Faith and current events.

[xp_olaris]

Apparently Father Morgan and Nathan watch the same news programming. Today we got treated to a nice long sermon about the difference between literal interpretation and actual truth in the Bible. Babel, as I'm sure you can imagine, featured heavily.

Don't get me wrong, I like Fr. Morgan and the bit about how the ark story is a chiasm (I'm so mangling that I'm sure) was pretty cool. But I'm not really sure that the blue-hairs appreciated being told that they were being irresponsible to expect our idea of history to be the same as ancient writers.

Anyway, did you know that no one is quite sure how to pronounce Babel? Not even Fr. Morgan who went through, I swear, four different pronunciations in 15 minutes.

Comments

[xp_daytripper]

'Babel' comes from the Babylonian: 'bab' meaning gate and 'ili', meaning 'God', so it's literally "The Gate Of God". Pronunciation's hard to work out, since Babylonian's one of those dead languages and even tho' I used to know it pretty well before I blew my brain up, I learned to read it, not speak it, so yeah, can't help you with the correct version.

[x-polarisstar.livejournal.com]

I'm just reporting in this case. You'll have to argue with Fr. Morgan about what it means and where it came from and how to pronounce it. I know nothing. My major is rocks without any historical significance.

[x-forge.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I got a good sit-down talk with my mother and the pastor after Church when I was twelve after I pointed out that the directions God gave Noah for the ark were rather inefficient and I'd come up with a better design.

We switched churches after that.

[x-polarisstar.livejournal.com]

Did that sit-down involve the words "Totally missed the point"?

[x-forge.livejournal.com]

Not in so many words. Although in retrospect, I recognize that it was probably difficult for a suburban evangelist with a divinity degree to explain metaphor to a rather literal-minded young genius.

I wonder if Mom still has my design for the floating geodesic dome I sketched out on the back of one of the church potluck flyers during the sermon. Probably tucked in the back of a Bible somewhere.

[x-polarisstar.livejournal.com]

Young gifted kids often don't get stuff like that, I've noticed. Often because they never stopped to consider that they might be wrong.

Actually...I think a lot of people are like that young, genius or otherwise.

[x-forge.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree. That's why I don't have any set views on religious matters. Nothing's worse than trying to argue an unprovable point with the only people more set in their ways than classical physicists.

And with that, I sign off for the next few hours. Wish me luck.

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Hey. I get a PASS. My parents are ... okay, well, my mom is a religious weirdo. Tyler My stepdad My dad's not nearly so kooky about it.

I don't care what anyone says. God never said "Birthdays is bad, yo."

[x-firestar.livejournal.com]

Birthdays are totally cool.

And I'm one of the lucky ones, we used to all go to church together and, you know, it was good. If mom's in town, we still go together, if not just me and dad.

Speaking of parents, wanna come over for dinner in a week or so? Dad thinks he's Alton Brown.

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Sure. Alton is the WIN.

[x-cypher.livejournal.com]

I'd give him my best pronunciations, but given that I have no ancient Babylonians to compare my accent to, I suppose there's no way of knowing if it's right or not.