Why is God Against Secular Humanism? Look at Göbekli Tepe and Jericho

Here, Matt Dillahunty has his say:

Atheist Debates - Tower of Babel
1st Oct. 2018 | Matt Dillahunty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9ToK6c5_gE

Here, I give my answers, time signatures referring to when in the video he says what I answer:

I

7:03 It actually doesn't even say "if this keeps up, they will", it says "they will accomplish anything etc".

7:51 It doesn't actually directly even say that God is objecting.

8:20 Where does it say "if this continues"? It doesn't.

8:30 Also doesn't say "and God can't have that".

8:50 The reason not given is Dillahunty's : "if the trend continues with cooperation and communication, there is nothing that they can't achieve".

The one reason given is a categoric, not a conditional, they will achieve.

II

8:57 Why would a God not want people to achieve anything they can?

Well, it seems for instance God wanted to stop Ted Bundy from achieving more after killing Kimberley Leach ... that is an answer to the general question.

But to the question in this particular context, it doesn't say textually God did not want them to achieve.

III

10:32 The word "punish" actually doesn't even occur in the text.

It is inferred from the parallel with Genesis 3:22.

If we look that up, we find, Genesis 3:22 contains the old fashioned conjunction "lest" meaning "so that ... not". In Genesis 3, it actually says God was trying to prevent something. In Genesis 11, it doesn't.

IV

11:42 First, Genesis 11:1-9 is briefly referenced also in 10:25.

Second, if there was a global Flood c. 1000 years before Abraham was born (942 or 1070 depending on absence or presence of second Cainan) or even just 292 years before it (Masoretic, Vulgate, King James text version), there is no way people in Abraham's time would have spoken languages as different as Sumerian and Egyptian - unless there was something more to it. Like a miracle.

11:55 I'd feature the Babel event (city and tower) between the death of Noah, 350 after the Flood, and the birth of Peleg, 401 (or 529) after the Flood.

13:40 Table of Nations and Generations of Shem are obviously partly overlapping material, but as obviously, it is two different texts.

The third text in between them, Tower of Babel, answers two questions in the context between them : 1) what is the "when the earth was divided?" and 2) "why do we only concentrate on Shem after this?"

The first is definitely answered - and the second is hinted at : these descendants of Shem stood aloof from the stupid project and so preserved their original language.

The texts composing Genesis up to Genesis 12 are very short ones which could have been orally composed and faithfully transmitted, that also orally. Between Peleg and Abraham, the line of information may not have gone smoothly with say paperwork, it may have depended on what, for instance, Abraham could have learned from great-grand-pa Sarug, while pa and gramp were ignoring it to adore false gods.

14:12 No, the text in Genesis 10 is dealing with geography or ethnography, not chronology, nor heirs according to legitimate lineage from Shem.

The text in Genesis 11, verse 10 to the end, concentrates only on chronology and on Abraham specifically being heir of Shem, of Peleg, for that matter of Sarug, last generation before Shemites started to walk after strange gods. It has to deal with chronology so that Abraham is seen to have been able to speak to Sarug.

Now, Abraham learned both texts from Sarug and enlarged the second one.

Between them, he learned another one, less boring, more picturesque - Genesis 11:1-9.

14:32 Before they were writing, they were arguably orally transmitted.

When long afterward a certain Catholic bishop while on horseback after Mass divided the Bible into chapters, he considered the ToB narrative too short to be a chapter of its own.

But that the chapters weren't there from start doesn't mean the text was originally just one whole.

V

12:35 Let's take demographic of Nigeria. Every year features a population 106 % that of the previous year.

Let's also be clear, after the Flood we don't start with one or two, but with eight.

Even by 101 after the Flood, there could have been 2000 people. By 401 after the Flood, there could have been more than there are now. Arguably there weren't, but just mentioning the actual maths of the population growth, it does figure, especially with a LXX timeline (Babel ending 401 or 529 after the Flood).

12:42 Check this for a more complete answer:
Creation vs. Evolution : Holy Koolaid Pretended Flood to Sodom Chronology Excludes a Sodom or Gomorrah of Half a Million People
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2021/03/holy-koolaid-pretended-flood-to-sodom.html

VI

14:55 Chapter 10 doesn't say much of what Noah's sons did.

Only action mentioned is Nimrod making an empire - around Babel.

Only other event is earth broken up in the days of Peleg, not necessarily, but arguably, when he was born.

Chapter 10 is geography. Chapter 11, second half, is chronology of one of the peoples. Chapter 11 first half tells why they are really different peoples as opposed to one people in several lineages spread out.

VII

15:31 If you deny the global Flood or put it 10 000 years earlier back, you may have different languages without such a miracle, but, if you accept the Flood and its being global, there is exactly one possibility of languages being so different (unless people out of boredom started conlanging). A miracle. In Abraham's time, you would otherwise not have had languages any more different than for instance Swedish and Icelandic.

The question is not just whether it is an explanation, but also an accurate one.

In the case of a global Flood, it would arguably have to be that.

And note, all other traditions except the Hebrew one did away with even asking the question - if the answer was that embarrassing, they perhaps would.

17:00 "it's clearly, in my estimation, a passage to describe the origin of language"

Thanks Dillahunty, just one correction : of languageS. Language in the singular was there in Eden.

VIII

15:49 Answer to contradiction - the texts chronologically overlap. Chapter 10 has a chronological reach beyond the birth of Peleg, for instance Ioctan would have been born after him, but first part of chapter 11 only reaches up to that point.

The verse just cited at end of chapter 10 means, when the dispersion happened, the main 72 branches of mankind did not each in itself get internally separated, they just all got separated from each other.

