but it gets dull after a while if you don't explain what's behind the statements. Show me how silly and wrong my assertions are.

Also didn't you put your own interpretations into what you read and then gave your belief of it? Like so many others that you claim do?

Did I say otherwise? Of course, I am not assuming from the start the Bible is correct, so we differ there.

Oh, and what does the fact that anyone can do this mean? Could you answer that for me please? What I am getting is is what proof is there that you, or the Pope, or Fred, or anyone is right, if we can all have our own interpretation.

You are alleging that an entity who makes a Universe of bewildering complexity cannot communicate clearly with human beings. This is illogical.

Consider the Bible like a mirror reflecting back your heart, building bricks on top of another isn't the story at hand.

Classic presuppositionalistic answer. The Bible is true, therefore those who cannot see the truth have something wrong with their heart. How curious that the Bible has taught you to insult and judge people you don't even know; my study of its latter portions indicate this is not how it advises people to act.

It seems you've already come to an absolute determination of your own rightness. If this is the case I doubt if there's further worth in conversing with you. I have not really made any claim to knowing rightness; I have however outlined obvious areas of wrongness. Refute them, deal with them or ignore them as you will.

Why sure, in short Nimrod was the founder of Babel or Babylon who's name means opposer to Jehovah.

No it doesn't. Nimrod come from the root of the verb 'let us revolt' combined with the word 'el' which refered to any number of deities. There is no Jah or YHWH element in the word at all.

Those who follow him would also oppose Jehovah or be mislead into it.
The city being built which I take was forced upon some of the people, since once the language was confused the work did stop and the different families did split to the far reaches of the earth, as in "lets get out of dodge while we can". In a way it was deliverance from pure slavery to Nimrod and allowed those who where with Jehovah to be left alone and to show their true heart and inclination.

You make an awful lot of assumptions to make that interpretation, including those not really supported by the account. How do you know you are right?

You also cling to a literal belief, despite the fact that the power network that Nimrod would supposedly have would not have been defeated by the confusion of language. His power, if he was indeed a tyrant, was built on POWER not language, and typically this power would be maintained through relationships. He would have had allies, and they would have had their own supporters. Even when they could no longer understand each others' languages, they were still allies and supporters.

The Bible assumes, rather than sitting down for a month and LEARNING other languages, people would just run away, and ignores that rudimentary communication (come here, carry that, I will hurt you, I am hungry, this is yours, eat this, I am thirsty, chase them) is not lost.

It ignores that where you have mixed languages with no mutual comprehension 'pidgins' develop, where words from various langauges become adopted for a non grammatical 'lingua franca'. It ignores that children born into a culture where a 'pidgin' is used in everyday life will turn it into a 'creole', as they MAKE a grammatical structure for the pidgin language. This is scientific fact. It's happened naturally in populations of ordinary children in those circustances. The human brain is so wired for grammar and language in early life deaf children born to deaf parents (who sign poorly and non-grammatically) will develop a grammatical structure to their use of the words they learn from their parents, without training.

If Babel had happened, it would have been disruptive, but all it would have meant is that after fifteen years everyone spoke a single (different) language again, and that a pidgin language would have served quite well in the intervening period.

hooberus

Bristlecone pines. Your entire worldview is invalidated by trees and you keep on ignoring it. Not clever. It is like a kid who KNOWS that Santa Claus cannot exist ignoring that and carrying on believing in Santa Claus

Anyway you claim that the Choctaw indian legend is 'evidence of the historicity of this account'.

Funny how you will take a myth and accept it as 'evidence of the historicity of this account' when you are unwilling to accept the evidence of a tree for a supposed event NOT being historical.

Do you normally pick and choose your evidence in such a cavalier fashion? It looks as though you've decided what is right beforehand and accept evidence based upon that decision, rather than on the value of the evidence itself.

By your standards of evidence we should look for a hill somewhere with a bloke rolling a stone up it, only to slip and have to start from the bottom again. Nearby there would be a chap whose liver was removed by a vulture and eaten every single day.

Just because two legends match doesn't mean something actually happened, unless you can provide other evidence that it happened or what you are claiming isn't an extraoridinary claim that requires extraordinary evidnece.

For example, you can claim that the presence of floods in myths indicates that floods were a danger to man tens of thousands of years ago, and that there were occasionally really big ones, and that some of the legends with a high similarity might be the memory of a flood affecting the ancestors of the various groups holding those legends before they were dispersed by emigration, or speak of the universality of floods effects. That doen't require any special evidence, there's nothing in that process we don't see on a daily basis.

To claim that the Flood or Babel happened exactly as the Bible says requires one to first show a difference in the reliability of the Bible's story when compared to the other myths that mirror it. You can't just assume the Bible is more correct than the Choctaw Indians.

Then you have to determine whether the event is based on reality, or is entirely fictional. You also have to prove that mechanisms the myths claim exist actually exist. If a myth cites god as a mechanism for an event one has to prove this.

Of course, if you believe through faith then just say that. I would rather you be honest and state for the record that the facts don't matter as you have an internal faith-based conviction than waste time arguing with you over facts which ultimately won't change your opinion as they are not what your opinion is based on.

I feel you are too insecure in your beliefs to state that you believe because of faith alone, yet you behave in that way, for all your attempts at selecting/ignoring facts to suit your beliefs.

You are also both missing this;

'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.'

This is god punishing man for being succesful BUT not obedient. It shows man DIDN'T need god to be succesful. God lost his bet at this point (if is is a true story).

Of course, if you assume beforehand god cannot be wrong, then the above uber-facist action by god can be re-interpretted as you wish.

Of course, Nimrod and his wife were possibly prototypes for Marduk and Semiramis, the ruling pair of god's in Babylonia. Semiramis had a virgin birth. You will find it in the Egyptian religion as Isis and Osiris. And did Venus and Adonis and Ushas and Vishnu in the Greek and Vedic traditions.

This can of course be taken as evidence for the historical nature of these events... of course, one could say that modern Christianity is a hotch-potch of beliefs, some originating from a peaceful and clear-thinking carpenter, but many added to the core in the first few hundred years after his death after being taken from other religions in an attempt to create a Universal religion that would be acceptable to most of the Empire; the cannon of the Bible was set by a pagan.

But the similarity will of course in this instance NOT be cited by you as an indication of it having actually have happened.

A Paduan

A local storyteller tells the youngsters about events in his day.

"The spirit of jwism had spread throughout all the people.

And as the people moved away from the light, thinking by their efforts they could follow to where it went, they came to a wide open place, with no refuge of course.
So they said to each other, "We will appoint more elders and so on, hard edged sorts, and with their word and spirit, they baked them hard.
And they said, "With these rocks that we have, we can keep building, making a name for ourselves - and become the way into and the source of heaven for others, lest our spirit fade if we slacken. We' ll even be higher than a flood of 'water'."

God looked and said, "Those people are proposing that everybody believes them and joins them - and they probably will unless we do something - Have those of Us, who are who they are, like those at jwd - go and confuse them, scatter them so they can't relate to one another anymore"

And so they did, and the people were safe from such a wickedness.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

And all the kiddies smiled.

Can someone explain to me the story of the tower of Babel?

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