Spider you are right.

Those who seek find.

As I sought God did I find peace.

I did not do it with a bible but with faith.

Spider wrote:
"Those who seek, find. Simon Greenleaf was an athiest who read the Bible
in an attempt to disprove it, he was saved."

My response:
Do you not see the contradiction?: If only those who are saved can
understand the Bible and correctly interpret its meaning, then an
atheist whose goal it was to disprove the Bible could never understand
it well enough to become a convert and be saved. (Further, you should
be careful about this sort of argument. It's uses an argumentative
fallacy that can easily be flipped, and some opponents will present
examples of devout Christians who became atheists. It's not proof, nor
evidence, of anything either way. I'm not trying to be hostile, but
genuinely trying to help you to make strong arguments in the future.)

--

Spider wrote:
"You can't read the
Bible like you are reading a text book or a novel, you have to read it
with your mind open to truth."

My response:
In you statement about Simon Greenleaf, you said he did exactly the
opposite — he did not have an open mind and, in fact, claims to have
been strongly opposed to scripture. It would seem, based on that
testimony, that keeping one's mind open to the truth isn't a
requirement.

--

Spider wrote:
"If you open the Bible and think "I'll try
to believe this, but if God doesn't like x sin, then I'm out", because
why would God reveal the truth to you if you love sin? God wants you to
accept that you are not good enough. That you are not wise enough.
That you will never be good enough or wise enough, so that you finally
break down and give yourself to him."

My response:
First, you seem to make a huge assumption (and I could take offense, but
I don't) that I "love sin" and that's why God has yet to reveal the
truth to me. In reality, except for not following the God-specific
Christian teachings (like reaching the Father through the Son — which,
as an atheist, lacks meaning for me anyway), there is very little in my
behavior that would set me apart from most devoted Christians. However,
that aside, isn't Christianity's objective to help those who sin see the
error of their ways and bring them into the fold? Why would God
withhold the truth that would allow the sinful to see the path to
righteousness and salvation? It's circular logic to consider one who is
not a follower of Jesus (i.e., not saved) and does not consider his/her
actions to be sinful in such terms, to be unworthy to receive the truth
and the Holy Spirit, recognize their errors and sinful ways, and be
saved. Who is in greater need of salvation than the wretched sinner?

--

Spider wrote:
"The truth is, there are parts of the Bible that are too hard for some
believers. As your spirit grows in strength, you can tackle more
difficult concepts and scriptures. Becoming a christian is a
never-ending process. Nobody can just sit down and understand the
meaning of all scriptures on the day they are saved. I doubt many are
spiritual enough to understand the whole Bible by the time they die.
It's a growing and learning process."

My response:
If there are parts of scripture that a Christian cannot understand
presently, but may think s/he understands, or has some confusion about
which parts are clearer than others, etc., how can s/he know if anything
s/he reads is correctly interpreted? I don't typically get an "I don't
know" from my Christian friends when we discuss such things — they
clearly believe they understand the passages — so how are they (or we)
to know if their interpretations are correct? In a forum such as this,
how do we know if your interpretation is correct, or any other
Christian's interpretation is correct, by mere virtue of following the
Christian teachings and having been saved? You may be reading the
spirit, rather than the word, but what if you haven't reached the level
of spirituality you claim is necessary to speak authoritatively on a
particular passage? How can people seeking truth trust that any
particular Christian has the understanding and wisdom to lead them down
the path of righteousness rather than down the road to perdition?

