How high was the Tower of Babel?

[excreationist]

Answers in Genesis is planning to build the Tower of Babel next to the Ark Encounter. It is a "ziggurat" I think

 

[Tom Sawyer]

They’re going to build another one? Wasn’t the whole point of the story that building the Tower of Babel was bad?

What’s next? Building the Ark of the Covenant and then inviting all their friends over when they open it up?

 

[Tars Tarkus]

They’re going to build another one? Wasn’t the whole point of the story that building the Tower of Babel was bad?

What’s next? Building the Ark of the Covenant and then inviting all their friends over when they open it up?

Maybe if they build it 1 cubit shorter than the original, God won't be worried.

 

[BH]

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.

Lion,

I ask a question respectfully. Some sources say over 30 million babies have been aborted since the Roe decision in 1973. Supposedly the Soviet Union was this horrible wicked place because of the purges estimated to be around 35,000 to 600,000 . Why do Christians not condemn their own country in the US more because of this? It seems the US is a far more wicked place than the Soviet Union ever was. And in all honesty the bible says to submit to the authorities. If those people purged by Stalin were doing something illegal like trying to overthrow the system then they were according to the Bible justly punished. What gives? Why does the US get to be so special and not be so evil but the Russians are just antichrist?

 

[Politesse]

They’re going to build another one? Wasn’t the whole point of the story that building the Tower of Babel was bad?

Yeah, but they aren't doing it to invade heaven. They're doing it to make money. Totes different.

 

[steve_bank]

They’re going to build another one? Wasn’t the whole point of the story that building the Tower of Babel was bad?

Yeah, but they aren't doing it to invade heaven. They're doing it to make money. Totes different.

A real estate failure by one of Trump's ancestors?

 

[bilby]

Answers in Genesis is planning to build the Tower of Babel next to the Ark Encounter. It is a "ziggurat" I think

Ziggurats are well known to be bad for your health, but they are highly addictive, so some people just can't manage to give them up.

 

[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....

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.

Once more, Lion, you misstate my point.

I'm not asking why God hasn't done what I would do, I am literally drawing direct comparisons to what the book of fables says is the way he does things. Instant and clear, permanent.

Direct intervention and slaughter, sometimes extensive slaughter.

Maybe i missed a biblical example where people offend the big skybeast, but he just stays his hand, giving them rope to hang themselves?

Egypt doesn't count, because pharaoh WAS willing to let people go, but god hardened his heart to ensure there was sufficient drama for God's glory...
But the Church of the Golden Calf wasn't long for tge world, was it?

 

[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.

Lion,

I ask a question respectfully. Some sources say over 30 million babies have been aborted since the Roe decision in 1973. Supposedly the Soviet Union was this horrible wicked place because of the purges estimated to be around 35,000 to 600,000 . Why do Christians not condemn their own country in the US more because of this? It seems the US is a far more wicked place than the Soviet Union ever was. And in all honesty the bible says to submit to the authorities. If those people purged by Stalin were doing something illegal like trying to overthrow the system then they were according to the Bible justly punished. What gives? Why does the US get to be so special and not be so evil but the Russians are just antichrist?

If the premis of the question were true then I would agree it's a glaring and disgraceful double standard.
I just don't think pro-life Christians in America are more or less concerned about one innocent life in Russia than they are about anywhere else in the world. Perhaps other 'background noise' issues regarding democracy vs communism/atheism distorted the discussion.

 

[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.

Once more, Lion, you misstate my point.

I'm not asking why God hasn't done what I would do, I am literally drawing direct comparisons to what the book of fables says is the way he does things. Instant and clear, permanent.

I'm not accusing you of misrepresenting God. The bible says what it says.
I'm just pointing out that "...God is mean and nasty and I don't like what He did" doesnt constitute much of an argument against God's existence.

Direct intervention and slaughter, sometimes extensive slaughter.

Maybe i missed a biblical example where people offend the big skybeast, but he just stays his hand, giving them rope to hang themselves?

There's plenty. Turning away from God, suffering, then repenting and turning back to God is a repetitive theme. See the Prodigal son parable. See Hosea. See the Babylonian captivity.

Egypt doesn't count, because pharaoh WAS willing to let people go, but god hardened his heart to ensure there was sufficient drama for God's glory...
But the Church of the Golden Calf wasn't long for tge world, was it?

Egypt does count and Pharaoh's hardening heart was the result of Pharoah's own stubbornness - not God tormenting Pharaoh to provoke a hardness of heart. Pharaoh refused to cooperate with the inevitable.

 

[Sarpedon]

I'm just pointing out that "...God is mean and nasty and I don't like what He did" doesnt constitute much of an argument against God's existence.

Actually, it does, if you don't state it in such an infantile fashion.

Restated: "The being described in the bible resembles more what a bronze age person would imagine god to be like, rather than what god would actually be like."

To put it differently: the part of the universe we can see is more than 90 billion light years across. It includes galaxies, stars, and planets beyond counting, wonders past human imagining. And remember, we have every reason to think that the part of the universe we can see is only a small part of the entire universe.

But god CAN see the universe in its entirety. God CAN understand all things. God must have a mind vaster than the universe.

So why does god care about a tower? Why would he care about a sacrificial cow? Why would he care whether or not someone eats pork, or anything like that?

The answer is that the Omnipotent Lord of the Universe would not care about such trivial things. The being described in the Bible is clearly a product of limited human imagining. It has all the hallmarks of the era. The god of the bronze age was a petty, jealous being for a group of people who were used to being ruled by petty, jealous, unreasonable rulers.

Since god as described is obviously imaginary, and there is no evidence that god exists outside of these descriptions, there is no reason to believe that god exists.

