Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Joe Bloe · 02-07-2007, 10:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by purple_kathryn

Further question:

Why did god have a problem with a relatively tall tower but the taller towers we have now or the space programme?

Whaddya mean? Look what he did to the World Trade Center towers.

And two of the space shuttles.

purple_kathryn · 02-07-2007, 10:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Bloe

Whaddya mean? Look what he did to the World Trade Center towers.

And two of the space shuttles.

OMFG

I'm such a believer now!

aa5874 · 02-07-2007, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Bloe

Whaddya mean? Look what he did to the World Trade Center towers.

Wasn't it Allah Saudi style?

Quote:

And two of the space shuttles.

This may have done by one of the sons of God, named Satan, to test NASA. See the book called Job for a full range of tests.

TonyN · 02-08-2007, 07:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TonyN View Post
The earth was destroyed by water due to man's wickedness not too long before this tower was being built. Mankind would have reduplicated what occurred before the flood had God not disrupted their plans. God not only disrupted their languages, he caused the nations to split off from the major continent then. God just didn't want a total collapse of civilization to occur again.

gstafleu replied:
There seem to be a couple of slight issues with this view. First, the text clearly links the babbelization to the tower building, so bringing the flood into it constitutes a rather forceful reading-into-the-text.

Thanks for bringing that up. I always take for granted that people know where I am coming from. While it is true that the babbelization was linked to the tower building, I think it is primarily linked to the reason God gave for disrupting the language into many languages. It was for this reason:

"he said: These people are working together because they all speak the same language. This is just the beginning. Soon they will be able to do anything they want" (Contemporary English Version).

I believe that was the problem with mankind before the flood. "And seeing is Yahweh Elohim that much is the evil of humanity in the earth, and every form of the devices of its heart is but evil all its days" (Genesis 6:5 Concordant Literal), before the flood. They were unbridled. And now, after the flood, they are about to become unbridled again.

Quote:

gstafleu:
Second, the result, according to the text, is the stopping of the tower project, no mention of the prevention of a generalized collapse of civilization is made.
Now maybe there are some other pointers in neighboring text that lead you to make a link with the flood and the prevention of its recurrence? Otherwise it would seem that this is a bit of, admittedly inventive, fantasy.

I believe that what I just quoted above is sufficient to indicate that something bad would come out of the tower project.

Quote:

gstafleu:
BTW, if god wanted to prevent the general collapse of civilization via a god-caused flood, the easy way to do that is not to god-cause a flood.

Gerard Stafleu

Right, the next world-wide catastrophe will not be by a flood but by earthquake. And then the next world-wide catastrophe after that will be the earth being destroyed by fire. So you see, God has many different options.
And what is interesting is that Bablyon once again comes to the fore in human history:

Rev 16:18-19 And lightnings and voices and thunders occurred. And a great earthquake occurred, such as did not occur since mankind came to be on the earth; of such proportions was the quake and so great." (19) And the great city came to be divided into three parts; and the cities of the nations fall. And Babylon the great is brought to remembrance in the sight of God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fury of His indignation."

If you thought the twin towers did a lot of collateral damage to the U.S. just think of every city of all the nations falling.

2Pe 3:10 Now the day of the Lord will be arriving as a thief, in which the heavens shall be passing by with a booming noise, yet the elements shall be dissolved by combustion, and the earth and the works in it shall be found."

John Kesler · 02-08-2007, 08:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TonyN

I believe that was the problem with mankind before the flood. "And seeing is Yahweh Elohim that much is the evil of humanity in the earth, and every form of the devices of its heart is but evil all its days" (Genesis 6:5 Concordant Literal), before the flood. They were unbridled. And now, after the flood, they are about to become unbridled again.

Actually, Yahweh realized before the tower of Babel incident that man was as "unbridled" after the flood as he was before:

Quote:

Genesis 6:5-7
5 Yahweh saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. 6 And Yahweh was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So Yahweh said, "I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created--people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."

Genesis 8:20-21
20 Then Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when Yahweh smelled the pleasing odor, Yahweh said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.

fta · 02-08-2007, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Am Only An Egg

5 But the LORD came down to see the city ...

The Supreme Being had to "come down"? Does this mean God couldn't see the city from where He was sitting?

Dean Anderson · 02-08-2007, 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fta

The Supreme Being had to "come down"? Does this mean God couldn't see the city from where He was sitting?

Hey - those tower builders were drilling holes in the firmament.

If he'd tried to look down from there he might have lost an eye!

spamandham · 02-08-2007, 10:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Am Only An Egg

The other day I, for whatever reason, happened across the story of the Tower of Babel. ...

My questions are:

-Does God give a valid justification for his actions?

This story originated in the days when gods were thought of as we might think of superheroes. They were basically people with super powers living in the sky, and were not omni-anything. They were exactly like us, with frailties and vulnerabilities. From that perspective, the act of attempting to invade their realm by building a tower into the sky is perceived as a threat.

Quote:

How do Christians justify this seemingly random, malicious sort of act?

I'm sure they can make something up.

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