Latter Day Saints and the Tower of Babel

[_LittleNipper]

The reason we have the computer and the Internet, has everything to do with inspiration of men like Bell, Edison, and Tesla without any help from Darwin and his opinion.

And Einstein.

Bonus points if you can tell us how the age of the universe (14 billion years or so) and Einstein's electrical theories that make your computer function and intertwined.

I constructed an addition onto my house. Can you tell me how billions of years and Einstein's electrical theories brought that about?

[_LittleNipper]

The Tower of Babel myth simply does not make any sense on any level, and certainly would never have been taken seriously by any of the ancients who were actually familiar with or involved in the actual building of ancient structures and monuments. The mere fact that ancient prophets and religious leaders concocted that ridiculous myth is incontrovertible proof that they were neither inspired by God nor knew anything about building large structures and the strength of materials.

Maybe the myth's original hearers knew very well what they themselves could build, but simply imagined a magical prehistoric time in which their ancestors had been able to do much more.

Today we have science fiction. We imagine that our descendants will do things that we cannot imagine. But it's only in the past couple of centuries that technological progress has been so study as to make the future obviously grander than the past. For most of history, things have gone up and down slowly. Or more often, I think: slowly up and quickly down. So imagining a much better time, in the ancient world, probably meant imagining a time in the past.

The Tower of Babel obviously isn't accurate history. It's not even sensible theology. But it's an oddly modern story, if you think about it. Human ambition is conceived of as building, and as reaching the heavens. Human potential is so high, even God is alarmed. But all it takes to destroy that potential is miscommunication. Not speaking each other's languages was considered a tragic weakness, even so long ago. If you take it as a myth, rather than as the history it obviously isn't, the Tower of Babel isn't so uninspired, it seems to me.

The Biblical version of the Tower of Babel is inspired. The origin of linguistics points to a single area of origin for all human language.

[_LittleNipper]

And Einstein.

Bonus points if you can tell us how the age of the universe (14 billion years or so) and Einstein's electrical theories that make your computer function and intertwined.

Those scientists were inspired by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Nipper's Garden Gnome god was the deity for the sheepherders and fishermen. Their technology peaked with the crook and the net.

So you don't believe that Spaghetti exists?

So you don't believe that bad spaghetti exists?

So you don't believe that a bowl of bad spaghetti has never been thrown --- thereby flying across a room?

You must live under a rock!

[_huckelberry]

So you don't believe that Spaghetti exists?

So you don't believe that bad spaghetti exists?

So you don't believe that a bowl of bad spaghetti has never been thrown --- thereby flying across a room?

You must live under a rock!

I always think of a small child eating in a high chair when I hear about the flying spaghetti monster. Nippers version works as well.

[_Maksutov]

So you don't believe that Spaghetti exists?

So you don't believe that bad spaghetti exists?

So you don't believe that a bowl of bad spaghetti has never been thrown --- thereby flying across a room?

You must live under a rock!

I always think of a small child eating in a high chair when I hear about the flying spaghetti monster. Nippers version works as well.

That's the effects of theism on the brain.

[_huckelberry]

I always think of a small child eating in a high chair when I hear about the flying spaghetti monster. Nippers version works as well.

That's the effects of theism on the brain.

Maksutov, I may be missing your thought. Sometimes spaghetti flying from high chairs is anger and sometimes it is just unbridled enthusiasm.

[Guest]

In all the discussions I have yet seen about science vs religion, including the current ones on this forum, apologists invariably find themselves reduced to the fall back position of relying on faith or asking God for the answer, as if religious faith in claims of divine inspiration or revelation somehow Trump's any amount of contrary empirical evidence, no matter how seemingly incontrovertible. I find it incredible that so many otherwise seemingly rational and articulate people still are unable to see that reliance on religious faith and asking God is by far the most unreliable means of discerning or discovering truth of any kind, whether religious or secular. The undeniable fact that there are so many thousands of mutually contradictory religious belief systems, all of which claim "infallible" divine authority for their truth claims is absolutely incontrovertible proof of that -- even if one of these mutually contradictory answers turned out by chance to be true or close to it! Nothing seems more foolish to me than the admonition to "just ask God for the answer", and it will never cease to amaze me that even some of the more reasonable religious people on this forum, whom I otherwise greatly respect and admire, still seriously suggest that is a viable means of ascertaining truth!

