🚀 go-pugleaf

Adam Burke wrote:

> Owen Godfrey wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> > The Tower of Babyl represents a time when man thought himself great
> > enough to challenge God. God struck down the tower, and scattered the
> > people. To me, the Tower of Babyl was when civilization really took off
> > in earnest. People were scattered across the world, and each person was
> > a seed of a new culture. In the end, the Tower of Babyl and Babylon
> > itself fell, but humanity flourished in ways that it could never have
> > done otherwise.
> >
> <scating on thin biblical knowledge ice>
>
> I thought the the Tower of Babel was about humans being too proud and
> foolish of and with their new found power and knowledge.  In that sense
> it would be the same as naming the space station Icarus (flying too
> close to the sun etc.).

Oh, yes you are right, but I am just saying what it meant to ME. Allow me to
expand;

  1. The Tower or Babyl and the International Space Station (Babylon) are
     both products of a civilisation. They both represent that civilisation
     reaching for the realms of the gods, both physically and culturally.
  2. In the story of Icarus, Icarus melted his wings and fell, and his father
     never flew again. Nothing good came of the tale. In the bible, Babylon
     fell, but the people lived and flourished, and became the nations of the
     world. Isn't it appropriate that, the chidren of Baylon, rebuild
     Babylon?
  3. "Tower of Babyl" is not an appropriate name for the Station, because the
     tower itself was a product of arrogance, while the city of Babylon was
     the jewel of civilisation at the time. Also, Station Babylon is intended
     to be a city in space, where different nations can unite their
     technologies and cultures.
  4. The fall of the Tower of Babyl and of ancient Babylon in the bible was
     because God made all the people speak different languages and then
     scattered them across the face of the Earth. In this tradition, Sation
     Babylon will be our first step to the stars. Whether by the hand of God,
     or the hand of man, mankind will use this station to reach out for the
     stars. When we do that, I hope we will take all our languages and
     cultures to the stars, and there plant the seeds of new cultures.

I am not a proponent of aparteid, but the world is getting smaller. We are
becoming one people with one culture and one language. I am afraid of what we
are losing. We need colonies, each with their own traditions and languages,
otherwise we will lose our diversitity.


--
Owen Godfrey - (08) 9333 8808 - <mailto:godfrey@ccis.adisys.com.au>
"...there is sometimes little to choose between
        the reality of illusion and the illusion of reality."
                Patrick White, The Aunt's Story , 1948