Babel: The Mother Culture?

The thing is, if you believe in a tale such as this you have to believe that the xian god is real and has magical powers. If you don't agree to that premise and then draw your conclusions from that premise you cannot conclude that the tower of babel fable was accurate.I think you will be hard pressed to find a biblical literalist who will have much more to say on the matter; but that's the nature of evc: welcome to the fray.

Don't you think it is more likely that the events described are a distortion of what actually happened?Such as a (relatively) advanced society starts using co operation to create (relatively) advanced structures. When the co operative society breaks down it cannot maintain the (relatively) dense population and there is a dispersion of the population.No more co operation.What I just dreamed up in a minute or two (I would contend) is a more likely senario than a mean spirited god going out of its way to make life hard for people.

Care to back this one up?

Ya.Thats not really the point. In this place we have to look at the evidence. Can you provide such that would support your asertations?I would strongly argue that many lines of physical evidence points towards language developement as to have come from non supernatural origins.Whether or not the xian god is real or not, the evidence would still point towards a naturalistic progression of communication in humans.So, can you back up your assertation?

Something like 2000 BCE.There is a Sumerian myth similar to that of the Tower of Babel, called "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta". Enki and Enlil end up confusing the languages of people during one of their fights.

Enlil did it. Some sources (my favourite ones) say that we were created as slave labour for the Anunnaki who came from the 10th planet (yeah I know but no more hard to swallow than any other mythic cycle).The flood was to cull our numbers. Enki was supposed to have created us with his half sister Ninki and he quite liked us. He taught us things like free will where as Enlil just wanted cheap labour sources.

Ha ha, you beat me to it."If god is real....."Sigh.

If Larni is 7 feet tall Larni can reach the high shelf in the kitchen.You don't see the error here?You need to establish a reason to construct the 'if'. It is evidence for your initial stance that the xian god is real that is required. This is an unsubstantiated assertion. Thats the great thing about the scientific methodology, you can create a hypothesis and then test it. Then you can use it to make testable predictions. No philiosphy involved.I would contend with greatest respect that you are conflating philosphy with an a priori assumption of the validity of the xian god's existance. Because Ubaid/Sumerian (non Semitic) culture predates Semitic Arkadians. To the tune of 2500 years. Ur had a massive great ziggurat that prdate Babylon by at least 1000 yrs.Ur fell into cultural decline. Peoples leaving Ur (and it's ziggerat) would fit very well with the Tower of Babel. Xianty mythic cycles are mostly rehashes of older coultures. Wan to know why xians in pictures have a halo? Alexander the Great believed he was divine. Xian art shamelessly ripped this off. The whole point of scientific methodolgy to to remove this. Open minded does not mean one makes a priori assumtions. This is obviously not the case. Given a lack of evidence to suggest otherwise, what purpose to pull assumtions out of thin air? Many xians would disagree with this. No it is not! Reality is demonstrated, theory predictes!

Dude, you miss my point: I am asking for evidence that your xian god hypothesis may be valid. By the way there is a difference between not liking to think that I am immoral and not caring. My actions being facts defined by cause and effect are in no way simlar to a belief in the xian god are they?

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Because Ubaid/Sumerian (non Semitic) culture predates Semitic Arkadians. To the tune of 2500 years. Ur had a massive great ziggurat that prdate Babylon by at least 1000 yrs.

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Ur fell into cultural decline. Peoples leaving Ur (and it's ziggerat) would fit very well with the Tower of Babel.
  —Larni

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Ta da! Welcome to one of the most used counter arguements for the veracity of the bible. Dude, bias is bad. Any bias. There is a whole side order of statistical process with the express removing bias. See here:Bias - Wikipedia(statistics)Also, what has morality got to do with accurate predictions following hypothesis testing? If we agree there is going to be an eclipse, yes.You should have nice long conversation with Iano about what it is possible to know (but I can't find the thread).

