Surely one of the more shocking episodes in the Old Testament (from which there are many to choose) is described in Genesis 11 and concerns the building by humanity and destruction by God of the Tower of Babel. For those of you unfamiliar with this passage, but too lazy to Google it, here it is, in full, with some very slight modifications made to the text as it appears in the edition of the Bible cited:
"At this time the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Babylonia and settled there.
They said to each other, 'Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly.' They used these bricks instead of stone, and bitumen for mortar. 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 and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that men were building. And he 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. Come, let us confuse their language so they will not understand each other.'
So the Lord scattered mankind once more over all the earth and their attempt to build a great city was abandoned. That is why it was called Babel - because the Lord confounded the language of the world."
- The Holy Bible, New International Version, (The Bible Societies in Association with Hodder and Stoughton, 1984).
From this we certainly get a further insight into the psychopathology of the Almighty. Not to make too fine a theological point of this, it's clear that God, like all tyrants, is a cunt: petty, paranoid, violent and vindictive.
His concern here is unambiguous; namely, that a united mankind, speaking and working as one, using materials of their own invention to build a safe and secure home for themselves post-flood, are empowered by their own technological ingenuity and feel an element of pride in their own mortal achievements.
Clearly, God can't have that. That is to say, he can't allow a self-sufficient humanity to threaten his omnipotence, or to realise its full potential as a species. And so, quite deliberately, he sows discord and confusion amongst a people where once there was fraternity and mutual understanding.
Of course, it might be argued that it's a good thing to generate cultural and linguistic difference. Though such an argument, when it comes from the mouths of the faithful who usually insist monomaniacally upon Oneness, seems ironic to say the least. In fact, anyone who reads Genesis 11 and comes to the conclusion that it shows us a God who is pro-difference and plurality is being more than a little disingenuous. For what it really betrays is the ugly and divisive nature of religion as it reinforces tribalism, nationalism, sectarianism; things that have caused immense misery in the modern world.
Happily, in this digital age, we have decided to defy this judgement of a dead deity and build not a tower of bricks via which we might storm an imaginary heaven, but a global electronic network via which we might instantly connect and communicate with friends, family, and strangers all over the world, exchanging images and ideas, important news and mundane chit-chat.
Ultimately, the Good Book has been defeated by Facebook ...
