jeffsstuff.com

I just posted this commentary to my blog at Jeff's Stuff - Photography and Other Stuff by Jeffrey A. Schwartz. I felt it was relevant here. If there is a better way to of done this, please let me know. I am new to this (both this forum, and blogging in general)

Note: the discussion group discussed is in fact this one.

I welcome your input.
-Jeff


Religion attempts to explain the unknown and the unknowable. The story of the Tower of Babel is an example of this. If life on Earth began in the way the Bible describes, and if the stories of the Bible are true then it would be impossible to explain why we speak in different languages today. Rather than concede ignorance, the Bible explains the variety of languages on earth through the story of the Tower of Babel.

Just yesterday, I was reading a discussion about the story of Noah and the ark. I cited an observation made in the book Innumeracy by the author John Allen Paulos. In brief, its shows that to attain a flood of the magnitude described in the Bible, the rain would have had to fall at a rate of 15 feet per hour. Precipitation at that rate would clearly sink any vessel. In response to this, one reader wrote:
This is why I like the Tower of Babel story so much. It is so easy to disprove and I don't need science to do it. Well, actually science and disapproved it, but in a way that the above argument can't impugn.

According to the story, man was trying to reach heaven. God would have never bothered to take action against the creation of the Tower if he didn't feel there was a chance of man attaining this goal. Yet common sense says that a tower created by a man could only attain a certain height. Even with modern engineering techniques, the tallest structures on earth do not extend more than a half a mile into space.

From Wikipedia: At 645 m, these structures do not even extend out of the troposphere (the lowest layer of our atmosphere). They do not extend into the stratosphere where airplanes often fly.

Had the Tower of Babel extended high enough to reach the upper atmosphere, other challenges would've existed. Aside from the structural challenges of constructing a tower of that magnitude, breathing would become increasingly difficult and ultimately impossible as the altitude increased.

But let's say hypothetically that these challenges were dealt with. We have flown airplanes miles over the earth. We have satellites that constantly scan down on the earth and up into space. God has never impeded our quest for space. We have traveled to the moon and are probes have traveled to the edges of our solar system and beyond.

Let's go a step further. We shall Concede that the technology existed to build a tower of any height required. Concede again that a method of protecting a man from the dangers of space (radiation, cold, heat, the vacuum of space, lack of air to breathe, etc.) was known to the people of the time. How big a tower could be built? Theoretically, no structure can exist larger than the earth itself since any raw materials for such a tower must inherently come from the earth. We weren't shipping in material from Mars were we? So if you took the mass of the Earth and reshaped it into a tower, you still would not extend beyond the solar system. Thus no construction on earth could ever do so. This is a ridiculous proposition anyway because of the pertinent physical laws. Still, it helps to illustrate that no tower on earth, created by man, could possibly reach anything that man has not explored extensively.

Why would God stop the construction of a tower that could never reach heaven? The simple answer is: because it never happened. It is simply a fable told to explain what people did not know at the time. It was a way to explain the unexplainable. The problem with religion is that once facts emerge, these stories don't evolve. Of course, religion has never been fond of evolution either. Has it?

*Babel. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004.

__________________
'The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history."

-Robert Heinlein

Providence

I was about to play devil's (God's?) advocate and say, "Maybe he was just punishing them for their pride" or something like that, but the Bible makes it pretty clear:

Genesis 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

Og

You treat scripture like a newspaper report and you have big problems. You treat it as poetry and it becomes illuminating. To reduce it to a question of belief or disbelief in literal fact misses the point entirely.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

jeffsstuff.com

The problem is that people use scripture as a way of deciding public policy (stem cell research is wrong because the bible tells us so...). Thus, disproving the scripture dispels the argument.

I'm not saying there is no value to it. It (the bible) is a great work of literature. But like any great work of art, you can get something from its intent and message but to take it literally is madness.

-Jeff

__________________
'The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history."

-Robert Heinlein

Og

They decide policy in their small rooms. Things like stem cell research continue elsewhere in the world. Disproving scripture is a ridiculous idea. Look at the quote you have in your original post:

Exactly how can you "disprove" the idea to this kind of person? These kind of people are sheep. Harness them and use them (i.e. politicians) or just stay out of the way of the mob.

Bottom line is that there's always the above argument. How exactly can you disprove this? God can do anything and break the rules of science, so maybe this was a long time ago when heaven was closer to earth and such.. yadda yadda yadda...

Disproving scripture will do nothing for the nut jobs like Faith who clearly have no idea what you mean when you talk about proof. Proof for them are ideas that support their beliefs. Nothing else. Disproof is meaningless to these people.

And btw... Lazarus Long is awesome.

Human beings are descended from apes while red-heads are descended from cats

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

Og

Like, logic says: "People aren't born from virgins."

Also, the story of the buddha demonstrates his birth as a spiritual one from his mother's side (500 years before christ).

But hey, god can do whatever he wants. There is no such thing as disproof. The bible simply is fact for people regardless. Attempts to disprove, while they might sound neat and logical in one's head, only cause the reinforcement of a dissociative delusion that is their life experience.

Furthermore, you're evil for questioning the validity of the stuff. It's like talking to a rock. If people are holding to the factuality of the idea of the tower of babel or of the garden of eden and they're old enough to get on the internet to read about it, then they've got FAR deeper problems and are probably broken for good.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

jeffsstuff.com

I'm just an optimist and hope that I can educate SOMEONE!

One day when I have time, I'll tell you a rather funny (okay sorta sad) story about one of these "sheep".

As to Lazarus Long, I've only read "Time Enough for Love". I still want to read the others. So many books, so little time!

__________________
'The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history."

-Robert Heinlein

jeffsstuff.com

One second thought, education isn't my goal. My goal is to make people take a moment and think. Thats what religion tries to take away; The ability to think for yourself. Some people want (or often need) that. Still, if I could make one contribution in life, it would be to get people to think for themselves.

__________________
'The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history."

-Robert Heinlein

Og

I totally want to educate some too! And I'm certainly an optimist!

I was just saying that the psychology of these people that speak as this guy named "Faith" does is very distinct. If you want to educate them, offering disproof is not the way to do it. Beyond that, as I said, if someone thinks that something like the world flood is possible, then there's many other things they need to be educated about.

Telling people like this that the flood didn't happen (or similar claims) is asking them to take, on faith, something equally as arbitrary. If they learned more facts about the world around them and how it worked, then they'd come to these conclusions too (as they're obvious).

I guess what I'm saying is "teach a man to fish."

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

jeffsstuff.com

Og, on a more technical / procedural point:

Should I have placed my article here or just placed a link to it pointing to my site. Or, should I just keep my opinions to myself?
-Jeff

__________________
'The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history."

-Robert Heinlein