How high was the Tower of Babel?

[Keith&Co.]

See, I've run across yet another person assuring me that the US is doomed.
They refer to abortion rights as 'the holocause of the unborn,' and insist that God will not let this go without consequences.

So, we've been doing something they tell me God finds offensive for 45 years. ANY DAY NOW, he'll visit destruction upon us as a DIRECT consequence of abortion. And, presumably, bring an end to abortions.

But I have to wonder why the delay?

When God saw that Adam and Woman had eaten of the forbidden fruit, there was no delay before kicking their butts out of the garden. Instantly stopped them from eating off that tree, than put an angel at the gate.
When God found that united humanity was building a tower to touch Heaven, he did not knock down the tower, but there's no mention of any delay before stopping the construction, and mixing up the languages to prevent a united effort in the future.

So what's the big hold?

It can't be part of Lion's selected ignorance omniscience. Because we're also told that people who have had abortions or performed abortions in the last 45 years, and died, are in hell because of those sins. So if God's damning people for something, he can't pretend to be unaware of that something going on.

Some say that the hurricanes and floods and earthquakes and riots and Betsy Devos are visited upon America as punishment for abortion, but that's senseless. All the times in the Bible that God acted to punish a behavior, the punishment was designed to end the behavior. The tower construction stopped, people stopped eating forbidden fruit, People in Sodom stopped harassing guests. The flood was a big wasted effort, but it was at least designed to end wickedness.

I know when my kids fuck up, I don't let them screw around for 45 years, or 45 days, or even 45 minutes, before I put a stop to it.

So the only thing I can conclude is either God doesn't mind abortions all that much, or he's totally impotent to stop it.

 

[Opoponax]

The thing couldn't have been anything close to many of the Egyptian, Mayan, Aztec, etc. pyramids because a lot of those are still around. So God's been ignoring the problem for a really, really long time. He also seems to give up pretty easily.

"I know what I'll do; I'll make them all suddenly speak different languages and then they'll never try this shit again!"

A few years later: "Huh, well, I guess that didn't work."

I understand the allegory of it, and that's really the most fair (also most generous) way to look at it. Man aspired to be like God and needed to be taught humility, or that materiality is no path to Heaven (that one's especially shaky, but whatever). Something along those lines.

Interestingly, God has long, long ceased to make mass demonstrations of his awesomeness. It's as if he looked at us one last time and said, "Fuck those guys." Then he left, his godly middle finger in the air as a gesture of his divine apathy as he walked away.

Or maybe he didn't leave and he's just sitting back and watching the most intriguing reality show he's ever created. He does some god stuff during the day, and then when he's on the way home he's thinking about the stuff he DVR'd so that he doesn't have to miss anything good. After all, at this point it's pretty clear he can't control humanity, so even he doesn't know what's going to happen.

 

[Sarpedon]

For reference, the tallest unreinforced masonry building is the Washington Monument at 554 feet.

The Mole Antoneliana in Turin has an unreinforced brick spire that reaches 550 feet, but is mostly decorative rather than habitable. This is a 19th century structure.

The tallest masonry church tower is that of the Cathedral of Ulm at 530 feet. I should note that this was completed in the 19th century, so used technology that would not have been available to Gothic or Bronze age builders.

The Great Pyramid of Giza, which would have had comparable technological origins, comes in at 480 feet.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria, which would have been similar to the tower of Babel, was estimated to be 330 feet.

The tallest unreinforced habitable masonry building is the Monadnock building in Chicago, at 215 feet.

The tallest masonry structure is the Anaconda Smokestack, at 585 feet, but its wiki page does not mention whether it is reinforced with steel. (given it was built in 1918, that is likely. It is built on a reinforced concrete foundation)

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I remember that one of the angels on the Supernatural show was talking about this at one point and said:

"I remember the Tower of Babel, all 37 feet of it, which I suppose was impressive at the time. And when it fell, they howled divine wrath. But come on, dried dung can only be stacked so high".

 

[Sarpedon]

That's stupid. While dung has a long history of being used as a building material, it has never been a structural material.

 

[Keith&Co.]

That's stupid. While dung has a long history of being used as a building material, it has never been a structural material.

sure? I have personally witnessed many poles of shit in my career, and heard about many, many more.

Some are apparently very impressive, ornate piles, with great attention paid to their construction, but the only building material ever mentioned is shit.

 

[bilby]

It does seem odd that god was so upset about some crummy tower a few hundred metres (at most) tall, but has since paid no heed to far taller buildings; Aircraft regularly flying at 40,000 feet; Concorde, private, and military jets flying far higher still; The permanent presence of humans in low earth orbit; A dozen men walking on the Moon; Or space probes that have now reached the heliopause and left the solar system.

I mean, how chickenshit do you need to be, if heaven is more than twenty AU from the Earth, to be worried that some bronze age tower being built in Mesopotamia might get too close?

 

[Politesse]

That's stupid. While dung has a long history of being used as a building material, it has never been a structural material.

Not true! You have clearly never googled "dung bricks", they are quite the obsession these days.

