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TO MARK THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Says it all

GENESIS 11

OK, readers, let us turn to Genesis 11 in our bibles for some inspiration from god.  This is an interesting chapter, put right smack in the middle on the genealogy section is this story about how all the languages of the world became what they are today... without any linguistic evolution of course.

THE TOWER OF BABEL

1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech

Makes sense...

2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

...following so far although, their building a tower made of bricks and only held together by tar?  I'm skeptical. 

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; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

...and then logic went out the window. What made them think they would be scattered?

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.

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.

7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

In other words, god was afraid that they would grow a brain and start asking questions therefore god's rule over humans would be even more fragile.

8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

God is an asshole!

9 That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Just how did god scatter them over the earth? I can imagine one of three things; a) they were suddenly levitated and flew thousands of miles to a different country or, b) the great big, freaky hand of god which was attached to a great big, freaky, hairy arm of god came down from out of the clouds and man handled them to the different countries of the earth or, c) the "whole earth" consisted of the a fifty mile radius from the centre of some point in the middle east where the writer sat uncomfortably on a bail of hay coming up with a stone age answer to the reason for the different language in the next township.

FROM SHEM TO ABRAM

10 This is the account of Shem’s family line. Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad.

Yeah, more genealogy... just what we needed. This all better have a point to it because it's not helping the authors cause. It's like the writer feels it's important to show mow many thousands of years after the fact when the book was written. It almost as if this book is just a compilation of old legends passed down from father to son.

11 And after he became the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters.

12 When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of Shelah.

13 And after he became the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

14 When Shelah had lived 30 years, he became the father of Eber.

15 And after he became the father of Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

16 When Eber had lived 34 years, he became the father of Peleg.

17 And after he became the father of Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.

18 When Peleg had lived 30 years, he became the father of Reu.

19 And after he became the father of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.

20 When Reu had lived 32 years, he became the father of Serug.

21 And after he became the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.

22 When Serug had lived 30 years, he became the father of Nahor.

23 And after he became the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.

24 When Nahor had lived 29 years, he became the father of Terah.

25 And after he became the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

26 After Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.

ABRAM'S FAMILY

27 This is the account of Terah’s family line.

Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot.

28 While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth.

29 Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milkah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milkah and Iskah.

30 Now Sarai was childless because she was not able to conceive.

31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran, they settled there.

32 Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Harran.

Did anybody actually read all that or did you just skim through it? I know you just skimmed over it because that's what I did.

GENESIS 10

Between moving house and settling in to a new city I haven't really had time to keep up on my blogs, not to mention trying to decide whether to write about some particular passage which seems to have no baring on anything... perhaps skipping them so I can get to the real juicy chapters of the bible but, that wouldn't be very thorough. Perhaps I can eek a little insight out of even the most boring of verses in this book, so it begins with all the begatting...

When I was younger this was the part in the bible I thought was a real page turner; it was so boring I just kept turning the page until the next chapter. 

GENESIS 10

THE TABLE OF NATIONS

1 This is the account of Shem, Ham and Japheth, Noah’s sons, who themselves had sons after the flood.

THE JAPHETHITES

2 The sons of Japheth:

Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshek and Tiras.

3 The sons of Gomer:

Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah.

4 The sons of Javan:

Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittites and the Rodanites.

5 (From these the maritime peoples spread out into their territories by their clans within their nations, each with its own language.)

THE HAMITES

6 The sons of Ham:

Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan.

7 The sons of Cush:

Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah and Sabteka.

The sons of Raamah:

Sheba and Dedan.

8 Cush was the father of Nimrod, who became a mighty warrior on the

earth.

Wait... Nimrod? Seriously?

9 He was a mighty hunter before theLord; that is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, mighty hunter before the Lord.”

10 The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.

11 From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh,Rehoboth Ir, Calah

12 and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city.

13 Egypt was the father of the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, aphtuhites,

15 Canaan was the father of

Sidon his firstborn, and of the Hittites, 

16 Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, 

17 Hivites, Arkites, Sinites,

18 Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites.  Later the Canaanite clans scattered 

19 and the borders of Canaan reached from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, as far as Lasha.

20 These are the sons of Ham by their clans and languages, in their territories and nations.  The Semites

21 Sons were also born to Shem, whose older brother was Japheth; Shem was the ancestor of all the sons of Eber.

22 The sons of Shem:

Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram.

23 The sons of Aram:

Uz, Hul, Gether and Meshek.

24 Arphaxad was the father of Shelah,

and Shelah the father of Eber.

25 Two sons were born to Eber:

One was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided; his brother was named Joktan.

26 Joktan was the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 

27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 

28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 

29 Ophir, Havilah and Jobab. All these were sons of Joktan.

30 The region where they lived stretched from Mesha toward Sephar, in the eastern hill country.

31 These are the sons of Shem by their clans and languages, in their territories and nations.

32 These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood.

Blah, blah, blah.  I know this goes someway towards explaining, biblically, the genealogy for all the races in the world etc, but... but it doesn't actually explain how our species got all the races of the world in around 6,000 years.  From all the information I have to hand we have adapted (evolved) to suit the kind of climate we settled in over the last 195,000 years, which is a sod of a long time!  I'm sure it can be said that we can't relate to any length of time over 50-60 years from which is borne an argument from personal incredulity, a logical fallacy.  This logical fallacy can be so much a part of the believers believing in an invisible man in the sky that, despite mountains of growing evidence to the contrary, they can't accept that their adopted form of dogma is both pointless and wrong...yawn.

  I used to be spiritual, heck, I used to be a christian so I know what I am talking about.  When we find something that makes sense of the senseless you will try to take any small thing and make it a proof, or a grasp at straws, of your own beliefs.  At some point you have to just man up and accept the evidence put before you.  Hard, solid evidence.  Problems are more easily solved with science so invoking some supernatural being to be the answer you can't find is an uphill battle fought by lazy thinkers, inventive but lazy. 

  In short, I have nothing against believers, each to their own.  However, when a believer does something stupid in the name of, or because of, their god,  I have a problem.  Anyone can have an imaginary friend, I have no problem with that, it's a little kooky but, whatever.  If their imaginary friend tells them to do things, shit will hit the fan... and medication should be considered.  

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Thank you 

Justin