[_ Old Earth _] Questions for Young Earth Creationists

[Late_Cretaceous]

I am sick and tired of seeing, on these forums, creationists asking questions like "what came first, bees or flowers" and "what came first male or female genetalia", or "what did the first member of a species breed with", and "if we came from monkeys why are there still monkeys", and of course "where are all the intermediates".

So here are a few similarly inane questions to pose to creationists. Please feel free to add your own. Perhaps there could be some witty comebacks to these tired old "evolutionist stumpers" in the future.

1. What came first, reading or writing?
2. Who did the first person to speak French talk to?
3. Where are the intermediate languages between Latin and Romanian, Italian, Spanish, Portugese and French? How come nobody speaks them today?
4. If protestants came from catholics, why are there still catholics?
5. How did the first person to read and write learn how to read and write, and what did he do write letters to himself?

add your own (or answer them if you dare)

:bday:

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

delete

 

[Featherbop]

1. What came first, reading or writing?

Writing. How could reading exist first if there was no writing to read?

2. Who did the first person to speak French talk to?

I'm sure he/she talked to his/her parents, friends, spouse, children.......

 

[Heidi]

If the OP cannot figure out the answers to his own questions, then I can see why he believes in the absurdity of evolution. ;-)

The first flaw in the theory of evolution comes from their first assertion that human DNA developed from ape DNA. They still haven't explained how this happened. Mutation can only come from what was already present in a cell. It cannot produce new characteristics in a cell, other wise my children could become birds. But this is what they're asking us to believe. So again, how did primates produce an entirely new species called homonids? This question has to be answered first before they can even go on in their theory.

 

[cubedbee]

1. What came first, reading or writing?

Writing. How could reading exist first if there was no writing to read?

How exactly would an illiterate person be able to write? And why would they?

[quote:1ab49]2. Who did the first person to speak French talk to?

I'm sure he/she talked to his/her parents, friends, spouse, children.......[/quote:1ab49]But none of them spoke French, since he/she was the first.

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

THe questions are not supposed to be answerable, becuase they are nonsensical. Just like most of the questions posed by creationists in and attempt to "stump" supporters of evolutionary theory. I have applied creationist logic (to use the term loosely) to these questions to illustrate just how absurd they really are.

 

[SyntaxVorlon]

They're question begging for one thing. Writing developed out of heirogliphs. Language came first, then pictures to represent things in that language, then more abstract versions, until sounds came to be represented, in IndoEuropean languages, and base ideas came to be represented, in Sinojapanese languages.

 

[unred typo]

Late_Cretaceous wrote before he read what he wrote:

I am sick and tired of seeing, on these forums, creationists asking questions like "what came first, bees or flowers" and "what came first male or female genetalia", or "what did the first member of a species breed with", and "if we came from monkeys why are there still monkeys", and of course "where are all the intermediates".

So here are a few similarly inane questions to pose to creationists. Please feel free to add your own. Perhaps there could be some witty comebacks to these tired old "evolutionist stumpers" in the future.

1. What came first, reading or writing?
2. Who did the first person to speak French talk to?
3. Where are the intermediate languages between Latin and Romanian, Italian, Spanish, Portugese and French? How come nobody speaks them today?
4. If protestants came from catholics, why are there still catholics?
5. How did the first person to read and write learn how to read and write, and what did he do write letters to himself?

add your own (or answer them if you dare)
THe questions are not supposed to be answerable, becuase they are nonsensical. Just like most of the questions posed by creationists in and attempt to "stump" supporters of evolutionary theory. I have applied creationist logic (to use the term loosely) to these questions to illustrate just how absurd they really are.

I usually wait for a double dare but these really don't look so unanswerable.

1. I would assume writing. The first thing written probably were marks to keep track of a count of some kind. The writing of speech would involve inventing an alphabet or simple pictures, which corresponded to the spoken word. Reading is only interpreting what is written. Without writing, there would be no reading, of course, but there can be writing that is never read, like most people’s Bibles.