--

Clearly, I'm not a Christian — though some of my best friends are and we
often have in-depth discussions about religion (always good-naturedly
and always respectful). I wasn't reared without faith, but early in
adulthood I found myself unable to believe in that faith any longer. It
wasn't a decision, but a realization that the things I was taught as a
child and fought to hold onto as a young man had eroded to the point
that I no longer owned those beliefs. To say that I rejected God or
turned my back on Christianity would be overly simplistic, and would
marginalize the ordeal and pain I experienced when I came to my
realization. And to say that I haven't sought the truth or to suggest
that it's my love for sin that keeps me from knowing God, the spirit,
and the truth is to say that you know me and the path I've traveled —
which isn't the case. I genuinely sought out the religions of the
world, Christianity included, trying to find something to fill the void
that seemed to appear so suddenly. But over time, that feeling of loss
was replaced by a certain peace and serenity, an acceptance that I
hadn't really known before. (I suppose it was sort of like the feeling
you have as a kid when you first take the training wheels off the
bicycle — you start out feeling horribly frightened and unsteady and you
fall a few times, but after awhile you feel like you can do more
disencumbered by the training wheels.) As an atheist, I haven't
suddenly started stealing, killing, or kicking puppies. I am pretty
much the same person I was before and, if anything, I focus even more on
trying to help people and do as little harm as possible. My issue with
Christianity, then, is that I haven't been "closed off" to it or
belligerent regarding the potential for truth, yet its tenets state that
I'm bound for Hell because I do not (nay, cannot) believe. That is why
I consider Christianity something of a contradiction — a message of love
and forgiveness followed by a message of damnation for all who never
find that path.

Redykeulous wrote:
"But this topic started out discussing the infamous Tower of Babel."

Good point. I latched onto a minor comment and ran with it. My
apologies for hijacking the thread and diverting from the original
question. Please, carry on.

Redykeulous wrote:
"But this topic started out discussing the infamous Tower of Babel."

But wasn't that the point of Babel? We should be dispersed to
discussing unrelated things? (ha ha)

I tried to address the OP a few posts back but no one seemed to have
caught it.

Sororitygurl wrote in the OP:
“okay so in the bible when God makes everyone speak a different
language, because they are trying to build a stairway to heaven.. why
does he bother to make different languages i mean really.. we've seen
what's above the clouds.. so techinically even if we built it all the
way up wouldn't we just float off into space lol”

I responded to this idea a few posts back with the quote from Genesis:

Gen 11:6 And the LORD said, 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.

When I read that quote it sounds like God is suggesting that the people
would indeed succeed in building a tower to heaven because it says, “And
now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to
do.”

I mean, like Sororitygurl suggested in the OP, if all that was going to
happen is that they would build a tower into outer space (like as if
they would even be able to build anything close to being that tall),
then why would God have to worry about dispersing them? Just let them
build the stupid tower to it falls over and they give up.

The quote of Gen 11:6 suggests that because they are all of one mind
they will indeed SUCCEED in doing whatever they collectively imagine.
THAT was the whole POINT of the verse as far as I’m concerned. I don’t
buy into Spider’s interpretation that it was about sin, because that
simply makes no sense to me.

However, it also makes no sense that an actual god would say this
either, because that would imply that it is true. In other words, that
the people would have been able to actually succeed in building a tower
to heaven if they did it collectively.

What makes MUCH MORE SENSE to me personally, is that this was written by
a sage who was trying to explain to his tribe why differnet tribes have
differnet languages. They were probably curious about this. After
all, they had been taught that everyone descended from Adam and Eve, so
it would be quite natural for them to wonder why people changed
languages. Why don’t all people speak the same language if that was the
case?

They probably asked their spiritual leaders this question, and so the
spiritual leaders made up the story about the tower of Babel to explain
why God had made people speak differnet languages.

Bingo, now it all makes PERFECT SENSE.

The whole story was just made up fiction by religious leaders who were
trying to keep their tribes believing in their religion.

I mean, parents do this all the time with their kids. They tell stories
about Santa Claus and Easter Bunnies, and boogiemen. Whatever they need
to tell the kids to get across their points. It was probably very
similar with the old Sages who view their tribes as their ‘children’.

They probably did it will good intentions. I’m not claiming that these
things were done with malice.

I’m simply saying that this explanation makes SENSE, whilst any
explanation of a god having done this is riddled with problems.


Disclaimer. I make my posts for those who are open to my views. It is
not my intent to change anyone’s mind. I’m simply sharing my views.
It’s also not my intention to cause people to be atheists because I do
believe in a loving god. I just don’t view god as the separate type of
god depicted in the Bible. To me god is very real and alive and within
our very own spirit. It doesn’t matter whether you believe in god, or
how you believe in god. All that matters is how you live your life. If
believing in the Bible helps you to live a better life then by all means
BELIEVE IN IT!

