Why did God divide the people of Babel?

Because they needed a good story to explain all of the different languages of the world.
 
Greatest I am said:
I cannot dither out any good moral reason for Babel.
Click to expand...

I got one:

The people of Babel (when they all still spoke one language) were often fighting and didn't resolve their conflicts. They were using some really bad language against eachother.

One of the effects of all this conflict was that they forgot about God, which was unkind toward Him, and esp. towad themselves, as by spending so much time in conflict with eachother, they had not time to think of God, and so they forfeited the benefits they could otherwise get from thinking of God.
Besides, when they finally did turn to God, they asked Him for nasty things, such as that He should smite down the opposition.

God got bored of this, and also concerned for the welfare of the Babel-dwellers, and messed up their language skills, so that then they couldn't fight with eachother anymore, or at least didn't do it for long (just try arguing with someone whose language you do not understand).
 
Greatest I am said:
Why did God divide the people of Babel?
Click to expand...
Assuming that the overall story cared enough about inter-consistency for an answer to be inferred from it, wasn't it because humankind was too defiant, unified, and progressing too rapidly?

Monitoring Angel: "Dagnabbit, look at the engineering feats that those clowns down below are already engaging in now that their population has increased again! You've got to do something to slow them down, God, and fast! Otherwise that end-time you've got slated for 6,000 years after creation is going to get off-target once more!"

Advisory Angel: "And don't forget about the future tribes of Israel project you've got in the works, Elohim -- and a keepin' them Jew folk separate from the gentiles someday. How's that ever going to happen if you don't introduce some cultural bias and prejudice down there to divide these jokers up and make them breed within and stick more to their own? Let'em speak different tongues, that's what I suggest! By gosh, see how fast civilization develops once they're squandering their time a squawking and a feuding and a fittin' each other!"
 
The words and sounds of language are purely subjective and arbitrary. We can use any sound or noise to mean anything, since the association between sound and thing is purely abritrary and subjective. There are not cause and effect rules. Once the sounds are established as a convention, there sort of appears to be cause and effect in any given language. But across different languages, there is no cause and effect, that says a cat has to be called a cat. It is chat in french.

What Babel implied was a movement from an original universal language based on natural objectivity, into multiples languages based on sound subjectivity. Since subjectivity is not rational, there was no rules for cause and effect, allowing anyone to invent their own language.

One example of a universal type of language is visual. If we had 100 people speaking 100 different languages, looking at an apple, they will also see the exact same thing. They may call it 100 different things (subjective) but the visual that appears in the brain is universal. The same can be said of all the other sensory systems. We would all hear the same song of a given bird. But we might each call it by the subjective sounds of 100 languages.

Based on the universal human sensory systems and common input data processing, the very ancient brain, through eons of time, developed a natural universal language called symbolism, which is a type of language that brings all sensory data together. Babel symbolizes the change from this natural universal language, to arbitray sounds which any leader could make up, to attract is own clan. They needed to separate since nobody knew what each other were saying.

I will call that bird wigglerig, since it can be anything. Nobody else will know what that means except me and my clan; we are so cool and this is our secret shake. I can play god this way; tower to heaven. After awhile, each clan group can no longer understand another group, so they all will need to separate to find their own place. The universal language is buried, but still appears; collective human symbolism.
 
Greatest I am said:
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
Click to expand...

A logical reason (pretending that this did happen), for this would be to get people to spread out and separate more. If everyone spoke the same language they would be more comfortable around one another and they would try to stay close together. This is a problem because if one famine or disease or natural disaster hits then everyone will be hit. If people cannot communicate they would link up with those that they could talk to and due to conflicts arising from a lack of communication between the new tribes they would separate ensuring the survival of our species over any one disaster.
 
if you are gonna ask a question about a specific thing in the bible,it helps to have the relevant verses..


1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward,[a] 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; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
Click to expand...

this is the verses i have heard referred to concerning the reasons why God confused the languages..
it speaks of presumption,arrogance and ego..

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.”
Click to expand...
bold and following verses are kind of irrelevant since that is where we are today and today there is no language barrier per se..

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.
Click to expand...

notice they feared being scattered, and that was the consequence..


but i do agree with previous poster about it being just an excuse to explain the different languages..
 
