Why did God divide the people of Babel?

I know that most here do not believe this myth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ldI2FJQ_oE

There are usually some moral reason given for God acting against mankind.

I cannot dither out any good moral reason for Babel.

Can you?

Regards
DL

Your asking a question about race. That discussion is off limits unless your attacking white people, so....going to be hard to discuss.

Seems like a pretty straightforward hubrous fable.

Perhaps.

A better lesson and perhaps a more moral route for God might have been to let them work uselessly. One often learns more from mistakes than from punishment.

I am also looking at that punishment as unjust.

God gave up any right to punish man when he gave man dominion here. In the myth that is.

Regards
DL

White people in the ancient world. Hmm.

Nothing is off limits to me.

Regards
DL

Why were God's actions immoral in this case? Also, if they weren't punished for their arrogance, they would have failed in their endeavor, but likely sought other ways to be more godlike.

fwiw God didn't give mankind free run of the place. He gave them specific instructions on how to take care of the world around them, and warned them he'd go ape**** if mankind didn't take care of the place according to his specifications.

So from a religious standpoint, the whole "God has no right to punish" argument doesn't really fly.

If I tell my kids I'm going to step out to pick up some milk and eggs and to not cause any trouble while I'm gone, and then they proceed to **** on the floor and use the mess to fingerpaint the walls, you can be sure they're getting punished when I get home.

I think the Lord thought they would reach their endeavor.



"New International Version (NIV)

Genesis 11
The Tower of Babel

1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward,[a] they found a plain in Shinar[b] and settled there.

3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The LORD said, “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. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel[c]—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth."





Idk it seems like an immoral story to me. Holding humans back form being united and trying to achieve their impossible plans, why? But like all Yahweh stories he could have his reasons.

Why would God object to people trying to emulate him?
Is that not what all religions want their sheeple to do? Mimic, emulate and be as their Gods.

Matthew 5:48
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Regards
DL

Sure. But if you tell your children that the house is theirs to do with as they please and that pleases them, then you are not trueto your word if you punish them.

Regards
DL

Sort of, but emulate in terms of moral purity, not in terms of equal power or sense of superiority. They committed the sin of hubrous, had to be punished. I want my dog to behave, but if she gets in the bed, she gets punished.

To be honest, my answer to the "then what about Jesus being tempted?" question is, "Meh, I don't really care." It's been a lot of years since I've been religious. I don't need to do any mental gymnastics on a personal level.

However, seems pretty easy to explain by saying (1) Satan is just pointing out what Jesus could do on Earth if he just went bananas instead of being righteous or (2) Satan is full of ****, it is what he's kind of famous for after all.


Where is this, exactly? God tells Adam it's his job to take care of the place, but I don't know of anywhere that God tells people to "do what they please." In fact, the Christian God (both OT and NT) is pretty notorious throughout the whole Bible for saying, "Hey yo, you can have [insert cool thing here]. Just (do, or don't do) [random unrelated thing]."

I mean seriously - Garden of Eden, the fleeing of Sodom and Gommorah, avoiding the Egyptian plagues, what not to eat, when to gather magic food in the desert, the building of the temple, the days to worship, etc. etc. etc... nearly every OT story involving God involves God being good to the Jews, then he says "Hey, guys, no foot jobs on Saturday, okay?" Then the Israelites, almost without fail, wait about two Saturdays, and have a big ol' foot job orgy, God gets pissed, wash rinse repeat for the whole story of Israel.

Seriously, the OT God especially, attaches more strings than a traveling band of puppeteers. If God had just said "do what you want" in the first place, we'd all be sitting around naked in tropical gardens or whatever.

I think emulate is not the best choice of words for what God instructs us to do. It implies that we are to strive to approach equality with God. This can lead to pride, and most sins(possibly all sins, not sure) can be traced back to pride.

A better word would be reflect. We are instructed to reflect God's glory. Jesus, with the status of fully God, humbled himself to nothing. Jesus submitted to the Father's will, and the Holy Spirit's filling. It's quite amazing. We have Christ, fully man and fully God, who far exceeds mankind as a creation, humbling himself to nothing and reflecting the Father's will and the Father's glory. Want to emulate God? Humble yourself as the God Man did, and reflect God's glory.


Cliffs(didn't see this until after i posted):
+1


Also Matthew 5:48, entitled Love Your Enemies, speaks to loving all fellow man. You're(greatestiam) trying to contort it into a command to pursue a status of god(s).

Genesis 1:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Note. All the earth and all on it.

Regards
DL

Genesis 1:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Note. All the earth and all on it.

Who has dominion over people on earth?

Seems that man does, therefore God gave up any right to punish.

Regards
DL

Matthew 5:48
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Does this say reflect on God?

Read what is. Not what you want it to read.

Regards
DL

Awesome post!! A+.

If God is perfect and morally good and part of that perfectness and moral goodness is his power and superiority. Wouldn't we need to become more powerful and superior to reach Gods perfectness and moral goodness?

I don't think so. At least, I've always read it as striving to achieve moral purity, and I don't think godlike power is a requisite of moral perfection. It seems like his intent was always to have us choose whether or not to reject evil, but not forget who the ultimate authority is.

I dont disagree i guess. I just dont see how i can reach for moral perfection without reaching to be superior to what i am now.

Oh, a morally perfect version of you would be a superior version (in Christianity), what I mean is that you still wouldn't be on equal superiority with God, and you shouldn't forget who the creator is. I do see what you are saying. At what point, really, does it start to be hubrous? God wants us to be morally pure, or perfect, so you should strive to be like him, but doesn't want us to feel we are as important as he is, so you shouldn't strive to be "just" like him.

Ultimate authority where?

Not here or over man.
Right?

Genesis 1:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Regards
DL

In this passage, God gives man dominion of:

- fish
- birds
- cattle
- the earth
- creepy crawly ****

I don't see "mankind" anywhere on the list. Also, the entirety of the OT makes it abundantly clear that God is still in charge and demands worship.

Also, even if God is explaining his plans to the angels (or whatever, some would say Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, there's tons of history and research on what "our image" means), any time he actually interacts with humans in the OT, he is very specific in his instructions and demands, the most prominent one of which is "recognize that I'm in charge."

We can quibble about the Hebrew and semantics and if mankind is included in the list of things man has dominion over, but in the end, God spends the rest of the OT making demands, then finding new and interesting ways to torture, maim, and kill everyone who doesn't meet them. The argument is kind of moot at that point.

It's kind of like how everyone knows that one guy who insists the US government can't charge them taxes, or carry assault rifles, or whatever... then the government sends someone over to kick down the door, take all the money, and throw them in prison.

As a result, everyone knows to pay your taxes and stop keeping grenades in your closet, the same as everyone knows* that God will punish as he pleases.



* assuming of course God exists, an assertion I do not agree with.

Neither do I so lets wait for someone from the other camp.

Regards
DL

P S . Man creeps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfMPDj3Pllc

This is an amazing comment considering how many times I have explained to you what this verse actually says in the original text as opposed to the dubious translation on which your quote mined opinion is based.