Babel: The Mother Culture?

All your words and quoting scripture will not alter the clear meaning of this passage.The Gods were concerned that a unified mankind could rival the Gods.The god envision in the OT was a warrior god not too far advanced from humans. This is clear in the above passage and others like "The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name".The OT even gives god human like qualities such as "the LORD grew angry" or "Wine cheereth God and man" or "So the Lord changed His mind"Now with our increased understanding of the universe (no thanks to the religious extremist) we realize just how foolish that world view is.

That is not what the text clearly says. What you claim is extra biblical interpretation. Nevertheless that is not what the topic is about.The topic is about if the originating culture was so advanced why did so many cultures lose such simple but useful technology. For example, the new world people's did not yet have the wheel or arch.

My official position is that is what the text clearly says.This is only odd if one takes the illogical and blasphemous position that the myths in the OT represent the workings of God. They do not any more than the earlier myths of Gilgamesh describe God. They are myths and when literal bible believing sorts attempt to fold this into a view of God they have to take a position that is absurd. As the main topic stated and I stated many of these simple inventions did not get transfered to other cultures.Again for example, the wheel and the arch, two of the most important inventions of humankind, were not discovered in the New World., until European contact. I believe the same is true of other isolated cultures such aborigines. Edited by iceage, : No reason given.

In researching the Gilgamesh myth and it's relation the Tower of Babel I came across this quote at Answer in Genesis by Jonathan Sarfati... So the basis of research starts with the literal biblical text! And anything that might suggest anything counter is "liberal theory".I guess belief in a round earth and a heliocentric solar system are "liberal theories" and need to be demolished.People trust these nutcases?

Yes, very inadequate... When providing "physical evidence" you cannot start with "if God is real..." That is all nice, but it is all extra-biblical speculations. In the below passage where is the "Word" mentioned? And again you go on to say... Again you are creating extra-biblical speculations. That is not what the text says. It is really very clear.Do some research the tower of babel is a borrowed myth from the Sumerian's. The Sumerian myth is older and cruder. Yes but it is natural process and not a super-natural process. Animals communicate. Communication is a very natural process for intelligent creatures.

I hear this often and it is thrown out as sort of a side glancing justification that the Bible must be true and special for it receive so much attention and criticisms. The bible is not any more special in this sense then say the Koran.The bible just happens to dominate western thinking. The bible has shaped our western society in many ways - some for the better and some definitely for the worse.Today, at least in the US, the bible believing religious folks are very politically active trying to force creationism in to schools, prayer into schools, control research dollars, impede research into emerging fields such as stem cells, cloning, etc.I remember a once Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, publicly held to the belief that we are in the end times and resource conservation was unnecessary as it was all going burn anyways. Mr. Watt was quoted "My responsibility is to follow the Scriptures which call upon us to occupy the land until Jesus returns".All these people derive their illogical and harmful world views based on the belief that the Bible is the inspired word of god. Therefore it is important and natural to expose and illustrate that the Bible is not the word of god. The bible does not contain messages direct from God and that we should not limit our view of the world based on the limited knowledge and wisdom of the bronze age!

Actually articles 5 and 7 come with a significant amount of fine print. They are just considered guidelines, unless you are commanded by god to kill, rape and steal.The astute reader will notice that God commanded killing, raping and stealing repeatably almost like there was a lesson we were to glean from it.Anastasia, not to pollute this thread, there is a thread on this topic (as least with respect ot rape) here Message 1.As Alacrity pointed out other cultures have similar laws without the benefit of the big 10. Interestingly a recent study published in the "Journal of Religion and Society" found a positive correlation between the extent of illegal and immoral behavior and the degree that a society characterizes itself as god fearing or religious. The crime rate between US and Japan was cited in that journal.Sure some of the Commandments forbid actions that are also forbidden in western legal codes. However these forbidden modes of conduct are parallel to what can be found in laws throughout the world. Are the Ten Commandments the basis for Chinese law, merely because murder and theft are forbidden in China?

Sure. They are based on the precept that it is immoral to take the life a fellow human.However I think this a natural law that emerges as culture and societies mature. Since the bible covers many years you can read about that progressive development.The Bible documents the development of ethical principles but is not the source. There is very scant little support for a Pro-life stance in the bible. Start a thread on this topic and you may be surprised. Actually I hold a pro-life view but more based on scientific understanding of embryology.Even though the OT gave these commands the stories immediately deviate and violate the commands repeatedly. Consider Samson, supposedly every time the spirit of the lord came over him he went out and killed something. The first he killed a lion but then worked his way up to kill 30 man in one instance and then 1000 men. Sure, it is interesting. The bible is great literature, it has some historical significance, it is culturally important, I just wished people would keep it in perspective. The story of Babel is interesting and to a bronze age people it helps explain why different people have different tongues. It is interesting to view the world from a more earlier perspective, just like future generations will look back at us and wonder at some of our beliefs.Sometimes i have to stop myself and ask why on earth am I debating if the tower of Babel existed and was God really worried about human achievements. It is a ludicrous to believe in such myths and primitive stories. It is like trying to defend the position that the Wizard of Oz was not a real person.

Language tree... hmmm.... tree as in evolutionary hierarchal progression with a traceable taxonomy.