Genesis, Google, and the Tower of Babel

     When Google was only a few years old and just starting off they set a precedent of “10 things they would always try to hold true throughout their work as seen within the article below.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/about/company/philosophy/

      A profound fascination lies in part with each of those 10 objectives in which every point, could possibly, in some form or another, be thought to influence the ways people think about religion.

     The eighth objective stating: “The need for information crosses all borders” truly spoke volumes to me in particular when I thought about religion. Overall, Google’s mission consists of facilitating access to information for the entire world, and Google does so through the use of more than 130 different languages nation wide. As a whole, Google offers people the ability to restrict their search results to content solely written in their own language, and aims toward providing applications and products in the largest amount of "accessible formats"  possible worldwide.

 

     Through the use of Google’s translation tools, the general public is able to discover content written entirely in languages that they may not actually speak, but could be acquainted with on the opposite side of the hemisphere by just a click away. This key 8^th objective by Google policy, precisely influenced my thoughts on religion in regards to the narrative passage of the tower of Babel in Genesis 11.1-9 in the Roman Catholic Bible.  

 

Picture: Artistic representation of The Tower of Babel by Van Cleve

     As a child growing up attending private Catholic school from kindergarten to 7^th grade, I was brought up in the strict traditional lifestyle in which religion class was taught everyday with mandatory mass every Friday morning before school and every Sunday morning as well.  Often times as a child I was always fascinated by the narrative passage of the Tower of Babel.

     For those of you unfamiliar with the story itself, as seen in the video below, the Tower of Babel is thought to have begun as a result of some people wanting to build a tower reaching all the way to Heaven in hopes to increase their fame and give themselves omniscient amounts of power as their name was being spread throughout the land.  As believed by the Catholic church, God the Father, the all-knowing and most powerful of everyone, was thought to have been angered greatly by this selfish act of the people and punished their efforts by confounding the tongue of each family. Consequentially, this directly forced each family to speak different languages so that they could no longer maintain communication with the other families around them, eventually spreading families apart all across the world, resulting in people no longer trying to conquer building the actual tower itself due to barriers in communication.

Video: "Bible Comic-The Tower of Babel"

     Overall, as stated in the article above, “Google’s tools and translators, have been able to greatly improve both the variety and quality of services offered in even the most far–flung corners of the globe.” I feel Google’s omniscient power in terms of allowing access to knowledge of such multitudes all across the world, truly influences the way people think about religion in regards to a building block for the "cradle of civilization." The Tower of Babel shows a perspective in which individual people who speak particular languages spread all across the world, when united and working together properly, have an unlimited power of success. However, the need for this information crossing all borders amongst the land, must be used properly or else too much freedom to do as one wishes might lead to the downfall of society.