Abra, I understand what your take is on the subject. I too have always
felt that this was one of those 'stories' created to for the purpose of
'governing' a social order. Still, this does not change what others
have come to believe. Yet I can't help but wonder, why, in their
beliefs they have not questioned the logic, as I pointed out in my last
post. Or for that matter, why they do not, or did not come to a
conclusion at least similiar to yours and mine. That is why, I attempt
to put my questions in terms that may find some answer within thier
belief that maybe I missed.

So like you, I simply state, why I questions the 'thing' or 'story' put
it out there to see if maybe, someone else wonders as I do, and possibly
even lead me to see another point of view.

I enjoy reading your views, as I enjoy trying to understand how othere
substantiate their logic too.

Redykeulous wrote:
" Yet I can't help but wonder, why, in their beliefs they have not
questioned the logic, as I pointed out in my last post."

People generally don’t believe in religion for logical reasons Red.
Most people in western civilization simply choose to believe in
Christianity because it’s popular. It’s what’s ‘available’, and there
are many people who will preach it and give it ‘testimony’ to it.

There is also a fear associated with not believing it. I mean just
listen to how many people will say that if you don’t believe in Jesus
you’ll go to hell or at the very least you won’t be ‘saved’, etc.

I’d really like to know what they think they are being saved from.

Dying? Personally I don’t find the gift of eternal life to be all that
attractive. I don’t mind the thought of just perishing when I die. I
don’t believe that will happen, but if that is what happens it’s no big
deal because I’ll just black out and then I won’t be concerned about it
after that.

Of course, if I go to hell to spend eternity being tortured by a demon I
won’t like that. But any god who could send me to hell just because I
didn’t buy into a book that is riddled with contradictions and
absurdities can’t be a very compassionate god. In fact such a god would
be less compassionate then me. Can it be possible for god to be less
compassionate than a human? I could never send someone to eternal hell
just for not believing in some stupid stories that don’t make any sense.

Moreover, what about this:

Criminal: I raped, murdered, stole, cheated and lied, and even robbed
banks most of my life.

Nice Girl: I spent most of my life doing community service, helping the
poor and taking care of children.

Criminal: On my death bed a priest came in and converted me. I asked for
forgiveness and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and savoir

Nice Girl: Oh, I don’t believe in religions. I’m not into
superstitions.

So according to Christianity the dastardly Criminal will go to heaven
and the Nice Girl will either go to hell or just perish but certainly
not have the gift of eternal life.

What the hell kind of a God set up that arrangement?

It can’t possibly be like that. Such a God would NOT be a compassionate
or fair God at all. Somehow that Nice Girl would need to get be
awarded everlasting life no matter what she believes.

This crap about only going to heaven if you believe in a certain dogma
is for the birds. It just can’t possibly be that way. No all-loving
God could possibly be like that. No way.

It’s just totally beyond me how anyone can possibly believe that it
could be like that.

Abra:

I just wanted to point out that in my first reply to your post, I
definitely did respond to Sorority's original post and offered an
interpretation of the philosophical value for God's decision regarding
the Tower of Babel.

People can't build a tower into space because it would be structurally
unstable and you can't breathe in space without breathing apparatuses.
Hence, it is ridiculous to claim that people might have built a tower to
outer space. The passage in Bible says nothing about whether they would
have succeeded in terms of building a tower to heaven. It merely says
that God saw that the world had reached a state in which people could
not build character that comes from working through differences, since
they essentially had none. Again, I'll just refer you to my previous
several posts (which you apparently ignored).

Also, I'm open to everyones interpretation. I have considered yours and
find it to be logically untenable, hence I don't accept it. I feel that
you are the one being closed minded... because when you post you admit
that you're not trying to change anyone's mind (not even your own). If
all you are doing is repeating mantra after mantra that you have come to
believe in over the years of your life, then you are the one who is not
open to change.

