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Genesis 11; The Tower of Babel
Topic Started: Mar 13 2008, 11:25 AM (173 Views)
Soulless
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The Tower of Babel

1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.
2 As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar 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 and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men 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 — because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.



What was the reason for God to prevent men from working together? Was it jealousy? Why was it wrong for man to be able to achieve whatever he planned?
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Rhonda
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When my youngest was a newborn, I was in the livingroom nursing him.  The other two, then 3 and 18 months, were in their bedroom playing.  It was February, and my oldest had said something that morning about wanting it to snow since it was so cold.  I don't know exactly how it got started, but they contrived to make their own snow.  I heard them beginning to giggle and my mother's heart was all aglow with love for my darling children.  When the giggling intensified to cackling, I just had to go see what was going on.

The sight that met my eyes when I walked in robbed me of the power of speech.  Everything in the room, including the boys, was coated in white.  My darling son was standing in the middle of the room holding an economy sized container of baby powder.  He had squeezed it, causing the powder to fly out.  I know it was full because I'd just bought it, and it was totally empty after that little stunt.  It took forever to get them cleaned up and even longer to get the powder out of the room.  When we moved two years later, we were still finding powder in little nooks and crannies.  My boys didn't bring forth armageddon, by any means, but they were (and still are) capable of wreaking havoc if they put their heads together.  Oh, the stories I could tell you...

I had the very same questions you did upon first reading that passage.  My first thoughts were that if man had a common language and culture, then perhaps things in this world would not be as they are.  The things man could have achieved because of commonality could have been great.  Imagine the implications to all manner of scientific experimentation...and that's where I stopped.  We can see, actually, what the implications are.  Man is really no longer stymied by differing languages and cultures in many areas.  There have been great leaps in technology and medicine, but the attrocities that have come out of it, in my mind, often outweigh the good.  The reason for this is that too many men don't see just the good they can do.  Too many see the suffering they can pull out of anything. 

It was collaboration that has brought us chemical and biological warfare, the atom bomb, and all manner of heinous things.  I've said many times that if I could go back in any point in history, I would want to be in the time of the great library of Alexandria.  When that library was destroyed, so much knowledge was lost, but I have to wonder if that was a bad thing.  Consider the irresponsibility with which man has wielded science.  Even the arts have been used for evil!

I've watched my sons start out doing something that is essentially good, and it deteriorated into bedlam within minutes.  Yes, they are but children.  Yes, they lack life experience and wisdom in many areas.  But I can honestly say that I've seen my boys act in more mature, compassionate, and wise ways than many of the adults I know...even me.

Just look at the US, Geoff.  This nation started out as a land of freedom and prosperity.  It's degenerated into a place of immorality, pride, and greed.  Our nation was founded on the principles that all men were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  From the start, liberty was out the door because of slavery.  Life went out the door when abortion on demand was made legal.  And the pursuit of happiness has turned into happiness at all costs.  We were begun as an ideal and have fallen to such depths of depravity that it's utterly sickening.  And that's in just a little over 200 years!  Imagine what thousands of years could have wrought!

It wasn't jealousy that prompted God to act.  It was wisdom and love.  When I see my sons start something that I know is going to harm them, I'd be remiss in not stopping them.  That's what God saw.  He saw the heights man was reaching for and knew the depths it would ultimately take them to.
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Soulless
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lol, I chuckled reading that story. I remember my son doing something very similar. :D

I don't claim that evil things wouldn't have happened, but I have to think that many of the evil things man has done may not have happened if we all had the same language and history. Would Africans have been forced into slavery if the Europeans had found people who spoke the same language, had the same history and same beliefs? Would much of the violence committed by nations have occurred if we all shared a common language and history?

Would faith based terrorism be occurring if we all spoke the same language, all shared a common origin? How much pain and suffering have been caused simply because someone spoke a different language? Would racism have existed if we all had a common heritage and language? I can't but wonder if things are really better when it is in man's nature to either hate or be afraid of that which is different. How many countries have warred with others with the same language and heritage? Not many.
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Rhonda
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Of course faith based terrorism would still occur.  Man is not content to agree even within it's own faith and culture.  There are examples of that in every single religion ever contrived.  Today we have Muslims slaughtering each other over sectarian disagreements.  Look at what the Protestants did to each other in the colonies.  It's surprising the Catholic church didn't wipe itself out with all the bloodshed it perpetrated against it's own pastorate.  Even the Jews warred with each other according to the OT. This only stops when a common enemy is perceived...then we go back to infighting again. It's inevitable.
According to Genesis 11, all God did was confuse the language.  The diverging cultures was all man.  It was man's heart and mind that went in different directions.  The thing that causes this is pride - one man believing he has a better way than the other guy. Heck, Geoff, I've seen it within my own family! My sisters and I were all raised the same way, with the same language, and the same culture, but all three of us have gone in very different directions. Commonalities do not cancel out the inherent nature of man. I heard someone say once that men, as individuals, are on the whole intelligent and fair-minded. When they become a group, though, somehow that dynamic turns us into panicky, knee-jerk animals. I tend to agree. It's just the nature of man.

Nations don't have to war with other nations....they're too busy warring within themselves. Your questions and points are valid. But if man will even war and hate his own brother, it doesn't make much difference if we share the commonalities of language and culture. We'll still hate and still make war because that is man.
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