2. The first people who spoke French spoke to each other. When God confounded the languages, he divided them according to groups, presumably by immediate families so mothers could talk to daughters and fathers to sons, not that they would listen or understand one another. :wink:

3. There may or may not be any, depending on whether they were one of the original languages or an evolved version of the original. The people who spoke them may have gone extinct or the language itself may have evolved to another language.

4. Because they didn’t evolve?

5. See #1. The person who invented the alphabet would teach it to others and they would write secret coded messages to pass around during solemn religious services.

That wasn’t so hard, but as you see, I don’t fear the word ‘evolve,’ or the concept of change from one species to another. These changes were built into the genetics of the animals who evolved, or even added later as a beneficial mutation to help with survival management. Read Job 34 to 42 and you will see God is still working to keep things in balance or the whole works would quickly digress into an ecological disaster. Man still hasn’t got the hang of the whole concept and everything he tries to fix usually ends up worse.

The evolution stumper that intrigues me most is the "where are all the intermediates". Just as there are intermediates between dog breeds, there should be more surviving half this/ part that in the rest of the animal kingdom if they evolved from just a few ancestor creatures. I would be interested in any links you might know of that show exactly where these animals branch off into other breeds and how many originals all the animals started with. It would be interesting figuring the ‘kinds’ that God created so a model could be deduced for the animal diversity at the time of the flood and the probable population leaving the ark.

I think the fossil record would be very helpful in this regard as well, although it doesn’t contain much evidence of the outside tissue that shows hair, skin and feathers to make identification more exact. Can we be sure some or even most of these ‘dinosaurs’ didn’t have fur and feathers? Maybe some of them were ancestors of kangaroos and raccoons and not so much descendants of lizard type creatures.

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

1. What came first, reading or writing?
2. Who did the first person to speak French talk to?
3. Where are the intermediate languages between Latin and Romanian, Italian, Spanish, Portugese and French? How come nobody speaks them today?
4. If protestants came from catholics, why are there still catholics?
5. How did the first person to read and write learn how to read and write, and what did he do write letters to himself?

This questions cannot be answered as posed. THey were posed, not to be answered, but to use as an analogy for creationists' questions.

1. Reading and writing co-evolved. These skill did not suddenly appear, they were not invented by one single person. Literacy developed slowly, over time, but for someone who refuses to acknowledge that it can be made into an "irreducable complexity" type of arguement.

2. I knew someone would try to bring up the confounding of languages as mentioned in the bible. One little tiny detail however. The French language developed in recorded history. Since the fall of the Roman Empire in fact . SO the Tower of Babel cannot be applied. Two thousand years ago, French did not exist. French developed slowly over time from latin. It didn't just suddenly pop into existance one afternoon, nor was it made up by one individual.

Creationists often seek answers, demanding to know how a single individual could have had such and such a trait. It is as absurd as assuming that a whole language can develop overnight.

3. SInce a language, like a species, is a dynamic ever changing entity without clear boundries, trying to pin down exaclty what an intermediate is is not likely.

4. This one shows that, just because something novel (advanced) has evolved, it does not automatically mean that the predecessor is extinct.

5. This one is like the "what good is half a wing arguements". Usefull things like wings or literacy do not just happen overnight.


The whole point of this exercise was to illuminate how the way creationists pose questions are done in a deliberate way to "stump" evolutionists. In fact, they only end up flaunting thier own ignorance.

 

[unred typo]

Late_Cretaceous wrote :

This questions cannot be answered as posed. THey were posed, not to be answered, but to use as an analogy for creationists' questions.
1. Reading and writing co-evolved. These skill did not suddenly appear, they were not invented by one single person. Literacy developed slowly, over time, but for someone who refuses to acknowledge that it can be made into an "irreducable complexity" type of arguement.
2. I knew someone would try to bring up the confounding of languages as mentioned in the bible. One little tiny detail however. The French language developed in recorded history. Since the fall of the Roman Empire in fact . SO the Tower of Babel cannot be applied. Two thousand years ago, French did not exist. French developed slowly over time from latin. It didn't just suddenly pop into existance one afternoon, nor was it made up by one individual. Creationists often seek answers, demanding to know how a single individual could have had such and such a trait. It is as absurd as assuming that a whole language can develop overnight.
3. SInce a language, like a species, is a dynamic ever changing entity without clear boundries, trying to pin down exaclty what an intermediate is is not likely.
4. This one shows that, just because something novel (advanced) has evolved, it does not automatically mean that the predecessor is extinct.
5. This one is like the "what good is half a wing arguements". Usefull things like wings or literacy do not just happen overnight.
The whole point of this exercise was to illuminate how the way creationists pose questions are done in a deliberate way to "stump" evolutionists. In fact, they only end up flaunting thier own ignorance.

