The Tower of Babel, or Another Example of Genesis Absurdity

Gen 11 1-9: And the whole earth was of one language...And they said, Go to, let us build 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...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.  Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.  So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.  Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

We have another origin story, this one explaining why there are so many peoples on the earth with different languages (clearly this is not the way humans developed different languages and cultures!).  Yet here is another example of absurd crap:  God discovers that man has realized the power of his mind - which He gave him.  Man has discovered that he can achieve greatness through the application of his skills and learned knowledge, and even finds that collaborating peacefully with his fellow man will only help in achieving his goals. In other words, man has discovered science, and a rather utopian world in which man works with man in peace in the pursuit of human advancement.  Inexplicably, God will have none of it.  God decrees that, should Man be allowed to continue unabated, there's no limit to what he could achieve!  So, through divine intervention man is scattered, his progress and unity extinguished, his communication with his neighbors confused.  How dare man live and work peacefully with his fellow man!  

Here is perhaps the first battle in the war on science, and another example of God's man-made character.  Only a human being, especially one quite uneducated and ignorant about the world in which he lived, could conceive of a god so contradictory in his nature that he could at one time create the cosmos, and yet become nervous about mankind's attempt to build a grand tower - of brick and mortar.  Who can believe such piffle?  Who can believe that the creator of the universe's nebulae and galaxies could ever entertain the slightest notion of fear at what Bronze Age Man could accomplish should they collaborate and exercise their minds?  

One explanation is that God wanted to teach Man humility, to punish him for believing that he could reach God's level, or become godlike in any way.  Man should know his place, and worship his Lord who created him.  This is utter garbage, and an excuse for a god who would have his creations live as slaves in social, cultural, and technological stagnation, lest God be the one to grant Man these improvements!  Who could worship such a low thing?  It is also a prime example of religion's assault on Man's self-esteem.  Man is not to achieve anything on his own: he must give all credit and glory to God.  Man is only capable of folly and wickedness, and any achievement of his must be due to his creator, not himself.  What a crude, paranoid, self-obsessed, shallow god this is.