Messages

Forget Revelations please... it seems that its only americans that are still obsessed with christian apocalyptic mythology.
I dont blame you of course, as the more fundamentalist aspects of the US owe their origins to the english 'Pilgrim Fathers' who despite all the 'rosy glow' that has surounded them due to their part in American mythology, in reality they were christian fundamentalist, fanatical nuts... even going so far as trying to establish a puritanical divine version of English that 'was closer to god'.... which of course didnt work.

Never mind the old prostestant vs catholic thing, they are both as bad as each other, do the wild statement of some protestants that the pope is 'an agent of Satan' really show any true kind of intellectial development? Some even equate Catholics with Satanists??!!
btw I'm not trying to promote catholics as they are equally bad in their own right, as catholics accuse everyone who doesnt agree with them as being heratics!
Certainly from an (happy oh so happy!) outside non-christian perspective, I see no real progression within the christian community.


Anyway, thats my take on it; all you folks stateside should stop being hung up on revalations prophesies.... also, many historians agree that most of these writings were refering to the fall of Rome, which the early christian cult of the 1st century was hoping for... of course, the irony was that it was thanks to the later Roman Empire of the 4th century that the christian cult was transformed into a 'world religion'.

Douglas Eckhart

Sorry, guys, but from what I've seen of US 'evangelism' tv, it is utterly, utterly dire!... most of their so called 'facts' are based on very dodgy ground and as for the fundamentalist programs.... I would rather have a meal with Hermann Goering in a top Paris restaurant; he may have been a drug crazed transexual, but at least we could have gone dancing!

Douglas

Sorry ghostrider, but 'some players from central and south america' and 'some japanese player from the Carribean' still doesnt mean that it deserves being called a 'world series'! You miss the point; never mind about players, all the teams are US teams.. there is no international competition so how can it be a 'world series'?

ie compare to the 'World Cup' which DOES deserve the term 'world'.
The World cup refers to football (or Soccer for Americans).

Douglas

If the ones who wrote the Bible, knew the future so to speak, they must have been either good guessers or inspired by something spiritual.
Mustardseed
__________________

But how can we say that those who wrote the bible 'knew the future'?

Just beacause people have come along later and interpreted events to fit in with what the bible says, does not prove that the bible writers 'know the future'.
In actual fact, the revelations chapters are written in such a vague way that anyone can interprete them to fit any time-frame. This does not prove its validity. In fact this suggests the opposite.
Anyone can issue vague predictions which the reader will interprete in accordance with their own circumstances and say 'ah this is reffering to such and such'.
Look at any good horoscope writer or even other great prophets like Nostradamus.

Furthermore, as Beth has pointed out, anything you quote to me in order to prove that the revelations refer to our own time, I can use to prove with equal validity that it refers to the 5th century AD, or the 1st Century, or the 16th, or the 20th, or 31st.

The revelations chapter is just a fairly generic apocalyptic prophesy, but perhaps as Beth points out, there may be a more illuminating subtext behind the vague literal form.

Douglas

Excellent post Beth!
Yes, I will read page 6 of this thread containing that info when I get a moment, which is difficult... I really want to read that bible passage that Mustardseed recomended to me as well... time!!!

Anyway, I agree with what you're saying. I agree that the most logical conclusion to be drawn from 'Revelations' is that it was refering to Rome. At that time Rome WAS the world, filling pretty much the same position that the USA does in today's world. However, it is pretty clear that the early christians believed that the end of the (Roman) world would occur in their own lifetime. I always find that modern Christians attempts to apply them to present times is like fitting a square peg in a round hole, but if you hit it hard enough it will fit!

BTW this is nothing new, the 'end of the world' has been claimed continuously throughout history, and if you read your history, holy wars, famine and war are not really any more common place than in the past; the weapons are more powerful, but the intent is the same as it always has been; It is just that people have very short memories; people wax on about the world we live in today with terrorism etc... er, has everyone forgotten about WW2 with an estimated death toll of 65 million world-wide from 1939 to 1945? thats much more of an 'end time scenario' IMO, and only 50 years ago!!!!

I also agree that christianity was never meant to be the 'world religion' that Constantine turned it into. In the earlier days it was a mystery religion, where entry was through initiation, it was not meant for the masses.
As for Nero being the 'anti-christ'. This has long been seen as daft by scholars, as it is now clear that most of the stories about Nero are WAY over the top. A lot of the blame is due to Roman historians like Suetonius who was basically the british tabloid press writer of his day. In fact Nero did not 'fiddle while watching Rome burn'.
For one, the fiddle didnt exist, and even if it was a lyre, well, he was not even IN Rome when the fire occured.
Secondly, the local christian community were just useful scapegoats at the time, it was nothing personal; also the numbers arrested were actually very small, but the whole thing was blown out of proportion by later christian writers; and nowhere like what we can call a 'persecution'.

