Singularity and Babel: Comparing the Newest, and Oldest, False Religions

If history always comes full circle, then God's about to come down and take a look.

The phrasing of Genesis 11:7 has always tickled me. The story is, mankind was united in both geography and language, and in their hubris had come to think pretty highly of themselves. Proudly, they thought that by architectural and technological genius they could “make a name for themselves” and explicitly set the goal of defying God’s will. And then Moses recalls this…

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built

In the minds of humanity, their building was so impressive that they likely thought they could scale heaven with it. Regardless, they thought it would “create for them a name,” that is, to become a monument to their intellectual prowess and ingenuity. And no doubt, God could see it from where he was. Perhaps just for the post-mortem insult, Moses (who wrote Genesis) phrased it as though God came down to see it.

Ouch. They thought it would stretch to Heaven, but God’s throne was so far away, his anthropomorphic eyes had to metaphorically squint. The story continues…

And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.” So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

The milieu was one of technological achievement and interpersonal cooperation. When humans don’t have a language barrier, their hive mind kicks in like overactive bees. Busy as bees, they accomplish, achieve, build, and grow. God then confused their tongues, thus confusing their brains, and scattered them.

THE POST-BABEL DARK AGE

God, you see, had told them not to bunch up, but to spread out (Genesis 1:28, Genesis 9:1). The Architect of the Ages had a timeline, and they were messing it up. They were not yet ready to accomplish “whatever they propose to do,” and so he sent them into the first recorded Dark Age.

Over the millennia, we’ve seen a few times that the post-Babel Dark Age had the dimmer switch brighten. The most obvious to us, historically, was the invention of the printing press by Herman Gunkel. That led the the explosion of Protestantism, as for the first time, people could read (and own their own copy of) the Bible in their own vulgar tongue. In that respect, Thomas Edison might have invented the light bulb, but Tyndale and Wycliffe (responsible for translating and disseminating the Bible) illumined the world. The printing press led to another brightening commonly called “The Enlightenment,” which came about through the same invention that brought the Protestant Reformation.

There were other times the Dark Ages brightened, of course. The road system of Rome, making quick travel from anywhere in the empire to anywhere else in the empire, served to unify the empire’s culture. It was, for them, a virtual bullet train. Hopping on that cobblestone, even on foot, would have been like Orville Wright jumping on a Condore at 1,375 miles an hour. The roads were world-changing. The Silk Road, that connected the eastern and western world beginning in about 130BC, similarly rejoined the world, fractured from Babel.

The telegraph made the vastness of the continental United States into a singular people; without it, there doubtfully would have developed a unified country and without that, America never would have become a Super Power. The telephone, radio, and television also helped dispel that separation of men, allowing them to more easily communicate and, therefore, to unify for common causes. And the Internet, far surpassing all the previous advances before it, has unified the entire world.

The greatest foreshadow of this lifting Dark Age, however, occurred on May 25, 33AD (that might be off a year or two). That’s when flaming tongues of fire accompanied the Holy Ghost to serve as Christ’s Vicar (IE replacement) and people representing at least 16 different languages or dialects (and ostensibly, far more) heard the gospel preached in their own tongue. On that day, God symbolized that the curse of sin - which grew exponentially from Genesis 3 to Genesis 11 at Babel, would be lifted by the accomplished work of Christ.

As I explained to my children recently, it’s the Gospel that turned our fair skinned forbears in Northern Europe from being the last-to-be-civilized people on Earth - clans of tree-worshipping, naked, bog-dwelling pagans - to being world conquerers, colonizers, and empire builders. The Gospel is what was needed to turn European Cro-Magnon hillbillies into a continent of philosopher-kings. The Gospel really is the light of men.

BABEL, THE RELIGION OF PROTO-TRANSHUMANISM

I explained a bit about trans-humanism in a previous article, which you can find here. The gist of the theology (it’s thoroughly theological) is that it’s an attempt to make humans something other than what God created us to be.

Satan’s lie to Eve was an enticement to embrace trans-humanism, that by eating the forbidden fruit, she could become less like a human, and more like God. And I don’t mean “more like God” in a sanctifying or glorifying way, but ontologically more like God.

Likely, as I pointed out in that post and also in a more recent one on the Nephilim, the tale of Genesis 6 was a trans-humanism plot. By mating with the daughters of men, the Seed of the Serpent, that is, demons, created a race of men known as Nephilim who were “mighty men of renown” and gigantic. That’s about as detailed as a guy can get without making presumptions. Either way, it’s fair to say the Nephilim were definitely trans-human and malevolent (as you would expect them to be).

From the way Moses penned the Genesis 11 narrative, it certainly seems that the inhabitants of Babel wanted to become transcendent. They would “leave their stations” (as the Bible speaks of the demons in Genesis 6) and ascend into the Heavens. They would, if they had their way, they would defy God’s order to take dominion “over the whole earth” and instead, build a metropolis in Shinar. By wanting to accomplish the tower, they presumed they would then be free of God’s command. This leads me to believe they wanted to become God, along with presuming (as have many theologians) that the purpose of the tower was to scale into Heaven and cast God off his throne.

Many such attempts at trans-humanism have occurred over the years. Echoing the sentiments of those at Babel, Karl Marx spoke of his ultimate goal of “casting God from Heaven.” In fact, his friend, Engel, said, “Marx will cast God out of Heaven, and then sue him.” Taking control of the means of production, having the power over food and housing and natural resources and industrial supply, was an attempt - of Marx - at godhood.

I would argue that the current religion of leftists is an attempt at trans-humanism, erecting government in the place of God. They want a government that is all-knowing (omnsicent), everywhere (omnipresent), and all-powerful (omnipotent). They demand the government have power over the water supply and douse it their magic potions, for the government to have power over our speech, and even - through public education at the primary, secondary, and university levels - control our thoughts. When protestors took an unauthorized stroll through the capitol on January 6, leftist repeatedly said the “sacred halls” had been profaned, as though what occurred was the Abomination of Desolation; for them, their god’s temple was dishonored. Simply put, the government is god, and those who run the government are equally gods.

Transgenderism, or trans-speciesism (that’s when somebody pretends to be a pony or whatever), or trans-racialism are all attempts at trans-humanism. It’s about becoming something other than what God made you to be.

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Of course, almost every false organized religion has claims of trans-humanism, from the Eternal Progression of Mormons, in which they become actual gods, to the transcendental enlightenment of Eastern mystics.

The trans-human effort has always failed, however.

In the Garden, God kicked out the humans and made the bushes grow thistles. In Babel, God scattered them and sent them back to the caves. One moment they were building scaffolding, and in the next moment they were in an Amazonian jungle, completely bewildered at the language their fellow new aborigines were speaking.

With the Nephilim, God flooded the Earth and cast the demons responsible into the pit. With Marxism, God made it collapse under its own weight of absurdities. With the Statists (those who worship the government), God gave them Alexandria Occasio Cortez. You get the point.

But the Babel to end all Babels is pressing upon us. The strong demons have returned. The mighty gods of our imagination are back, and the religion of Trans-humanism is about to reach critical mass.