Take a peek at this:http://www.crystalinks.com/sumerlanguage.html And this:This plate illustrates a literary catalogue compiled in approximately 2000 B. C. (clay tablet 29.15.155 in the Nippur collection of the University Museum). The upper part represents the tablet itself; the lower part, the author's hand copy of the tablet. The titles of those compositions whose actual contents we can now reconstruct in large part are as follows:Note that this was prior to paper/papyrus/scroll work (very medievel).http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/sum/img/pl02.jpg1. Hymn of King Shulgi (approximately 2100 B. C.).
2. Hymn of King Lipit-Ishtar (approximately 1950 B. C.).
3. Myth, "The Creation of the Pickax" (see p. 51).
4. Hymn to Inanna, queen of heaven.
5. Hymn to Enlil, the air-god.
6. Hymn to the temple of the mother-goddess Ninhursag in the city of Kesh.
7. Epic tale, "Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Nether World" (see p. 30).
8. Epic tale, "Inanna and Ebih" (see p. 82).
9. Epic tale, "Gilgamesh and Huwawa."
10. Epic tale, "Gilgamesh and Agga."
11. Myth, "Cattle and Grain" (see p. 53).
12. Lamentation over the fall of Agade in the time of Naram-Sin (approximately 2400 B. C.).
13. Lamentation over the destruction of Ur. This composition, consisting of 436 lines, has been almost completely reconstructed and published by the author as Assyriological Study No. 12 of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
14. Lamentation over the destruction of Nippur.
15. Lamentation over the destruction of Sumer.
16. Epic tale, "Lugalbanda and Enmerkar."
17. Myth, "Inanna's Descent to the Nether World" (see p. 83).
18. Perhaps a hymn to Inanna.
19. Collection of short hymns to all the important temples of Sumer.
20. Wisdom compositions describing the activities of a boy training to be a scribe.
21. Wisdom composition, "Instructions of a Peasant to His Son." 16http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/sum/sum05.htmSemitic adjads did not see significant use untill 1800 BCE which is well into the post Sumerian period. Sumerian culture had been extant for about 1300 yrs prior. The Sumerian culture was on its way out by 1595 BCE. It had recorded its mythic cycles nearly 1000 yrs before the Arkadians (early semites) had a working set of adjads.History of writing - WikipediaEdited by Larni, : No reason given.

Dude, you are conflating the scientific concept of bias with making an asumption. I would contend that you are making perfect use of 'Observer Bias'; a very common bias in Psychology.There are many types of bias in a formal scientific sense.Again what you are calling 'having bias' is actually 'having an a priori asumption'.Get any A level Psychology book and look up bias. A good one to start with is the Fundemental Attribution Error.

No, no and no again. Borrowed by the Arkadians right the way down to the Hebrews. Rehashed and borrowed. If this is your arguement you must use it in the correct forum. This is a Science Forum. I have borrowed nothing but learned by hard graft what you hand wave away.Quit preaching, pony up with some evidence or get out of Dodge.

RAOFLMAO!Could this sentence sum up the mind set of the biblically minded xian or what?Still LMAO!

Then we are clear that the bible has no factual relevance in this case and its use as evidence for the veracity of the Tower of Babel myth is erroneous?I do appologise however; I assumed you were a literalist and this not being the case I am obviously in error.Not sure what you mean by animal olympics.

To be fair it is the religious individual who makes a positive claim about the nature of the bible. The default position is that the bible has no evidence base to support its claims of divine inspiration. Evidence is required to move away from this initial default position.The story of the Tower of Babel is just one story that implies the hand of a god in the developement of humanity. There are many stories that the bible has co opted or out right copied (see the Sumerian Epics). Can't argue with that, but the same could be said of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Illiad, or the Decent of Ianna.I did not seek to mock, but to point out how stopping thinking is what some xians (for example) do far too much.What has the tortoise and the hare story got to do with anything?Edited by Larni, : No reason given.Edited by Larni, : No reason given.