The same can be said of all the Roman emperors; whatever you have heard, most of them were actually very capable rulers and even the dodgy ones like Nero, Domitian and Gaius (Galigula) have been exagerated by later christian writers who sought to discredit the earlier 'heathen emperors'. cf smug christian authors like Eusibios and Lacantius who pour scorn on the earlier emperors.

IMO Holywood, at its christian moralising worst, buring the 50's and 60's, has had the worst influence in this regard, they swallowed whole the sensationalist tales of Suetonius and later writers without stopping to think what these writers agenda might have been!

Cf narration of Sparticus at begining: 'this cruel, wicked empire which would soon fall to to its own corruption'.... er.. the Sparticus revolt was in 73BC, I dont think they've got anything to worry about there........
And don't get me started on 'The Robe' with Richard Burton!

Anyway, I'm way off topic, but certainly from what I've read, the gnostics are not highly regarded by the academic mainstream; Actually I dont think its anything to do with christian scholars as such; rather, its all scholars: peer pressure tends to ensure that any real focus on spiritual beliefs are excluded from academic debate, not just christian views but ANY spiritual views.
So, for example, the causes of the rise of christianity has to argued in socio-political terms; if you just stand up and say, 'God made it happen' you will crash and burn!

I feel that the current historical mainstream refuses to examine these esoteric groups because of a kneejerk reaction against spiritualism in any form, in which case someone needs to focus attention back onto these groups once again as they have been sadly neglected; Your work may kickstart such a trend change... Role on!

Douglas

Beth_
Thanks for your return and imput, it is apreciated by everyone here, I for one have found this thread very intertesting and entertaining, even when the flak starts firing on all cylinders!

I am wondering if you could give me your opinion on somthing:

As part of my Ancient history degree (Greek & Roman history) I studied a module on Paganism and Christianity. Now the gist of the course was that christianity was one of many 'oriental cults' that filtered into the Roman empire, along with Mithraism, Isis, Serapis, Jupiter Dolichenos etc. Of course, christianity eventially emerged as supreme (Due mainly to imperial patronage) and was moulded into a state religion by constantine et al. At this point the empire turned inot a christian theocracy, or if I was being a bit more unkind, a christian fundamentalist state.

After the Edict of Toleration was issued in 313 and espectially after 325 (Nicea) the arguments started; eg the Arian heresy (Eusibios supported Arian's theory), the donatists etc.

This is where the gnostics come in. Now, as I stated a while back, I think there is still some controvesy amongst academics as to whether the original scriptures were written with a gnostic subtext as it were or if the gnostics were just a bunch of philosophers/theosophists who took the already written, literal scriptures and re-interpreted them for their own ends, perhaps reading into the texts things that were not originally intended.

What is the current view on this as far as you are aware? I don't know if you have read Robert Turcan's book 'Cults of the Roman empire' but certainly his view seems to be that the gnostics were just a bunch of philosphers who adopted christian sacriptures for their own ends, he doesnt seem to  hold them with any high regard as such.

The premise of your book seems to be in opposition to this view.. is that correct? Is Turcan's view the general academic opinion of gnostics?

Douglas

PS btw Mustardseed, I will get back to you about that bible passage when I get a chance to read it; I've just been REALLY busy, this is my first time on the board for ages!

I will get hold of that passage you mentioned and read it as soon as I get a moment!

Douglas

Hello Mustardsed_
I think we both agree on the concept of 'god' or 'original primal energy' or 'the All' or however you want to define it. Of course this theory is called panatheism and is quite compatible with monotheistic AND polytheistic ideas as I have described, esp. how these are all just terminologies anyway.

IMO, while I feel that the 'All' or god is to far away from us to be interested, there are beings/aspects of ITself, much further down the line and closer to us that DO take an interest in our affairs to a limited degree.

I think that these beings, some of which may include 'ex humans' often communicate to people using a suitable medium which is generally the popular religions of the time. So in the classical world for example, some of these beings may have communicated to people as an aspect of Zeus or Athena or whatever was appropriate.
In the Christian era, they communicate as being aspects of Christ, or the virgin Mary or somtimes other Saints in Catholic or orthodox chistianity.
In the Arab world, they may communicate as Allah, in Hindu as Shiva etc etc.