They were trying to build a friggin tower to Heaven, and they did not all follow the word of God. They were blasphemous, and had to much power. God did what must be done.
 
Just a question that always had troubled me.

Why would god demand praise??
Why would god follow a moral compass??


Why have faith in something you do not know? Third party recollections of literature that sounds good is enough? Family? Why are you so positive?

Can we even fathom what an "eternal" being is?? Like once you live a google amount of years wouldent death be the only option left to assign any meaning to life. Why would praise even mean anything to a god in the real scope of things.

Would an baby that died become a baby angel??? Like why is there so many baby angels that scares the hell out of me, they are stuck in there body forms after death or???

Why would god like put us through a test and make it impossible to succeed. Why would there be an after-life where everyone was peaceful and happy all the time?
 
About the angel thing, a angel is born, and it grows up. If the baby was a angel, when he dies he will go back to his spirit.
 
Greatest I am said:
Why did God divide the people of Babel?
Click to expand...
Well, according to the Bible, this is why....
Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Click to expand...
God assessed them as having no limits in connecting their imagination to real world production.
 
Why would a god that could create the universe feel threatened by some primitives trying to build a crude tower? Just let gravity take care of the problem.
 
Rhaedas said:
Why would a god that could create the universe feel threatened by some primitives trying to build a crude tower? Just let gravity take care of the problem.
Click to expand...
The bible does not say God felt threatened - though it could fit with what the Bible says. It seems it was the full set of capabilities of homosapiens if they could all use the same language that was problematic - for reasons not stated.
 
Signal said:
I got one:

The people of Babel (when they all still spoke one language) were often fighting and didn't resolve their conflicts. They were using some really bad language against eachother.

One of the effects of all this conflict was that they forgot about God, which was unkind toward Him, and esp. towad themselves, as by spending so much time in conflict with eachother, they had not time to think of God, and so they forfeited the benefits they could otherwise get from thinking of God.
Besides, when they finally did turn to God, they asked Him for nasty things, such as that He should smite down the opposition.

God got bored of this, and also concerned for the welfare of the Babel-dwellers, and messed up their language skills, so that then they couldn't fight with eachother anymore, or at least didn't do it for long (just try arguing with someone whose language you do not understand).
Click to expand...

Kind of had to destroy the original story to come up with your scenario.

Scripture says not to do that.

As to fighting and war. You mean there could have been more than what the horrible history of the ancients show? Wow.

Regards
DL
 
Greatest I am said:
So why make God look like a fool in the process?
Or was that the intent?

Regards
DL
Click to expand...

I'm sure it all made sense back then. Build a stone tower to heaven? Why not! Lots of stories back then didn't make sense....god creating plants before he created the sun...then in Joshua...the sun stood still for a whole day.
 
C C said:
Assuming that the overall story cared enough about inter-consistency for an answer to be inferred from it, wasn't it because humankind was too?

Monitoring Angel: "Dagnabbit, look at the engineering feats that those clowns down below are already engaging in now that their population has increased again! You've got to do something to slow them down, God, and fast! Otherwise that end-time you've got slated for 6,000 years after creation is going to get off-target once more!"

Advisory Angel: "And don't forget about the future tribes of Israel project you've got in the works, Elohim -- and a keepin' them Jew folk separate from the gentiles someday. How's that ever going to happen if you don't introduce some cultural bias and prejudice down there to divide these jokers up and make them breed within and stick more to their own? Let'em speak different tongues, that's what I suggest! By gosh, see how fast civilization develops once they're squandering their time a squawking and a feuding and a fittin' each other!"
Click to expand...

You may have some good points here actually.
Religion and God has always been against unification thanks to their tribal mentality; the inquisition shows that they are definitely against progress; and defiance is of course anti sheeple.

Although God did reward Satan and Cain for their defiance and rebellion.
Satan was rewarded with dominion here and Cain became king of a city under God's protection.

Regards
DL
 
Greatest I am said:
Explain please. I do not read minds on Saturdays.

Regards
DL
Click to expand...

“Think not that I came to send peace on the earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law” Matthew 10:34-35
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top