 

[Politesse]

I'm just pointing out that "...God is mean and nasty and I don't like what He did" doesnt constitute much of an argument against God's existence.

Actually, it does, if you don't state it in such an infantile fashion.

Restated: "The being described in the bible resembles more what a bronze age person would imagine god to be like, rather than what god would actually be like."

To put it differently: the part of the universe we can see is more than 90 billion light years across. It includes galaxies, stars, and planets beyond counting, wonders past human imagining. And remember, we have every reason to think that the part of the universe we can see is only a small part of the entire universe.

But god CAN see the universe in its entirety. God CAN understand all things. God must have a mind vaster than the universe.

So why does god care about a tower? Why would he care about a sacrificial cow? Why would he care whether or not someone eats pork, or anything like that?

The answer is that the Omnipotent Lord of the Universe would not care about such trivial things. The being described in the Bible is clearly a product of limited human imagining. It has all the hallmarks of the era. The god of the bronze age was a petty, jealous being for a group of people who were used to being ruled by petty, jealous, unreasonable rulers.

Since god as described is obviously imaginary, and there is no evidence that god exists outside of these descriptions, there is no reason to believe that god exists.

Thank god people these days can think independently, instead of their beliefs being products of a particular time, place, and social station.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I'm just pointing out that "...God is mean and nasty and I don't like what He did" doesnt constitute much of an argument against God's existence.

but the argument certainly seems to impress you, since you are seeing it where i am not making it.

Once again, Lion.
, you're trying to refute an argument you only expect is being made, not what's actually on the screen.

But, we know you have a problem reading plain text, what with trying to blame Pharaoh for a decision god took out of the man's hands.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I guess i need to spell it out.

I am not, in this thread, proving God's nonexistence thru his nonaction.

I am trying to show that a number of people who say they know what God wants are rather obviously wrong.
They could be wrong because the biblegod does not ecpxist, but that is only one possibility.
They may simply not know shit about what they're talking about.

But, hey, if they let the actual scripture guid e them, they'd be drastically different people

 

[Sarpedon]

Thank god people these days can think independently, instead of their beliefs being products of a particular time, place, and social station.

And that is precisely my point.

I am not claiming that my thought is free of influence from my time period. It is absolutely as dependent on it as that of the bronze agers. Mine is clearly better, because we clearly know more now than we did then, but that is not the point. The point is that since views of god, who is allegedly outside of time and mere human social mores, is absolutely dependent on the cultural context of the people making them is proof that god is imaginary. Heck, the people who wrote the earliest parts of the bible probably didn't believe that god was omnipotent, or was even the only god. These ideas came later. Earlier stories were reinterpreted according to the new conceptions of god. This concept is so well understood that it has a name among scholars: "Midrash."

The idea that a god might give you hemorrhoids if you touch the container of sacred texts was perfectly reasonable to the people who wrote the story. Modern people tend to ignore that story because it doesn't fit into their conception of what an all wise and omnipotent being would do. The fact that there is no conception of god outside cultural context proves the texts are not divinely inspired.

Ultimately, religion rests on ego. The fact that you misinterpreted my argument as being an egotistical rant on my part, claiming to be better than the bronze agers, shows that your whole conception of religion, for and against, revolves around ego. I don't believe I am smarter than the bronze-agers, only that I have the benefit of more accumulated knowledge. This is not an egotistical view, merely the truth. The religious person imagines that there is an order and a plan to the universe, and they are an important part of it. They imagine that the universe has a maker, who is a 'person,' like themselves. They imagine this person loves and cares about them. They imagine that they themselves are immortal beings, merely temporarily trapped in a mortal body. They imagine that there is a massive cosmic drama of the conflict of Good and Evil that is playing out on this little world of ours. They certainly imagine that they are better than those who believe differently. As such, when they meet atheists, they project themselves into us, and imagine we have an egotistical reason for not believing. That is not the case. Atheism is, at its core, embracing the obvious truth of our own insignificance. It is absolutely the annihilation of ego. We are mere machines of meat, impotent in the universe, and our most lasting legacy will probably be the damage we do to our own habitat.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

It wasn't the height of the tower that concerned God in that story. It was the intention of man to try to reach God. Its a weird story either way. God doesn't want to be met in person apparently.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

It wasn't the height of the tower that concerned God in that story. It was the intention of man to try to reach God. Its a weird story either way. God doesn't want to be met in person apparently.

But then he ripped the soul out of some defenseless fetus and wore its body as a meat sac for a few decades just so that he could wander around with us. He's a very inconsistent deity.

 

[atrib]

It wasn't the height of the tower that concerned God in that story. It was the intention of man to try to reach God. Its a weird story either way. God doesn't want to be met in person apparently.

But then he ripped the soul out of some defenseless fetus and wore its body as a meat sac for a few decades just so that he could wander around with us. He's a very inconsistent deity.

God seems like a nice person, once you look past the psychopathy and homicidal tendencies. Just the sort of person you could bring home to meet your parents.

 

[Keith&Co.]

It wasn't the height of the tower that concerned God in that story. It was the intention of man to try to reach God. Its a weird story either way. God doesn't want to be met in person apparently.

But then he ripped the soul out of some defenseless fetus and wore its body as a meat sac for a few decades just so that he could wander around with us. He's a very inconsistent deity.

God seems like a nice person, once you look past the psychopathy and homicidal tendencies. Just the sort of person you could bring home to meet your parents.

Unless Mom serves Pork that night, then you're screwed for five generations.

 

[DBT]

Or His Love and Tender Mercy doesn't get you thrown into Hell where you are tormented 'forever and ever' because you had no faith.



The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. << Psalm 145:9 >>