I know it was just an analogy. We hate those. Whenever you pose one to illustrate one thing someone comes along and makes a mess of it. I, for one, just can’t resist.
1. Reading and writing co-evolved? Did you read that somewhere? I think it is quite evident that without reading, writing would serve no purpose but without writing there would be no reading at all. That question has an answer but it doesn’t compare to the enigma of how, when or why male and female parts came into existence, without a creator who designed it that way.

2. That doesn’t change the fact that the first people who spoke French spoke to each other. Whenever French people were first called French, their language was also labeled as French. Whatever language it was derived from came from the Tower of Babel. When God confounded the languages, he divided them according to groups, of which possibly none still survive in their original form, can you dig it?

3. So when do you suppose gorillas will start giving birth to chimp babies? It seems like there are some boundaries for species but we may not understand what they are.

4. What good is half a wing? For some of these amazing innovations in animal features to have evolved without some direction from a creator stagger the imagination. With a mastermind in charge, it just sounds like a plan.

5. Aren’t you getting a bit touchy? If there are reasonable answers, why not just explain? Like wings or literacy, knowledge does not just happen overnight. Are you afraid if people think too much about the whole TOE explanation, the theory will not hold up?

 

[Barbarian]

That doesn’t change the fact that the first people who spoke French spoke to each other. Whenever French people were first called French, their language was also labeled as French.

No, it was called "Latin."

Whatever language it was derived from came from the Tower of Babel.

No, it came from the Romans. The Romans conquered Gaul, and installed Latin as the usual language. When the empire fell, the Franks, a Germanic people speaking "Frankish", took over Gaul. They eventually dropped their language in favor of Latin. As the years went by, Lating began to change in different areas. In the Early Middle Ages, people from France, Spain, Italy, Romania, and other areas could undertand each other easily. As time went on, they became less and less so. Eventually, the languages became mutually unintelligible.

Languages did not diverge from the tower of Babel. That's just an allegory for man's foolish ambition. It also says that God was worried that men might build the tower up to heaven, and then they would be able to do anything. That's obviously not literal, either.




When God confounded the languages, he divided them according to groups, of which possibly none still survive in their original form, can you dig it?

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

1. Reading and writing co-evolved?

+

Yes, as a matter of fact they did co-evolve. DO you think that a written form of communcation sprang up in full form one day. Or maybe it started out as a handful of symbols to represent a handful of things and concepts and "evovled" (or developed if you prefer) from there.

So when do you suppose gorillas will start giving birth to chimp babies? It seems like there are some boundaries for species but we may not understand what they are.

The divisions between more closely related species are more blurred then that. How about the difference between a wolf and a coyote?

 

[unred typo]

The Barbarian wrote:

No, it was called "Latin."

LOL. OK, let me rephrase that. When the people who spoke the language that was called French spoke the French language, they spoke to each other. Geeese.


The Barbarian wrote:

No, it came from the Romans. The Romans conquered Gaul, and installed Latin as the usual language. When the empire fell, the Franks, a Germanic people speaking "Frankish", took over Gaul. They eventually dropped their language in favor of Latin. As the years went by, Lating began to change in different areas. In the Early Middle Ages, people from France, Spain, Italy, Romania, and other areas could undertand each other easily. As time went on, they became less and less so. Eventually, the languages became mutually unintelligible.

