The European Parliment Building in Strasbourg France is a copy of the Tower of Babel. I'm not sure how much of a difference it is between that and the UN building power-wise.
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"I'm not sure how much of a difference it is between that and the UN building power-wise"
None whatsoever. It has no connection at all in any way.
Its not even a real parliament building as it is only used one month out the year.
"The European Parliment Building in Strasbourg France is a copy of the Tower of Babel."
Sharing superficial similarities does not make one thing a copy of another thing, else you would often be mistaken for an intelligent person.
"I'm not sure how much of a difference it is between that and the UN building power-wise."
None at all. They're exactly the same. It's just that they're different in every respect.
Don't let that stop you though.
Oh yes, look at the similarities!
One is stone, the other is steel and glass.
One is a stepped tower, the other is straight.
One is HUGE, the other normal sized.
One is half finished, the other done.
One if made with roman arches, the other with steel trusses.
One is fake, the other is real.
The only thing they have in common is that they're both round.
Given fundies' flimsy standards of evidence, it doesn't surprise me that he takes a painting as evidence that the UN is the new Babel. It's really sad that it doesn't actually, it means I've been reading this site for far too long...
"I'm not sure how much of a difference it is between that and the UN building power-wise".
The fact that you would even post this ridiculous comparison without first taking three minutes to Google the functions the building is used for speaks volumes.
OMG!!!
They're both round!!!
AAAAAAHHHHH!!!
Also, power-wise, the Tower of Babel was, as far as I know, not supplied with any electricity
I mean... I kind of see the resemblance, but that picture of the Tower of Babel is a painting, not a photograph. So it's not as if we can really say the parliament building looks anything LIKE the Tower of Babel.
Also: this is ridiculous and it's like hardamber is looking for things to freak out about.
Just because Jesus was painted as a blue-eyed European doesn't mean that's what he would have looked like had he really existed.
And even if the Tower of Babel really existed and that's what it really looked like, so what? There are far taller buildings in the world and God doesn't seem to care about them. And I would think that he would approve of humans meeting to work on problems together.
Rarely have I seen a clearer demonstration of the level of fundie thinking skills. It never occurs to hardamber to question a comparison between a product of the imagination of Brueghel and the real image of an actual building. It has layers. What multi-storied building does not? It is circular. How many other thousands of buildings are also circular.
This comparison stands as a monument to fundie critical thinking ability. What a pity!
I see the resemblance, but as no one knows what the Tower of Babel (assuming it actually ever existed) looks like, it's not possible to call the European Parliament building a copy, since your image, is in fact a painting.
If building great big tall buildings was a problem with god I'm sure he would have done something in places like New York, Hong Kong, Dubai, etc.
By the way, you do realize that Brueghel's depiction was all from his head, right? The bible is kind of vague on the actual shape of the tower of Babel, although it is suspected that the Ziggurat at Ur was the inspiration for the myth.
...they don't even look similar. They're both round, yeah, but so are a lot of buildings.
Next thing you know, the Coliseum will turn out to be part of a UN conspiracy.
Similarities:
They're both round and tall.
Differences:
One is an actual building, and the other is an artist's rendering .
What if I can find another painting of the tower of babel that depicts it differently?
What if I can find another building that's round and tall?
Wait, so a 400+ year old painting of a fictional tower sorta resembles the EU parliament (if you squint) and that says something about the UN?
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Your fundie logic does not resemble our Earth logic.
Oh sweet, maybe it'll piss off Jebus and he'll actually show up for once and show us all.
Or maybe you're an idiot.
Gee, I don't know. The new one looks kind of, sort of, like a toilet paper roll. The old one is all, like, ziggy-zaggy. Know what I mean?
So they built an incomplete tower of Babel, not because God told them to stop but because the Germans wanted it broader, the French wanted it taller, the British wanted to protect the quid, Turkey wanted to contribute but were fobbed off and the Irish refused! Amiright?
The Tower of Babel was supposedly built of mud-brick and pitch and was supposedly demolished by God for growing too close to Heaven. It's unlikely a mud-brick construction could ever reach much over 30m in height, half that is more likely.
The Burj Khalifa is built of concrete and steel and 420m up it is the world's highest mosque.
What conclusions can we draw from this ?
;-)
So what is the Bible saying?
(1) God decided to stop us from building a tower that He, in His infinite wisdom, knew couldn't reach more than a few hundred feet given the technology of the day;
(2) God chose to stop us by confounding our language; a method He must have known, in His infinite wisdom, would only be a very temporary measure; and
(3) He did this in the Bronze Age, but has made no attempt since to stop things like moon shots and the Burj Khalifa (maybe He only allows Muslims to build towers to heaven ...)
The story of the Tower of Babel has always cracked me up. The thought that a tower that didn't come close to the heights of any sort of skyscraper was considered to close to heaven, destroyed by God, and to stop it from ever happening again, all races and languages were brought about. That takes some POWERFUL stupid to believe.
But now let's look at that painting. It's clear that, when completed, it might reach the height of the Empire State Building, at best. And the tower itself was actually a temple that appears in historical records. Obviously the banished Israelites wrote some nonsense about it.
If there ever was a Tower of Babel, it wouldn't have looked like a stack of Colosseums. GodDAMN do people need to study Middle Eastern architecture.
Mainly because Middle Eastern architecture is also really awesome.
Even if we assume that it's a copy of the design, so what? It means fuck-all about anything else so it's irrelevant. For example, the pyramid in Vegas is a supposed to resemble the Egyptian pyramids but it doesn't mean that there are mummies buried in the Vegas pyramid.
I don't see the similarities.
Both are round with a small decline in the upper right corner? Babel looks WAY bigger. And more door/window things. And brown. And looks like a city within a tower. And way cooler. Someone should make that, haha.
The tower of Babel is a fictional story. Even if it was real, no one would know what the heck it looked like, therefore, the happenstance that some modern building may look somewhat like an artist's idea of what the tower of Babel may have looked like is entirely irrelevant.
P.S. Other than the fact that the images in question show a tallish, cylindrical building, I see little in common between the two.
The Tower of Babel here appears to be approximately 18 stories high. Some skyscraper.
"UN building power-wise."
The UN in reality has almost no formal power, it is merely a place that brings all countries together in the spirit of hopefully talking their problems out and agreeing on some universal laws. All it's power depends upon consensus between nations.
Even if the architect of the real building on the right had been influenced by the painting (note: NOT photograph) on the left - so the fuck what? Is this imbecile really suggesting that the Tower of Babble (sic) must have been real because there is a building which very loosely resembles a modern day version of a structure in a painting?
What next? I saw a bloke with long hair and a beard in the shop this morning so Jesus must have been real?
Oh my God! The Tower of Babel as depicted by an artist who didn't live during Biblical times likes a tiny bit like the EU Parliament building! AIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE! The EU is evil!!!!!!!!!
What a moron do you have to be for a Biblical tower that looks a bit like a Contitnetal legislature to mean that it is a copy in your eyes? I mean seriously?
This conspiracy theorist I know (a fundy in his own style) once told me a similar “theory”, but I think it was about another building being similar to that painting.
I didn’t even bother to look up pictures of that other building.
The thought that a modern architect basing their design on a world famous painting of a building is either evidence of some kind of conspiracy (with no explicit purpose) or somehow a sign that the bible is true, is just silly.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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