"Once I Built a Tower"

I am reminded of a verse from the old Depression era song, "Buddy, can you spare a dime?" It's not really relevant to our discussion, I am just reminded of it.

"Once I built a tower, way up to the sun,
Of bricks and mortar and lime.
Once I built a tower, but now it's done.
Buddy, can you spare a dime?"

You're right, the Bible just says "tower", but any Bible that has pictures in it includes an old painting that resembles one of those ziggurats to illustrate what the tower might have looked like. The Biblical description of Noah's Ark doesn't look anything like the commonly accepted pictures of it either. The text describes it as looking more like a barge than a boat.

The Tower of Babel myth predates the Babylonian captivity period by a thousand years or so. The Mesopotamians also had a flood myth that is somewhat similar to the one in the Bible. The only difference is that the captain of the ark was named Utnapishtim , or something like that. Actually the Mesopotamian version calls it a boat instead of an ark. Utnapishtim's boat is described as having a similar barge like appearance, but was way bigger than Noah's Ark. Instead of one god causing the flood, it was a coalition of gods and goddesses. The victims of the flood weren't described as evil, just noisy. In addition to his family, Utnapishtim had a whole crew of workers to help him build his boat, and he took them aboard when the waters started rising. Utnapishtim and his wife were made immortal by the repentant gods after the flood but, instead of going out and repopulating the world, they were told to stay on an island and avoid contact with other people.....Other than that, it's pretty much the same story. Coincidence? I think not!

I looked up Armageddon over the weekend. It seems that the Biblical prophesies about it are so vague and cryptic that you can interpret them any way you want, and people have been doing exactly that for some 2,000 years. One thing they all seem to agree on is that the whole Apocalyptic scenario is going to happen any day now, and they have been saying that for 2,000 years too.

I don't know what to tell you about those ISIS people. Every time we knock off one fanatical regime in the Middle East, a worse one takes its place. Muslims believe in the Apocalypse too you know, only their version has the good guys (us) cast into the lake of fire, while the bad guys (them) go to Heaven, where they are each given 50 virgins to play with. They believe that, if you don't want to wait another 2,000 years for the Apocalypse,  committing suicide is a short cut that can  get you to Heaven right now. As I remember it, dealing with just one virgin for four years was really frustrating. If I had to deal with 50 of them for eternity, it would make me want to kill myself all over again.