Whatever language that the Romans used was derived from a language that came from the Tower of Babel or it was an original language from the Tower of Babel. You have the actual history of the Roman language. That’s nice. Learn something every day. Now if the language that is French became French in recent history, can we assume that it doesn’t take millions of years for a language to evolve into other languages? So what was once called a rabbit in the Bible, say, could actually be an entirely different animal (or else the animal itself evolved and doesn’t chew it’s cud any more or it might have gone extinct and only it’s rabbit cousin is left.).


The Barbarian wrote:

Languages did not diverge from the tower of Babel. That's just an allegory for man's foolish ambition. It also says that God was worried that men might build the tower up to heaven, and then they would be able to do anything. That's obviously not literal, either.

That’s quite a dogmatic attitude. As a lover of truth and science, don’t you keep an open mind? Your rendering of Genesis is a sloppy paraphrase. Actually, Gen. 11:6-7 says that God said that since they were of one language, they would not be restrained to do whatever it was that they had imagined to do. In other words, they would not be hindered in their efforts to unite against God, not that they could accomplish anything. God decided to hinder them a bit and teach them a lesson. They thought that it would be possible to reach heaven and overthrow God as if he lived just above the clouds and he was somehow vulnerable to attack from below. What they believed and what God knew are two different things.

 

[reznwerks]

serious

That’s quite a dogmatic attitude. As a lover of truth and science, don’t you keep an open mind? Your rendering of Genesis is a sloppy paraphrase. Actually, Gen. 11:6-7 says that God said that since they were of one language, they would not be restrained to do whatever it was that they had imagined to do. In other words, they would not be hindered in their efforts to unite against God, not that they could accomplish anything. God decided to hinder them a bit and teach them a lesson. They thought that it would be possible to reach heaven and overthrow God as if he lived just above the clouds and he was somehow vulnerable to attack from below. What they believed and what God knew are two different things.

Here is a link to Google and and search or language orgins. Do you see ANYTHING referencing the bible as a serious point of discussion?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=or ... gle+Search

 

[Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
No, it was called "Latin."

LOL. OK, let me rephrase that. When the people who spoke the language that was called French spoke the French language, they spoke to each other. Geeese.

The point is, that French did not poof into existance. It slowly evolved from Latin. And it was called Latin, and then people started calling it "the French Latin" and eventually, just "French." It evolved gradually.

Barbarian observes:
No, it came from the Romans. The Romans conquered Gaul, and installed Latin as the usual language. When the empire fell, the Franks, a Germanic people speaking "Frankish", took over Gaul. They eventually dropped their language in favor of Latin. As the years went by, Lating began to change in different areas. In the Early Middle Ages, people from France, Spain, Italy, Romania, and other areas could undertand each other easily. As time went on, they became less and less so. Eventually, the languages became mutually unintelligible.

Whatever language that the Romans used was derived from a language that came from the Tower of Babel or it was an original language from the Tower of Babel.

I'd be pleased to see your evidence.

You have the actual history of the Roman language. That’s nice. Learn something every day. Now if the language that is French became French in recent history, can we assume that it doesn’t take millions of years for a language to evolve into other languages?

Right. New languages can evolve very quickly.

So what was once called a rabbit in the Bible, say, could actually be an entirely different animal (or else the animal itself evolved and doesn’t chew it’s cud any more or it might have gone extinct and only it’s rabbit cousin is left.).

The Bible doesn't call anything "a rabbit." But it's always possible someone made an error in transcribing the Bible and got some things wrong.

Barbarian observes:
Languages did not diverge from the tower of Babel. That's just an allegory for man's foolish ambition. It also says that God was worried that men might build the tower up to heaven, and then they would be able to do anything. That's obviously not literal, either.

That’s quite a dogmatic attitude.

The text itself tells us this. Either it is allegorical, or humans can build a tower to heaven and then become all-powerful, or God can be wrong.

What would you pick?

As a lover of truth and science, don’t you keep an open mind?

See above. "Open-minded" is not a synonym for "gullible."

Your rendering of Genesis is a sloppy paraphrase. Actually, Gen. 11:6-7 says that God said that since they were of one language, they would not be restrained to do whatever it was that they had imagined to do.

They imagined they could build a tower to heaven. Do you honest to God think that is possible? Either it's allegorical, or they could build a tower to heaven, or God was mistaken. Your choice, but there's only one choice for a Christian.