Ely wrote:
“The passage in Bible says nothing about whether they would have
succeeded in terms of building a tower to heaven.”

I totally disagree with you Ely. I hold that Gen 11:6 states directly
that they would indeed succeed when it says “and now nothing will be
restrained from them, which they have imagined to do”

Gen 11:6 And the LORD said, 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.

That certainly appears to be what it is saying to me, and if people need
some kind of ‘divine inspiration’ to interpret it differently so be it.
I think the early post by Resserts in response to Spider clearly show
the local flaws associated with believing that only ‘saved’ people can
properly interpret the Bible.

From my point of view (and perhaps I might have misunderstood
Sororitygurl), but I took her question in the OP to be asking that if it
would have been impossible for the people to succeed then why was it
necessary for God to disperse them? Why not just let them fail and
learn on their own?

So it does seem to suggest that God was concerned about them actually
accomplishing this feat. Of course, this doesn’t bother me since I see
the whole thing as just a myth made up by sages to instill social order
in their tribes.

Ely wrote:
“Also, I'm open to everyones interpretation. I have considered yours and
find it to be logically untenable, hence I don't accept it.”

Well, touché on that one Ely, because I certainly feel the same way
about your posts. I skim over your post rather quickly anymore because,
in my opinion, most of the things that you say are so totally incorrect
and absurd that they aren’t even worth taking the time to respond to.

For example, in a previous post you wrote:
“So, please don't go assuming that science can somehow explain where
languages came from. It's one of the most difficult unsolved problems
facing biologists right now.”

I was making no assumptions, but you evidently do. First off,
biologists don’t even study the origin of languages so it’s utter
nonsense to say that this is one of the most difficult unsolved problems
facing biologists right now. It’s not even a topic of biology. You are
clearly stating total nonsense.

Secondly, it’s not the slightest bit of a problem to understand that
many different languages have arisen. The answer is utterly simple.
Mankind dispersed to far off places whilst they still had very primitive
languages, most likely consisting of various grunts and hand signals
before they began to develop higher linguistic skills. Then as they
advanced they developed their languages in tribes that were totally
independently of each other. That’s not even the slightest of a
problem to understand, and certainly not “The most difficult unsolved
problem facing biologists (or linguists) right now”

Your posts aren’t even worth taking the time to respond to anymore Ely
because you are obviously just making up nonsense off the top of your
head without even thinking about what you are saying.

Besides, what would be the implication otherwise? That Adam and Eve
were created fully educated in a language? Which language would that
have been?

Religious people don’t even think about these things. How was Adam able
to talk with God? Who taught Adam how to speak? What language would
God have used?

I believe that my conclusion that the Bible was written by old sages who
were trying to keep social order in their tribes is not only logically
tenable, but it’s the only rational conclusion that can be made.

If this bothers you I’m sorry. But attempting to insult me by telling
me that my logic is “untenable” whilst you spew utter nonsense is
downright ignorant Ely. It is much more tenable that tribesmen made
up these stories to instill social order in their tribes than it is to
believe that the stories were inspired by a Santa Claus in the sky that
no one has ever seen.

I agree with you Abra.

I see in this text not him scattering them for building the tower but
scattering them so they could not grow and become like him.

For if they could come together to build that city and its towers they
could do anything they wished. The flood did not kill the spirit it
merely removed those that were not striving toward the future. Once all
the slackers were gone mankind moved out too quicky for God.

I also wonder about the old testament god. Was it realy god? Would god
needed to have gone down into the city to inspect the tower? Would he
have walked upon the earth? Perhaps it was not god but another?

Abra:

Once again, your post merely skirts the issue. Of course God was
specifically scattering them because it became clear that humanity had
reached a state in which goals (one that is specifically named is the
idea of building a tower to Heaven) required no character-building work
to be accomplished. Thus, the act of spreading was (as is clear from the
passage, without any unusual "divine" interpretation) undertaken for the
express purpose of making the world such that in order to accomplish
goals, differences had to be overcomed.

The passage does not say that God is worried that they will succeed in
building the tower (that's absurd). It says the he is worried that they
will be able to come together to work on the tower (or anything else
they conspire or imagine to work on) without have to ever overcome any
differences. That is what he is repsonding to. And it is very clear from
the passage that he is responding to that.

