Thinking out Loud — Maybe we DO build ‘that’

Time magazine’s in-your-face ‘eye over the pyramid’ cover representing the internet as a sort of modern day Tower of Babel.

By SHARON K. GILBERT

WE HAVE all heard the words of President Obama repeated again and again (ad  nauseum methinks) about whether or not entrepreneurs actually ‘build’ their businesses. With that in mind, bear with me while I take you, gentle reader, on a tour of the workings not only my brain, but perhaps all our ‘collective’ brains. Here’s what kickstarted this line of thinking. Today, I stumbled across a couple of interesting websites. One called The Global Consciousness Project, tracks the polarity of the world by accessing internet traffic. Basically, the software tosses a coin based on the world’s variables and comes up with a binary heads or tails. The results should average out to 50/50 on any given day over the course of millions of flips. However, so the site’s producers claim, there are days when the average leans more toward heads or more towards tails, indicating a worldwide ‘agreement’ phenomenon. Such merge moments allegedly correspond to major world events, such as the fall of the World Trade Towers in 2001. A second website–with similar claims–is The Global Coherence Initiative, which uses software that tracks the magnetic fields emanating from all biological systems living on and embedded within the Earth and how these ‘sync’ or do not ‘sync’ with the Earth’s fields.

Both sites monitor a complicated interplay–a dance if you will–occurring between and among a myriad of biological, mechanical, physiological, computational, and universal ‘sounds’. Some sounds have only the shape given them through ones and zeros of binary ‘language’. Others emit actually harmonies or melodies, singing within a specific range. Those old enough to remember The Beatles (hello to all my fellow Beatle babies!) remember a concurring ‘fad’ called biorhythms. Though the fad came and went as swiftly as the careers of many of the bands from period (not to mention Carnaby Street fashions and multicolored lava lamps). The science behind the fad, however, continues to grow today. All systems do emit sounds in specific frequency ranges, and we humans are soaking in it.

Now, stretch your mind to make a startling connection to a Biblical story most of you know practically by heart: The Tower of Babel. Let’s take a look at the scripture, just in case you’ve not dusted off your Bible lately. Genesis 10 lists the  ‘Table of Nations’, which includes a whole bunch of ‘begats’ that tell the story of the families as they descend from Noah’s three sons and of the cities these men built. The greatest of all these ‘men’ was Nimrod, whose may also have been called Ninus, Nebrod, or even Zoroaster. (Variations in spelling or outright changes in construction of the name are to be expected given that the world’s languages were divided into at least seventy from just the one when God separates the people).

Following the Table of Nations in chapter 10, where first we learn about this fascinating historical person called Nimrod, we find ourselves at:

Gen. 11:1 — And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

How curious that the Lord influenced the men who first organized scriptures into chapter and verse in such a way that this sentence falls at Genesis 11:1! We have here what might be called a numeric representation of the Godhead – 111 (from 11:1). Being a triune Godhead–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–with each member represented by the very first prime number ‘1’. And so a close inspection of the sentence reveals that the entire world sang as one. I’m not exaggerating. The Hebrew word translated as ‘speech’ refers not only to a string of spoken words but also to singing. The word translated as ‘one’ implies a unity that is organized not only in intent but with a military precision. Now, examine verses 2-4:

And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top [may reach] unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. [Emphasis mine]

Pay close attention to what we’re told here. The people are of one language–they understand each other thoroughly. You might even picture a sort of ‘hive mind’, for they share identical histories with no language barriers. I’ve placed a certain phrase in bold type for a reason. This phrase is similar to this one:

Genesis 1:26a – And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…

Three times in Genesis 11, we read that the unified people who took up residence in the plain of Shinar said ‘let us’.

Let us make brick..Let us build us a city…LET US MAKE US A NAME.  This third unified decision–this plan–this thought turned to action uses the very same Hebrew word that we find in Genesis 1:26. Could it be that this unified people saw themselves as a new kind of ‘godhead’ and believed they could unite their wills into one that rivaled the Almighty? Certainly, the real Godhead foresaw a very evil end which forced Him to intervene.

Looking down, the Lord saw the devices of the people of Shinar and had this to say:

Gen. 11:6 – And the LORD said, Behold, the people [is] one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 

Nothing! Not a thing! They need only imagine it, and they can do it–sort of like, well, like God! Of course, the Lord did intervene, saying Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. (Genesis 11:7) In other words – “Oh, yeah? It only takes me one ‘let us’ to outrank and destroy your pitiful three ‘let us’ annunciations!

Ok, now let me think out loud. As I ponder the above mentioned projects on the internet, it strikes me that these mirror that early, disastrous, and heretical attempt at Shinar. It wasn’t so much the bricks and the building as it was the organized and unified minds and speech of the humans upon the Earth. God makes it clear that language, speech, and even our thoughts have consequences. I’d even go so far as to say language, particularly when it derives from unified thought, is inherently powerful. Get that? POWERFUL.

Are we still divided by our languages? I’d argue that we are not! Beneath the architecture of the internet lies a ‘beast’ that collects our every keystroke, every bit, every byte, every one and every zero and collates them into a UNIFIED language. The apparent merging of coin flips into positive or negative or the harmonizing of Earth’s biorhythms and resonances with those of the humans embedded upon it may represent a manifestation of this underlying one world language. We are rushing headlong into the realm of AntiChrist–faster and faster with every blog post, every social media comment, and every Tweet or Tumblr photo. It is no coincidence that the London Olympic Committee chose to include not only the symphonic tone poem Nimrod in its opening ceremony but also Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web. The ‘666’ beast of our  post-modern world.

The Lord is watching. He is waiting, allowing us to produce not just the architecture and the ‘hive mind’ but He waits also for the ‘rise’ of the Man of Sin from this hellish bits and bytes Tower. And despite what Obama might claim of our efforts–WE DID BUILD THAT.

As a final word, let me speak to all who read this and call Christ as Savior. Do we leave this building project–abandon cyberspace entirely? I’d say no–not yet. We can still sing our song of salvation for bit longer, I think. We can proclaim the gospel message and lift up Christ and Him crucified! We may still–for a time–employ the very language that will one day give avatar flesh to the spirit of AntiChrist to throw lifelines to the drowning, to the perishing, to those who sink in a world of works rather than fly in the Truth of Christ’s propitiatory act as the Lamb of God.

That very same Lamb is returning–and soon. He watches now, but soon He will say ‘Let us go down’, and then watch as this tower comes crashing down. And HE WILL DO THAT!

 

3 Comments

  1. So beautifully said.

  2. Great article Sharon, thanks so much!

  3. I will have to a little research on the initiatives missing, and the poem about Nimrod. Facinating….

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