 

[unred typo]

Barbarian observes:

The point is, that French did not poof into existance. It slowly evolved from Latin. And it was called Latin, and then people started calling it "the French Latin" and eventually, just "French." It evolved gradually.

And when the people started calling it French, they were speaking it to each other. Point is, it’s not an unanswerable question. If people ask dumb questions, it’s nicer to just answer them, even if they think it’s unanswerable.



Barbarian observes:

I'd be pleased to see your evidence.

The tower of Babel account is in both the Bible and the book of Jasher.


Barbarian observes:

The Bible doesn't call anything "a rabbit." But it's always possible someone made an error in transcribing the Bible and got some things wrong.

Yes, you see how I mistranslated the words, ‘hare’ and ‘coney’ to my version of a similar animal. It is possible that the translator misinterpreted the word for ‘hare and the coney’ because of his familiarity with an animal relative in his area, to make it understandable to the reader, not realizing that some people would get all anal about it and make huge objections on a computer discussion board years later alleging major scientific gaffes about cud-chewing. I guess he underestimated the lengths people would go to disprove the Bible, a common mistake among translators as well.


Barbarian observes:

They imagined they could build a tower to heaven. Do you honest to God think that is possible? Either it's allegorical, or they could build a tower to heaven, or God was mistaken. Your choice, but there's only one choice for a Christian.
The text itself tells us this. Either it is allegorical, or humans can build a tower to heaven and then become all-powerful, or God can be wrong.
What would you pick?

First of all, they could build a tower that would reach unto heaven, but as the Russian cosmonaut said, God is not there. You can reach unto heaven with your arms. I think they wanted to get above flood level. Higher than the highest mountaintop, no doubt. Second, their plan was only “to make a name for themselves†and not be dispersed throughout the whole earth as God had commanded. Thirdly, the text says that God 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.†IOW, now there is no restraint on their imagination to join together against God since they were able to talk and plan freely with one another without a restraint or language impediment. Having no restraint on what they have imagined to do means they were not hindered by any language barrier or interference from God as yet. So the idea is, “What will they try next?“ If you read on, you will see that was a very temporary situation. Man’s imagination was hindered by the inability to communicate ideas and co operate effectively on the building process and the tower progress ceased.

I don’t believe this is allegorical. If you believe that you can make a rocket launching pogo stick to jump over the moon, and I say, look the barbarian is getting together with reznwerks to design a moon rocket pogo-stick, and there’s nothing restraining them to do whatever they have imagined to do, let‘s have them committed to straight jackets before they do something really stupid. I don’t think you’ll get to the moon, and neither am I wrong in saying your imagination and actions are unrestrained (until the men in white coats arrive).

 

[reznwerks]

babel

Barbarian observes:

I'd be pleased to see your evidence.

The tower of Babel account is in both the Bible and the book of Jasher.
Neither of which is confirmed outside the bible.


Barbarian observes: [quote:7fd98] The Bible doesn't call anything "a rabbit." But it's always possible someone made an error in transcribing the Bible and got some things wrong.

Yes, you see how I mistranslated the words, ‘hare’ and ‘coney’ to my version of a similar animal. It is possible that the translator misinterpreted the word for ‘hare and the coney’ because of his familiarity with an animal relative in his area, to make it understandable to the reader, not realizing that some people would get all anal about it and make huge objections on a computer discussion board years later alleging major scientific gaffes about cud-chewing. I guess he underestimated the lengths people would go to disprove the Bible, a common mistake among translators as well.
However if the bible is the inspired word of God how could God get it wrong? How could he let the bible be inspired incorrectly? Why couldn't an all powerful God an all knowing God cause his book to be written so that all would understand it equally?


Barbarian observes:

They imagined they could build a tower to heaven. Do you honest to God think that is possible? Either it's allegorical, or they could build a tower to heaven, or God was mistaken. Your choice, but there's only one choice for a Christian.
The text itself tells us this. Either it is allegorical, or humans can build a tower to heaven and then become all-powerful, or God can be wrong.
What would you pick?

