Tower II?

Lately I have been wondering (in the back of my head) if humanity is trying to rebuild the Tower of Babel.

The push towards globalization and cosmopolitanism has become almost dizzying.  We now live in an age where huge populations are surging across borders, effectively destroying the concept of the nation-state but leaving in its wake a sort of sense of obligation to a larger, more global entity.

Finance, manufacturing, even politics - all are now rooted in some fashion in the concept that we are all interconnected and, as interconnected, must surrender ourselves, our beliefs, and our state and national identities to the larger whole.

In religion (in case you missed it) the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches are discussing ways to come together, parts of the Anglican church have discussed or are actually moving back to communion with Rome, and the Pope has taken part in commemoration ceremonies concerning the Reformation in Sweden.

We have been here before:

1 Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. 2 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. 3 Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. 4 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”  (Genesis 11)

That, of course, did not end so well:

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. 9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. (Genesis 11)