AiG is losing their tax incentives, so they’re going through various arcane legal maneuvers right now to…it’s not clear. They’re trying to convince the city of Williamstown to build a fire station on a peculiar piece of property, surrounded by AiG land? They want to build a Tower of Babel attraction to get new tax incentives? They’re meeting behind closed doors with city officials? Nobody knows, except the overpaid officals at Answers in Genesis.
Seeing all the convoluted nonsense they can squeeze out of the Bible, wait until they’re done twisting the law.
Hmm, building a Tower of Babel…worked out great the first time around (if you believe in that stuff as AiG claims they do).
Please remind me, what does AiG stand for? Assholes In General?
Tower of babel? Are they jealous of the huge tRUMP weaponized arch?
There’s something about these people that makes me think they didn’t learn from the hubris of the Tower of Babel. The difference is that instead of building an untenable way to heaven out of brick, they’re building it out of apologetics and wordplay.
Been seeing ads for the Ark Park and Creation Museum on Twitch. Keep clicking “not relevant” and “shown too often,” though it doesn’t seem to do anything.
A Sodom and Gomorrah attraction would work better.
I said at the very beginning that they needed better features.
A casino. They have got to have a casino.
An amphitheater for rock music concerts.
IIRC, the Ark Park didn’t help the economy much for the town of Williamstown.
Imagine believing that all animals originated from a single boat and that all languages and cultures originated from a single building.
The real lesson from the Tower of Babel was that the Sky Monster god is afraid of humans.
For good reasons.
The Sky Monster god was afraid that if humans can cooperate, they will become too powerful, as powerful as the gods.
He wanted to keep humans weak, poor, and technologically backwards.
Like most of his plans, it didn’t work.
We’ve moved on from brick towers to eliminating smallpox, robots on Mars, and space probes out past Pluto among many other accomplishments.
@ strangerinastrangeland,
That’s exactly what I was going to say. Especially the part about the folks who think the story is literally true.
raven @6: Remember, this was a god who could be defeated by iron chariots.
I bet he’s also planning to build a police station on his property as well.
No exhibit for the 200 foreskins?
Hm, what about for the tokens of virginity?
(Ah, gotta love the Babble)
These evangelical Christians are awfully fixated on the Hebrew Bible.
raven @ # 6: … the Sky Monster god is afraid of humans.
And has been, according to his own story, since he made the first two of them:
Yahveh is as scared of equality as is any MAGAt (but talks to himself a lot more than most).
<snicker>
Leaving aside that ‘Yahveh’ is a fundamentally broken transliteration (the Hebrew tetragrammaton, YHWH / יהוה, contains no ‘V’ sound in ancient Hebrew phonology, (Waw / ו)); it’s about the rabble getting uppity.
(You know the two senses of ‘the peasants are revolting?’ ;)
A nearby fire station is a good idea, given the omnipresent threat of fire. As a famous episode in Monty Python noted, “Things burn.”
John Morales @ # 13: … ‘Yahveh’ is a fundamentally broken transliteration …
Among other issues. I think that section of Genesis comes from the “J” part of the text, but seeing the “one of us” trope makes me suspect it could have “E”(lohim) roots. Anybody know of an annotated “Document Hypothesis” OT reference which tries to sort this out verse by verse/word by word?
… the rabble getting uppity.
One can also read most of this as a parable of an (abusive) family dynamic: Dark Triad all the way down.
Nope. Jawa is not even a bit scared.
He’s the OT deity, an absolute ruler punishing treason, rather than the loving, forgiving god of the NT.
The type that wants blood sacrifice as expiation, and may still smite nonetheless.
Nothing about abusive family there; more about a superior being peeved by uppity critters.
By the time those writings were being made, Asherah was fully deprecated and henotheism was transitioning to monolatry, but not yet monotheism. Thus the mentions of other tribal gods.
You know, like a pest problem; extermination follows.
Pierce R. Butler @15: “I think that section of Genesis comes from the ‘J’ part of the text, but seeing the ‘one of us’ trope makes me suspect it could have ‘E'(lohim) roots.”
Wikipedia – Documentary hypothesis, Critical reassessment
Wikipedia – Elohist
Wikipedia – Tower of Babel, Authorship:
Thomas Christian Römer – A farewell to the Yahwist? (2006, pdf)
CA7746,SC @ # 17: …a growing number of authors, especially in Europe, have given up the classical Documentary Hypothesis as a relevant model for explaining the composition of the Pentateuch…
[sob] Is nothing sacred?
Thanks for the update – what I get for assuming anything about the Bibble is solid!
John Morales @ # 16: Jawa is not even a bit scared.
Just insecure, then: nothing even close to potential competition allowed.