First of all, they could build a tower that would reach unto heaven, but as the Russian cosmonaut said, God is not there. You can reach unto heaven with your arms. I think they wanted to get above flood level. Higher than the highest mountaintop, no doubt. Second, their plan was only “to make a name for themselves†and not be dispersed throughout the whole earth as God had commanded. Thirdly, the text says that God 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.†IOW, now there is no restraint on their imagination to join together against God since they were able to talk and plan freely with one another without a restraint or language impediment. Having no restraint on what they have imagined to do means they were not hindered by any language barrier or interference from God as yet. So the idea is, “What will they try next?“ If you read on, you will see that was a very temporary situation. Man’s imagination was hindered by the inability to communicate ideas and co operate effectively on the building process and the tower progress ceased.

If you READ the bible it is quoting GOD and what he said. God was concerned that man could do anything he wanted and had to be stopped. THis was confirmed in the garden when the serpent told Adam and Eve that they were not to eat of the tree because if they did they would become like them (GODS). As it turns out the serpent was correct because they did not die in that day like God said and you can see that man became like Gods. You might read the bible but you don't understand it or don't believe it. The serpent told the truth.


I don’t believe this is allegorical. If you believe that you can make a rocket launching pogo stick to jump over the moon, and I say, look the barbarian is getting together with reznwerks to design a moon rocket pogo-stick, and there’s nothing restraining them to do whatever they have imagined to do, let‘s have them committed to straight jackets before they do something really stupid.
Straight jackets? LOL Look what man has acomplished after they said it couldn't be done.


I don’t think you’ll get to the moon, and neither am I wrong in saying your imagination and actions are unrestrained (until the men in white coats arrive).
It took a long time but thats how man got to the moon. They kept building on idea after idea regardless of how ridiculous it may have been at the time. If we followed your example of locking people up for having ideas we would still be riding donkeys and walking is sand.

[/quote:7fd98]

 

[Featherbop]

How exactly would an illiterate person be able to write?

Well, you see, first the person has to get an object, say a stone, that can make marks on other objects. The person forms these marks until they become more orderly, and then the person attributes meanings to the marks(words). Tah-Dah. Writing.

And why would they?

People devise ideas and create new things. It is a.....human desire, if you will. And it's fun.

But none of them spoke French, since he/she was the first.

LC only asked who the first person to speak french spoke too. So, before the person spoke french, I'm sure he spoke to his family.

Even after he learned/created french, he didn't have to only speak french. :-D

THe questions are not supposed to be answerable, becuase they are nonsensical. Just like most of the questions posed by creationists in and attempt to "stump" supporters of evolutionary theory. I have applied creationist logic (to use the term loosely) to these questions to illustrate just how absurd they really are.

Sure, they can be answered. The questions just require a certain amount of knowledge and information. I've been using "evolutionist logic"(heh, I'll use a loose term also... :-D ), and devising a possible answer, basically speculating on *at least* supposedly unanswerable questions, and then going with that despite the fact that I would answer most or all of the questions incorrectly due to the unknowable nature of most of the questions. But see, speculation is all you need. :-D

 

[unred typo]

Barbarian observes:

UT wrote: “The tower of Babel account is in both the Bible and the book of Jasher.â€Â

Neither of which is confirmed outside the bible.

Says you and people who hate God.


Barbarian observes:

The Bible doesn't call anything "a rabbit." But it's always possible someone made an error in transcribing the Bible and got some things wrong. UT answered earlier:“Yes, you see how I mistranslated the words, ‘hare’ and ‘coney’ to my version of a similar animal. It is possible that the translator misinterpreted the word for ‘hare and the coney’ because of his familiarity with an animal relative in his area, to make it understandable to the reader, not realizing that some people would get all anal about it and make huge objections on a computer discussion board years later alleging major scientific gaffes about cud-chewing. I guess he underestimated the lengths people would go to disprove the Bible, a common mistake among translators as well.â€Â
However if the bible is the inspired word of God how could God get it wrong? How could he let the bible be inspired incorrectly? Why couldn't an all powerful God an all knowing God cause his book to be written so that all would understand it equally?

