[On New York City's linguistic diversity and the problems it raises]
One of the forms God’s judgment takes is a confusion of languages. According to Genesis 11, when a monolingual people became consumed with pride and arrogance, and intended to “make a name for (themselves)” by “building a tower with its top in the heavens,” God intervened by making it impossible for them to communicate with each other.
[...]
Their ability to collaborate together for evil purposes was broken by a babble of languages, and they soon scattered. Their plans, because they were not aligned with God’s, came to nought.
The lesson here may be that, when a nation turns from the humble worship of the true and living God to hubristic self-reliance, God may judge that nation by making linguistic communication impossible.
Bottom line: God may not need to judge American by confusing our language. We’re doing a pretty good job of that all by ourselves. Or perhaps, this is the way a sovereign God is bringing his judgment on a land that has turned its back on him.
26 comments
yet whenever people actually need to talk to each other, they manage. pidgins form; creoles form; pointing and gesticulating makes do, at times.
hell, English itself is what came out of Norman knights wanting a chat with Saxon barmaids. it's not a new problem, and it's never been insurmountable before.
Ziggurat fall down go boom. God mixes up languages, and that coincidentally is just what gang leaders were looking for to set the peons at each other's throats. Next, He invented distinctive head scarfs and funny hats just to be sure you could hate the right person before he opens his mouth.
Never mind the man behind the curtain with all the Engineering stress formulas.
Do you believe in the coffee mill at the bottom of the ocean that grinds out salt too?
"According to Genesis 11, when a monolingual people became consumed with pride and arrogance, and intended to “make a name for (themselves)” by “building a tower with its top in the heavens,” God intervened by making it impossible for them to communicate with each other."
NASA: USA. Roscosmos: Russia. ESA: Europe. JAXA: Japan.
The International Space Station. With emphasis on International .
Infinitely higher than even the Burj Khalifa.
It's still up there, Bryan Fischite.
NEXT!
One of the forms God’s judgment takes is a confusion of languages.
I wonder if Fischer has ever been abroad. In fact, I sometimes wonder if any Republican has ever been abroad, except to go kill people, that is.
If he ever visited this beach with his kids, I'm sure he'd appreciate the English and Dutch being left off this sign, in accordance with God's will: "Daddy, daddy, I think the sign says 'have fun swimming'!!"
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Let me be sure I have this straight; God confused humans' languages because they were getting ideas above their station and trying to build a tower to heaven.
Last week I saw the photos sent from the New Horizons probe as it flew past Pluto. They must have been sent from a point many, many million of times further from the surface of Earth than the peak of a mud-brick and pitch ziggurat could ever be and yet somehow the communications worked perfectly. How come God's cool with that then?
According to Genesis 11
When all the people of the earth spoke one language... in direct contradiction of Genesis 10 where the various people went in separate directions and SPOKE DIFFERENT LANGUAGES!
It's almost like it's two stories made up to explain why there are different languages...
when a monolingual people
In fact, if I can quote Genesis 11...
"Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words."
You don't even know what the Bible says... why the fuck should anyone listen to what you think it means??
Right. Look at countries that are officially multi-lingual such as Canada and Switzerland. Why, they have nothing but problems and they're practically falling apart. In fact, with the Spanish translations on so many products in the US lately, I'm constantly frustrated by trying to read the wrong one.
"4 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
6 And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.
7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city."
Nothing in there about the people being evil... he's just a douche.
By the way, this is just a few generations after the "flood" when the world had a population of 8.
And what language do you suggest we all use? Hebrew?
Crack open those books, Fish-shit, because you've got a lot of learning to do.
God is smiting us left, right, and centre because of sin. This is not due to acceptance of the LGBT community, abortion, or secularism, as many believe, but because we teach foreign languages in schools. God didn't think of that when it destroyed the tower of Babel.
Any confusion caused by people communicating using different languages can be solved by learning a new language. The issue is not with God, but with human ignorance, poor education with regards to teaching foreign languages, lack of time required for someone to study a new language etc. . Switzerland seems to cope fine with several national languages.
"One of the forms God’s judgment takes is a confusion of languages. According to Genesis 11, when a monolingual people became consumed with pride and arrogance, and intended to “make a name for (themselves)” by “building a tower with its top in the heavens,” God intervened by making it impossible for them to communicate with each other.
Their ability to collaborate together for evil purposes was broken by a babble of languages, and they soon scattered. Their plans, because they were not aligned with God’s, came to nought. "
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"God intervened by making it impossible for them to communicate with each other."
Oh, yes, very impossible. Especially these days. It's not like learning to speak multiple languages is something very common in this world. Or that you can even make yourself understandable without knowing the same language. *sarcasm*
So not only is your god a douche, but he's also extremely incompetent. So I'd say the people trying to “make a name for (themselves)” by becoming independent did a good thing.
And how come then god hasn't intervened when we managed to get people to the moon? That's already much farther than the tower could have ever been. Farther than Earth's "heavens" even. Yet I don't see any repercussions for that...
Yes. The "god" that felt imminently threatened (according to your own book) by a bunch of ancient humans who lived in mud huts building a tower had the power to spontaneously generate new languages and swap them into peoples brains.
Do you even know what the fuck you actually believe you worship, Bryan? And would it matter? We build entire blocks of apartment buildings that make the tower which so deeply terrified him look like a midget leprechaun's hovel. According to the OT, we could kick his ass like an angry Mike Tyson fighting Hellen Keller. So who gives a flying fuck what the angry old tyrant thinks?
I'm sure the linguistic diversity in NY was just as difficult to deal with, if not worse 200 or 100 years ago. But, have it your way, they should all be speaking some form of ALgonqian.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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