for someone who wants you to worship him...?

Question

for someone who wants us to worship him god sure does like screwing with you if you do. can anyone explain what the big offense was with the whole tower of babel? people were living and working together peacefully, trying to build a tower which would reach heaven, no doubt because they worshipped god and wanted to be closer to him. so what does god do? he separates them, and gives them all different languages so that nobody can understand each other. was there some moral to this story?

beta, so you're comparing cooperation and a mutual love for god with cheating?

booboo, ahhh... so i don't have to open my heart to god. when he feels i am ready, he will make himself known to me? great!!! well, till that day comes...

Answer 1

The Tower of Babel, according to the popular interpretation, isn’t about people trying to get closer to God, out of some fidelity towards him. Instead, the Tower of Babel, is about man being so proud that he felt that he should be able to usurp God, using his own ingenuity. Hence, the story is a warning against the pitfalls of pride.

Yet, I think the moral implications of this story have not fully dawned on most Christians, because most refuse to contemplate a biblical story beyond the superficial interpretation that is spoon fed to them during their church services or Sunday school attendance.

A close inspection of the Tower of Babel story indicates that the biblical God is petty and insecure. What sort of God, would seek to infect humanity with that much obfuscation, even if the tower was created as a testament to man’s hubris and defiance? Take an analogy from everyday family life. Would a father, who sees his son step on a chair, so he can speak to him eye to eye, strike his son down, or confound him, just because the son was trying to be boastful in his posturing? No decent moral father would. No instead, the father would explain to the son what good aspirations were, and to pursue those goals safely.

The God, depicted in this Genesis story, is one that should be reviled, not loved. He isn’t concerned about your betterment, and hence doesn’t act even up to the goodness of a normal human father. No, he is concerned with his own position of superiority, not your welfare. A truly omnipotent God, who is infinitely loving, would not be threatened by human aspirations of any kind, especially those that brought humanity together.

The Tower of Babel story, if anything, demonstrates that God scorns equality and unity among men. So the notion of this country, which stands for those very virtues of equality and unity, is markedly contradictory to the Biblical God. God was the first segregationist, plain and simple.

Answer 2

Yes, if one respects God, one will listen to Him. Those people didn't.

For example, let's say a teacher has a classroom full of kids, and he tells them that it's time to take a test. He tells them that they each have to do their own work, no cheating! So one of them pulls out the book and starts copying answers. Three of the others get together and start comparing each others' answers, etc. How happy is the teacher going to be with these students? After all, they're just peacefully going about completing the test that the teacher asked them to complete...

EDIT: Yes, in some sense, what the people on the tower were doing WAS a form of cheating. God told them how to get to heaven, and they were trying to get there by an alternative "short cut" method. Again, would the teacher be pleased with the students? Even if they brought back their tests and they were all perfect 100% A+s? No, of course not.

Answer 3

God's wish was stated in Genesis 9:7; ' ... as for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.” He intended humanity to spread out and populate the whole earth. However humanity had other ideas; Genesis 11:4; '... 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 and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” So God took care of that idea:Genesis11:6; '... 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. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

Answer 4

God loves us better and more than we can ever understand. He wants us to wait for Him to come and get us, not try to go and "find Him" like the people of Babel were trying to do. It is said that no one can see the face of God and live, but that's because your heart will fill with so much love that it would explode. That's the "fire" of passion. He loves you. Just have to be patient and wait for Him to come get you on His time frame.

Answer 5

After the flood, Noah’s sons had lots of children. And their children grew up and had more children. Soon there were many people on the earth.

One of these persons was a great-grandson of Noah named Nim′rod. He was a bad man who hunted and killed both animals and men. Nim′rod also made himself a king to rule over other people. God was not pleased with Nim′rod.

All the people at that time spoke one language. Genesis 11:1 states "Now all the earth continued to be of one language and of one set of words."
Nim′rod wanted to keep them all together so that he could rule them. So he told the people to build a city and a big tower in it. Genesis 11:3,4 states "And they began to say, each one to the other: “Come on! Let us make bricks and bake them with a burning process.” So brick served as stone for them, but bitumen served as mortar for them. They now said: “Come on! Let us build ourselves a city and also a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a celebrated name for ourselves, for fear we may be scattered over all the surface of the earth.”

Jehovah God was not pleased with this building. God wanted the people to move out and live all over the earth. But the people said: ‘Come on! Let’s build a city and a tower so high that its top will reach into the heavens. Then we will be famous!’ The people wanted honor for themselves, not for God.
So God made the people stop building the tower. By suddenly causing people to speak different languages, instead of just one. No longer did the builders understand one another. This is why their city came to be called Ba′bel, or Babylon, meaning “Confusion.”
The people now began to move away from Ba′bel. Groups of persons who spoke the same language went to live together in other parts of the earth.
Genesis 10:1, 8-10; 11:1-9.
The lesson for us is that no man can thwart God's purposes. This project was undertaken in defiance of God, the divine purpose being that mankind spread about in the earth. Jehovah God frustrated the plans of the builders by confusing their language. No longer being able to understand one another, they gradually left off building the city, and were scattered.—Gen. 11:1-9.

Answer 6

Nimord is the grandson of Noah, he wants people to worship him and honor him to finish building the tower and even they were staying in a place not move to fill their family. so God decided to confuse them languages and they did not understand each other then they moved another places eg england,japan,portugal,kenya,nigeria,south africa etc.
i am in mozambique which language is portugese!
i thank God for good reason not good to worship Nimord and devil, only worship God for ever. his named is JEHOVAH.keep God always, pliz.

Answer 7

I'm probably wrong, but I always thought it was tossed in there to explain why there are so many languages and races and whatnot out there when people supposedly originated from the same parents.

Answer 8

its just a way of explaining things that they have no real idea of just like old pagan myths. like it rains because the gods are feeding the crops for the harvest. or just like Horus fighting
the darkness and rising the next day see he was just a metaphor for light and dark. thats really the best i can explain it

Answer 9

Yeah the moral is this: "Know your place which is beneath me. Love God"

Answer 10

The moral is: there is no god.