What were the people doing at the Tower of Babel? Why were they building it?

Satan “put it into the hearts of the people to build a tower sufficiently high that they might get to heaven” (Helaman 6:28).

They were trying to make their own way to eternal life and happiness rather than following the Lord’s way. They wanted to “make [them] a name” (Genesis 11:4) rather than take upon them the Lord’s name. They were making a sort of counterfeit temple. They tried to avoid the path that would lead them to “ascend into the hill of the Lord” (Psalm 24:3) by building their own “hill.” They thought their will, technology, and skill could do it—without faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, covenants, and obedience.

Of course, they failed.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has taught: “There is no ‘my way’ if we are to follow Christ’s example. Trying to find a different course to heaven is like the futility of working on the Tower of Babel rather than looking to Christ and His salvation.”