I've been thinking about the story of the Tower of Babel, maybe because I feel as if I'm living in a culture now where we've lost all ability to talk to one another. For those of you who don't know the story from the Bible: At one point, all the peoples of the earth spoke a common language, and so, some of them decided to build a tower that would reach to heaven. God got wind of it. And this is what He said.
chapter 11 of Genesis.
"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.
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."
So, God makes it impossible for people to speak to one another and the tower project gets abandoned. now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. I suppose one way to read this is that God doesn't want humans overreaching. But, I'm going to go out on a limb and see this as a place in the Bible where God actually tells people not to think too much.
Obviously, I know there are tremendous histories of intellectual Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I'm not saying that religion is stupid.
But I've been wrestling with why someChristians are allowing their pastors, ministers, and priests to do their thinking for them, especially now during the Schiavo case. And I keep thinking that the Tower of Babel story is some kind of proof text.
Whether you believe that the Bible is divinely written or written by those who wanted to control other people, this particular story carries with it the idea that when people are able to really talk to one another, listen to each other's ideas, and come up with solutions for how to improve life on earth, God gets angry. Why? I would argue that it makes them a little less likely to need the solace of religion. After all, one of the major solaces of religion is because for many people, life sucks. Life sucks for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that we don't understand one another. And our lack of understanding keeps us from making changes that might provide more of us with better lives.
I, for one, dream of a world where we can talk to one another. I would hate to think that one of the lessons of the Bible is that such communication is a sin in the eyes of God.