God didn’t get it wrong. Your understanding of inspiration is wrong. Everything man does is flawed. If I tell my child about my past and he decides to write it for a report in school, I have inspired him. I gave him correct information but then when I read the report, it’s not exactly as I told it, even if it’s close enough. The value he placed on what I said determined the degree to which my story survived. That is how God has allowed us to pass the story down to our descendants. The value we place on what he said determines how much we have left to give to our children.


Barbarian observes:

Previous Quote:
They imagined they could build a tower to heaven. Do you honest to God think that is possible? Either it's allegorical, or they could build a tower to heaven, or God was mistaken. Your choice, but there's only one choice for a Christian.
The text itself tells us this. Either it is allegorical, or humans can build a tower to heaven and then become all-powerful, or God can be wrong.
What would you pick?
UT answered:“First of all, they could build a tower that would reach unto heaven, but as the Russian cosmonaut said, God is not there. You can reach unto heaven with your arms. I think they wanted to get above flood level. Higher than the highest mountaintop, no doubt. Second, their plan was only “to make a name for themselves†and not be dispersed throughout the whole earth as God had commanded. Thirdly, the text says that God 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.†IOW, now there is no restraint on their imagination to join together against God since they were able to talk and plan freely with one another without a restraint or language impediment. Having no restraint on what they have imagined to do means they were not hindered by any language barrier or interference from God as yet. So the idea is, “What will they try next?“ If you read on, you will see that was a very temporary situation. Man’s imagination was hindered by the inability to communicate ideas and co operate effectively on the building process and the tower progress ceased.â€Â

If you READ the bible it is quoting GOD and what he said. God was concerned that man could do anything he wanted and had to be stopped. THis was confirmed in the garden when the serpent told Adam and Eve that they were not to eat of the tree because if they did they would become like them (GODS). As it turns out the serpent was correct because they did not die in that day like God said and you can see that man became like Gods. You might read the bible but you don't understand it or don't believe it. The serpent told the truth.

If you read the Bible with a little common sense, you’d realize you are reading a translation of a translation, and you’d understand that the God who created the universes did not feel threatened by any puny part of his creation. Get real. Maybe you’d even come up with a better understanding of the passage than I have, but not if you are just reading it to pick it apart hoping for errors. It has been preserved to this day for you in pretty good shape. If you want to throw the baby out with the bath water, that’s your choice.
You don’t know exactly what God meant when he said they would die and neither do I. We only know what death looks like based on our speculations of our experiences. We see that death is physical separation of the life force from the body. Adam and Eve were separated from the life force within the garden, the tree of life.


Barbarian observes:

UT wrote:“I don’t believe this is allegorical. If you believe that you can make a rocket launching pogo stick to jump over the moon, and I say, look the barbarian is getting together with reznwerks to design a moon rocket pogo-stick, and there’s nothing restraining them to do whatever they have imagined to do, let‘s have them committed to straight jackets before they do something really stupid.â€Â
Straight jackets? LOL Look what man has acomplished after they said it couldn't be done.

So you’re actually arguing that man could get to the moon on a pogo stick? That’s not crazy talk? Uh huh. I see.


Barbarian observes:

UT wrote:“I don’t think you’ll get to the moon, and neither am I wrong in saying your imagination and actions are unrestrained (until the men in white coats arrive). “
It took a long time but thats how man got to the moon. They kept building on idea after idea regardless of how ridiculous it may have been at the time. If we followed your example of locking people up for having ideas we would still be riding donkeys and walking is sand.

OK. You keep working on that pogo-stick. I’ll work on getting you a room with a view of the grounds behind the girl’s dorm.

 

[unred typo]

Darck Marck wrote

Sure, they can be answered. The questions just require a certain amount of knowledge and information. I've been using "evolutionist logic"(heh, I'll use a loose term also... ), and devising a possible answer, basically speculating on *at least* supposedly unanswerable questions, and then going with that despite the fact that I would answer most or all of the questions incorrectly due to the unknowable nature of most of the questions. But see, speculation is all you need.

Very good point. Very good post.