IX

17:08 "it cannot be accurate"

As a linguist and a Christian : yes, it very well can. It's like saying, the six jars in Cana can't be accurate because what we know of ordinary wine production.

We do know very well, in Abraham's time there were languages which could not even remotely possibly have developed the usual way (mergers and splits and overall gradual changes) in the time available since the Flood.

There are now 6000 languages or so, in over 250 families, it is not over the top that these could have split out naturally from 72 languages after Babel in the last 4500 years. But 4000 years ago, it's not a question of how many, it's just, they would not have left the common language group; 1000 years after the Flood.

17:13 "this is not how the diversity of language is best explained"

let's hear ...

"given all of the available evidence"

Sounds like deliberately making the point obscure, when you could be clear. You could make three more specific claims, which I will adress, even if you didn't make them:

1) "Languages split when populations speaking the same language get separated over sufficiently many generations"

That is just one part of the language diversity, say between Swedish and English, or between French and Romanian (in fact only one of the aspects between the items of each pair too). It doesn't begin to adress the diversity between Basque and Spanish.

2) "Human beings developed language in several different places and so developed different languages"

Or got them later, like at Babel.

Alternatively:

3) "Human beings had one language 100 000 years ago, and it split naturally"

Or it split supernaturally, more recently.

X

18:14 Neither punishment, nor arrogance is explicitly stated in the text.

XI

19:40 I would argue God is against secular humanism on certain planes, yes.

When exactly did Tolkien write (in a letter, not a fantasy novel) about Babel builders? After the Yalta conference and/or the founding or plan to found UNO.

Why? Communist countries and some Capitalist countries were not exactly in agreement with God's definition of human rights and duties.

And arguably, Nimrod was not in agreement with God's definition of safety on earth.

You see, God had promised (Genesis 9:11) I will establish my covenant with you, and all flesh shall be no more destroyed with the waters of a flood, neither shall there be from henceforth a flood to waste the earth.

Josephus says, the plan, of which Nimrod became executive, was to get to Heaven which can't get flooded.

If I am right that this took place just after the Younger Dryas (which then didn't last 1000 years, unlike claims in secular science, and considering its conditions would have been very unlikely to leave us around if it had lasted that long), seas had very recently risen, like hundred or two hundred feet in some places. Someone not trusting God would then and there have put doubts on God's view of human safety - and started looking for other solutions. Actually arguably very daft ones. Like fleeing a "doomed planet" into "space".

Bc, I think God didn't stop the tower from being built, He delayed it for 4500 years, until it could be tested more safely from Cape Canaveral.

19:44 "bc He can't stand that"

Or because Nimrod's rocket would have neglected the most basic safety regulations in force at Cape Canaveral.

God never says "stop, I won't have it, you will never get this" ... He says the opposite - and they have begun to do this, neither will they leave off from their designs, till they accomplish them in deed.

In other words, God gave them a delay to think it over and try again with some better knowledge of space and rocket fuels than available to Nimrod.

XII

19:59 While it does explain why languages are as different as Chinese from Japanese or as Basque from Spanish, it also deals with other stuff. Including the beginning of human civilisation, if you see the parallel in chapter 10:8 and following Now Chus begot Nemrod: he began to be mighty on the earth. [9] And he was a stout hunter before the Lord. Hence came a proverb: Even as Nemrod the stout hunter before the Lord. [10] And the beginning of his kingdom was Babylon, and Arach, and Achad, and Chalanne in the land of Sennaar. [11] Out of that land came forth Assur, and built Ninive, and the streets of the city, and Chale. [12] Resen also between Ninive and Chale: this is the great city.

If this is what happened at Göbekli Tepe and Qermez Dere ... we can see why Babylonians forgot it.

Now, Göbekli Tepe if it was Babel gives some gruesome insight on what secular humanism can be like.

Graham Hancock wondered, how all of this could have been built with any coordination.

Well, "the carrot and the stick" may have been the clue.

What was the carrot in GT? Beer. Now we know some people work at places where work morale is kept up with beer ... and then they stop working and the beer gets out of control ... they were probably alcoholics already while still at work, but they showed it too clearly once it was they who decided when to drink.

Then there is the stick. Heads have been found at GT and at contemporary layers of Jericho.

Heads with holes bored into them and strung onto a rope in GT. Was it a weird view of the afterlife and thinking one did someone a favour? Was it a weird view of the afterlife and thinking one did oneself a favour at someone's expense? Or was it just a way of displaying the beheadings of those beheaded for shirking and for spreading doubts?

I think the latter.

"the beginning of human civilisation"

I obviously mean the new beginning after the Flood, not the previous Nodian version.

XIII

20:10 If Tower of Babel had been a "preposterous fantasy" ... why does the phrase "a tower, the top whereof may reach to heaven" match what was seen at JFK space center on November 9, 1967? Only the top module went to the apogee ...

If Tower of Babel had been a "preposterous fantasy" ... why did Graham Hancock consider Göbekli Tepe looked like a rocket launch?

And, third, if Tower of Babel had been a "preposterous fantasy" ... why does Göbekli Tepe match geographically with Genesis 11:1, linguistically with a time before languageS were different, in carbon dates between a date for the Flood and a date for Abraham, when you recalibrate for Biblical chronology, culturally with involving cultural references to Australia and Polynesia, while it is in modern Turkey?

21:04 The one thing that was unclear is, what does verse 3 mean by "bricks and mortar" - in Jericho contemporary to Göbekli Tepe, you get this:

The rooms have red or pinkish terrazzo-floors made of lime. Some impressions of mats made of reeds or rushes have been preserved. The courtyards have clay floors.

Wikipedia, Jericho, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB, a period of about 1.4 millennia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jericho#Pre-Pottery_Neolithic_B_%28PPNB,_a_period_of_about_1.4_millennia%29