Nothing about abusive family there…
Even the literalist believers have to stretch and squeeze a lot to fit that in. As a single-digit kid, I wondered a lot about the run-up to the Flood story, where (Gen. 6:2)
It seemed(s) to me that the older (half?-)brothers of Jesus would merit more attention than they got – clearly some family dirt swept under the carpet here. From the blame-the-woman garden eviction story to the repeated brother-on-brother violence, Lot’s daughters, the repeated pimping of wives by pretending they’re sisters, etc, the whole “history” is family dysfunction on a Mississippi scale.
Can you not read plain English? No.
Pure lèse-majesté, the critters got uppity and needed a lesson.
Simple as that.
They cannot compete, they are not the singular Jawa!
Not even in the wrong ballpark. You are trying to shoehorn the fanfic (NT) into the original Bible (OT).
(Your aptitude for exegesis and hermeneutics is apparent)
John Morales @ # 20: Can you not read plain English?
Perhaps “single-digit kid” is not plain enough English for you. I had not reached the age of 10.
No.
Insults here are neither warranted nor constructive.
As for Jaw-Jaw, he explicitly described himself as “jealous”. Whatever the Old Hebrew for that, doubtless whole books debate the meaning thereof – and what right do mere mortals/laypersons have to contemplate its implications?
@ # 16, you wrote … the OT deity, an absolute ruler …
In context of Torah times, that’s the “shoehorn” anachronism here: El(ohim) and Jaws, at time of writing, were both jostling elbows with multiple (yet overlapping) pantheons and merging into each other behind the screen of name-too-holy-to-be-spoken. The usual cult call of “forsake all others!” goes way back, but only with enough social dominance to run those other “false idols” out of town do you get real omnimax monotheism (post-Exilic period, perhaps? A lot of canonic fragments to absorb by then, anyway). The rather off-the-track location of Jerusalem may have helped here as well.
The “absolute ruler” had his ass kicked by iron chariots, and again by Chemosh, and on other occasions, before he promoted himself to omnipotence. Particularly when discussing the Doc Hypothesis and its untidy derivatives, keeping straight the backstories and superpowers of each version of Big Daddy matters.
Truths are insults?
Anyway, fine. No point belabouring the obvious.
Good grief!
I literally quoted what you posted, so it was not a that did that.
(sigh)
What part of “By the time those writings were being made, Asherah was fully deprecated and henotheism was transitioning to monolatry, but not yet monotheism. Thus the mentions of other tribal gods.” confused you?
Here, for you:
Truths are insults?
Anyway, fine. No point belabouring the obvious.
Good grief!
I literally quoted what you posted, so it was not a that did that.
(sigh)
What part of “By the time those writings were being made, Asherah was fully deprecated and henotheism was transitioning to monolatry, but not yet monotheism. Thus the mentions of other tribal gods.” confused you?
Here, for you:
[OT]
5/22. Or 5/23 (generously) or 6/23 (ungenerously). Over 20% anyway. For the 4th time that I have counted. While being insulting, as he so often is. And dragging the whole thread off down a nit picking rabbit hole with only the most tangential relevance to the OP.
What are the chances it will approach from here 7/35, just to be safe and within rigorous and technical definitions?
Fucking time vampires man. Not the same, but definitely hanging with: https://wondermark.com/c/1062/
My remora!
You are such a coward!
—
But yes, sorry, inadvertent double post and the wrong video to boo.
@ indianajones : Did you notice Silentbob’s multiple comment thread-hogging volley here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/09/10/a-suggestion-for-commenters/#comment-2311765
Plus here : https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/09/13/oh-no-ive-been-erased-from-history/#comment-2312344
Plus their continuing failure to answer the questions here? :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/08/11/this-is-what-happens-when-you-let-a-senile-fool-run-the-country/comment-page-1/#comment-2309411
Oh and to apologise for their constant and continuing misgendering of chigau (違う) at all?
Of course, two wrongs don’t equal a right but I think you might be targeting the wrong person / people here.
Do you have any thoughts on Silentbob’s conduct or are you just intrested in singling out only John Morales?
7/25
@ StevoR Yes I noticed it. Twice and I’ll take your word on the third. Not 4 times, possibly more, and counting since being warned and with a multi year, possibly decade history of thread hogging behaviour. But yes, I noticed. I have thoughts on many peoples conduct. I occasionally share them. Silent Bob has not to my knowledge called me a stochastic terrorist, nor a fan of Kyle Rittenhouse, nor a litany of other foul insults, and I don’t even count coward fish among them, that I have detailed elsewhere,
StevoR, you got your bugbear, I don’t care to comment on it and I will neither confirm nor deny any opinion on it one way or another, I got mine too. I will say that I comment on my BB a lot less than you comment on yours. 90% of my BB’s posts I don’t respond to, It would be less than once a week on average by my estimation that I do engage. Although when I do, yes usually several posts that I lump together here. So yes, I’,m pretty comfy with my targeting. How ’bout you? I’m guessing yes, but since you brought it up..