 

[bilby]

That's stupid. While dung has a long history of being used as a building material, it has never been a structural material.

Not true! You have clearly never googled "dung bricks", they are quite the obsession these days.

Obsession or not, as a structural material, they are just shit.

 

[phands]

That's stupid. While dung has a long history of being used as a building material, it has never been a structural material.

Not true! You have clearly never googled "dung bricks", they are quite the obsession these days.

Obsession or not, as a structural material, they are just shit.

Please don't poo-poo shit obsessions.

 

[bilby]

Obsession or not, as a structural material, they are just shit.

Please don't poo-poo shit obsessions.

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeF1JO7Ki8E[/YOUTUBE]

"If there is one thing I have learned from being in the Army, it's 'never ignore a pooh-pooh'".

 

[Tom Sawyer]

That's stupid. While dung has a long history of being used as a building material, it has never been a structural material.

Not true! You have clearly never googled "dung bricks", they are quite the obsession these days.

Obsession or not, as a structural material, they are just shit.

Yes. That was the entire point.

 

[bilby]

Obsession or not, as a structural material, they are just shit.

Yes. That was the entire point.

Oh, crap.

 

[phands]

Obsession or not, as a structural material, they are just shit.

Please don't poo-poo shit obsessions.

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeF1JO7Ki8E[/YOUTUBE]

"If there is one thing I have learned from being in the Army, it's 'never ignore a pooh-pooh'".

You got exactly my reference!
Blackadder was superb.

 

[Lion IRC]

See, I've run across yet another person assuring me that the US is doomed.
They refer to abortion rights as 'the holocause of the unborn,' and insist that God will not let this go without consequences.

So, we've been doing something they tell me God finds offensive for 45 years. ANY DAY NOW, he'll visit destruction upon us as a DIRECT consequence of abortion. And, presumably....

That's a pretty long-winded way of saying if God doesn't do something the way you would expect then He's not God.

Leading up to their day of judgement, people have exactly just the right amount of time needed to show God whether they think abortion is murder or elective surgery.

 

[Ford]

It does seem odd that god was so upset about some crummy tower a few hundred metres (at most) tall, but has since paid no heed to far taller buildings; Aircraft regularly flying at 40,000 feet; Concorde, private, and military jets flying far higher still; The permanent presence of humans in low earth orbit; A dozen men walking on the Moon; Or space probes that have now reached the heliopause and left the solar system.

I mean, how chickenshit do you need to be, if heaven is more than twenty AU from the Earth, to be worried that some bronze age tower being built in Mesopotamia might get too close?

Are you saying God can't move goalposts?

 

[Opoponax]

That's a pretty long-winded way of saying if God doesn't do something the way you would expect then He's not God.

I think the point is that God isn't doing anything. That is, God's actions suspiciously resemble a being that doesn't exist at all.

Leading up to their day of judgement, people have exactly just the right amount of time needed to show God whether they think abortion is murder or elective surgery.

But wouldn't it be helpful if God actually bothered to weigh in on the issue? It really would clear a lot of things up. The Bible wasn't up on how reproduction worked beyond the old in-out eventually = baby. And I forget the verse, but there's some story about a pregnant woman being killed and the killer having to pay a property-like fee for the unborn. That very much indicates that a fetus wasn't considered a person. Only until god breathes wind into its nostrils (or whatever that verse says) is a person considered alive according to the Bible. That's pretty much it.

Beyond the abortion issue, what about everything else? Surely the Sentinelese have never even heard of the Christian religion in any form. Or do they get a free pass into Heaven for that? And if so, what does that say about your religion? I mean, you're so much better off if you never hear of it in the first place isn't exactly a ringing endorsement.

 

[steve_bank]

See, I've run across yet another person assuring me that the US is doomed.
They refer to abortion rights as 'the holocause of the unborn,' and insist that God will not let this go without consequences.

So, we've been doing something they tell me God finds offensive for 45 years. ANY DAY NOW, he'll visit destruction upon us as a DIRECT consequence of abortion. And, presumably....

That's a pretty long-winded way of saying if God doesn't do something the way you would expect then He's not God.

Leading up to their day of judgement, people have exactly just the right amount of time needed to show God whether they think abortion is murder or elective surgery.

We are not saying that. We are saying if god is in any way fallible, acting out of anger and emotion to cause human pain, and created humans to worship it making humans playthings then the Abrahamic god is a sick puppy.If god created human life out of nothing, then human life is cheap. As in the flood.

So you are saying because some Christians see abortion as murder, it is ok for god to be murderous if it desires or those who approve of abortion should not question god;s morality?

In a human context such a person would be considered a bad gut\y. Stalin, Hitler and so on.

 

[steve_bank]

The origin of the myth could have been complexity in growing civilization, or it could have been a wacky eccentric literally trying to build a tower to the sky. Spmebody would have certainly truied.

Look at the pyramids.

 

[DBT]

The Tower of Babel need not have been very high. It only needed to reach the Dome of the Sky upon which the Throne of God was situated....probably built just out of sight of Jacobs Ladder where the Angels climbed up and down between Heaven and Earth.......