[_Gunnar]

The Tower of Babel myth simply does not make any sense on any level, and certainly would never have been taken seriously by any of the ancients who were actually familiar with or involved in the actual building of ancient structures and monuments. The mere fact that ancient prophets and religious leaders concocted that ridiculous myth is incontrovertible proof that they were neither inspired by God nor knew anything about building large structures and the strength of materials.

Maybe the myth's original hearers knew very well what they themselves could build, but simply imagined a magical prehistoric time in which their ancestors had been able to do much more.

Today we have science fiction. We imagine that our descendants will do things that we cannot imagine. But it's only in the past couple of centuries that technological progress has been so study as to make the future obviously grander than the past. For most of history, things have gone up and down slowly. Or more often, I think: slowly up and quickly down. So imagining a much better time, in the ancient world, probably meant imagining a time in the past.

The Tower of Babel obviously isn't accurate history. It's not even sensible theology. But it's an oddly modern story, if you think about it. Human ambition is conceived of as building, and as reaching the heavens. Human potential is so high, even God is alarmed. But all it takes to destroy that potential is miscommunication. Not speaking each other's languages was considered a tragic weakness, even so long ago. If you take it as a myth, rather than as the history it obviously isn't, the Tower of Babel isn't so uninspired, it seems to me.

I am glad you admit that the Tower Babel obviously isn't accurate history nor sensible theology (even if there were any such thing as sensible theology, which I think there is more than ample reason to doubt). That was the entire point of my post! Given that fact, which even you admit, and the penchant of theism in general to promote or rely on obviously inaccurate and nonsensical claims and stories, why should anyone ever take theism of any kind seriously?

I don't buy the notion that a rational and compassionate God would be alarmed at humanity's high potential. Such a being should be eager to promote and help us to achieve that potential in a rational and benign way.

[_aussieguy55]

https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hi ... el_wtj.htm

Interesting paper on Babel. Says that there were already different languages around then.

[_Fence Sitter]

The reason we have the computer and the Internet, has everything to do with inspiration of men like Bell, Edison, and Tesla without any help from Darwin and his opinion.

And Einstein.

Bonus points if you can tell us how the age of the universe (14 billion years or so) and Einstein's electrical theories that make your computer function and intertwined.

I constructed an addition onto my house. Can you tell me how billions of years and Einstein's electrical theories brought that about?

Yes I can.

Portions of the materials you used to construct the addition started their journey as part of a star that existed millions if not billions of years ago and far away, stars that took specific amounts of time to age, die and explode throwing their material out into the universe to be reconstituted as new,stars, planets and assorted space debris. Materials, some of which, ended up being our planet and solar system. Einstein's theories were foundational to understanding how these process work as well as understanding how to use the electricity that flows through the wires in that addition. Theories that depend on the universe being about 14 billion years old. In other words if Einstein was wrong you and I would not be communicating on the computers in front of us. and you would be sitting out in a yard without an addition.

You do understand that all of the post-iron elements are formed in supernova explosions themselves, right? And since we do not live in a star, those elements must have been formed somewhere else long ago and far away.

It is about this time you start with the "God can do anything" excuses and pretend these process don't really happen in the time frames they actually take, just to defend an absurdly literal reading of a mythological fictional book written 1800-2800 years ago by unknown people who had no idea that the earth was not the center of the universe let alone the fact there was more to the universe than just our solar system.

So yes I do understand how you built your addition, since I work in construction I am quite capable of even doing it myself. What you don't understand is how those pieces of material you use came to be and how Einsteins theories are critical to your use of them. All you see is a book that must be defended in a bizarre manner, no matter how ridiculous the argument is and no matter how many aspects of your own life depend on the very scientific theories you are willing to discard in this misguided defense.