Secondly, if you actually think that biologists don't study the origin
of languages, then you are completely crazy and there is no point in
even trying to have a reasonable conversation with you. The origin,
development, and structure of languages is one of the most hotly debated
and widely researched topic within computational biology right now. If
you had read my last post, instead of skimming it, you would have seen
that the National Science Foundation, for example, is paying tons of
money right now for research projects on the emergent properties of
languages.

Just to name a few of the very prominent language and emergent behavior
scientists:
Noam Chomsky, Felipe Cucker, Maya Paczuski, and Laure Heïgeas.

It's ridiculous and completely unfounded to say that biologists do not
study language theory. I mean, that is absolutely absurd.

Further, you often say that I make absurd claims, but then you never try
to validate that with any argument of your own. You just write off my
statements as ridiculous, as if you need an excuse not to answer them. I
think it demonstrates that you are the one being dogmatic about your
particular set of beliefs.

ely just so you know i plan on kidnapping you and holding you as my love
slave.. just thought i'd share

good luck... i'm kinda fast

i like it fast...

you must be the only one

hahah .. i meant that as in rhythm not length .. but yeah lol hmm

OH!

Rhythm... hmmm... what's that again?

Ely, I honestly rarely respont to your topics, mostly because I feel
inadequitly knoweledgable about many of the sciences you discuss.
However, your last post, to me, makes no more sence than you think of
Abra. The reason? So how many people would you suspect lived, at the
time of that Tower. And you think God somehow feared the fact that they
were actually working together as one unit to accomplish one goal?
Where then, sir, is this same God, when we are destroying our natural
habitat, when we are murdering each other, when we are exploring space,
or even when someone like Steven Hawkings has begun to show the
boundaries of the ends of our universe?

Where is the logic. Please, speak down to me, for if you go beyond E=MC
squared, I will be totally lost.

been to long i don't even remeber lol

actually i agree with red one what she's saying i know the other night
when we talked to you i felt you purposely tried be wordy when what you
were saying esp with the whole thing of how light reflects and you see
things.. it was unneeded really .. and soooo wordy

Red:

I'm not saying that God feared anything. I am saying that the problem he
sought to rectify was the lack of diversity among civilization in its
quest to accomplish goals. My interpretation is that when he saw them
building the tower, he though "my, that's a really silly goal to be
trying to achieve... but since they are not faced with the challenges of
overcoming differences (i.e. they have no opportunity for spiritual
growth in the arena of cooperative endeavor) they are getting the point
that it's a silly goal. Hence, they might actually accomplish their task
(i.e. they might build a tower that is satisfactorily tall for them) but
even if they succeed in doing it, they will have gained nothing because
it was trivially easy for them to get together to do it.

Thus, to make the task worthwhile (since the tower (for example) itself
wasn't worthwhile) he added the dimension of diversity (here it
specifically traced to language diversity) as a measure to ensure that
at least if they were going to work on a silly task (and actually make
serious progress on it) then they might in some way gain something from
it.

For me this makes sense, because one of the most fundamental things we
have to do as people is learn to accept the differences we have with
others and work to overcome them as we strive to achieve goals. The
goals we are trying to achieve might look trivial and silly to God, who
can see the bigger picture, so at least as we strive in our limited
understanding, we are gaining character in the sense that we can
appreciate and work through difficulties introduced through differences
in race or language. That is the philosophical value of the story.

It doesn't have anything to do with punishment and it doesn't have
anything to do with people actually building a literal tower that could
reach to heaven. And, I don't think it requires any fancy or
unreallistic interpretation to argue my point of view.

About being wordy: I have to say I agree. But, I don't apologize for it.
I see things in a very logical/rational/scientific sense. When I try to
think of examples to illustrate my point, they often come from science
and often I overlook the fact that not everyone is familiar with science
(and not every cares much for it). So, if my writing is wordy, I
understand your complaint, but I'm afraid it probably isn't going to
improve anytime soon.