Where we differ Mustardseed is that you accept the historical reality of a physical Jesus, which I don't accept; I guess this is just a matter of personal preference. However, even although this is the case, I can still accept the message of christianity, in fact IMO you can still be a christian without having to believe in the historical side of things, because IMO the message is the most important aspect, and this message is transmitted through christianity as well as other religions.

From here we progress to the quality of the medium, ie which religious system best translates the message.

but this is another discussion!

Douglas

Wisp_
The reason I dont subscribe to the ideas of god as a 'person' or god as Jesus, Allah sending the prophets etc is that I think the level of consciousness at the top, the ALL as it were, is really so far away from our concept of 'personality' that there is little use in trying to compare them.
For this reason, I find the notion of the 'All' taking an active interest in the afairs of 'itself' down at this microscopic level as unrealistic.

I think that beings/aspects of itself much further down the line, and closer to our level, interact with us on a more frequent level and these beings are often mistaken as 'god', although of course, as I said, you could be said to be correct in this according to my line of thought, but only in the same way that we are also 'god'. so these beings are not 'better' than us and they certainly dont expect worship of any kind.. worship is a purely human concept imo.

If we regaqrd the pyramid of consciousness as a tree, what is often refered to as the 'tree of life', then we are all leaves, each with our own consciousness but all together we are one. Though meditation it is possible to stop being a leaf and feel what it is like being the tree.
However, most people who have experienced being the 'all', although they find it a most awsome experience, equally find that the 'all' has very little resemblence to god in the western sense of a character with his own personality and so on... this concept is far too human.

So, in the end, we are responsible for our own affairs and our own morality, our own experiences as we are all god testing itself and trying to grow. It is this resaon that IMO rules out concepts of 'divine intervention' etc as this defeats the purpose of learning.
Its a well known fact that you learn best through your own mistakes; having someone else fish you out of problems or lending a hand at every opertunity is self defeating.

However, some people have a problem with this concept as it means they have to take responsibility for their own actions.. I know this sounds basic, but some people actually find this notion scary as they are used to 'god' doing this for them.

If anything good happens it is down to god, if anything bad happens it is the 'devil' (and not god's fault as has been pointed out).
The defects of this idea are glaringly obvious as humanity is devolved of all responsiblity for anything, apart from the act of worship and loyalty to 'god', which is empty and meaningless by itself.

Douglas

Exactly..

I subscribe to the neoplatonist theory that we (all of humanity) IS god, we are all aspects of god filtered down through the pyramid of creation. All these individual sparks of life as aspects of god, testing itself.

Therefor, we should not praise god as if god is somewhere above looking upon us and judging us. We should praise ourselves and our achievements as things belonging to US; as we ARE god, there is no division.

This is where christianity and all other monotheistic religions f**k up IMO.
They are so hung up on the monotheistic vs polytheistic thing that they are blind to the fact that the reality lies somewhere between the two.
IMO I think a panatheistic view is more realistic, in that everything IS god or god IS everything.

It then follows that going up the heirarchy you will come across beings/aspects of god who are higher in power than us, some in fact are 'godlike' as far as we are concerned, in this way to say there are many gods is quite correct.
In fact you can say there is many gods AND one god... at the same time!

When you come down to basics, the term 'god' is just a word.. I have long held the opinion that this term should be discarded as it has a bad history.

Douglas

Pardon?

Douglas

I read somewhere that the amazing revelations that scientists are discovering about the quantum universe are such that some think there is an imminent 'paradigm shift' on the way, like the discovery of the atom or the theory of relativity, except this paradigm shift will probably be the biggest one yet. Does anyone know more about this?

I read somewhere that scientists have found evidence that certain quantum particles react in various ways depending on whether they are being observed or not, lending weight to the idea of consciousness creating matter, rather than the current theory of matter creating consciousness.

Douglas

Mustardseed & Shinobi_

You both make good points guys and I accept that I have made certain snap judgements recently.. what you both say sounds good to me!

Douglas

I was over the top with that remark there Mustardseed. It wasnt meant to be taken that seriously but after reading it back it does seem a bit extreme, so I apologise for that comment.

However, I still stand behind the rest of my statement which is basically that I disagree with the principles behind missionary work, esp when there is perfectly good secular work being done alongside which I have already meantioned.

However I think it just comes down to a matter or personal preference here and I recognise that Mustardseed has done a lot of good work, more than many of the rest of us here have had the opportunity to do, and that in this way he has served his god; which is to be commended, no matter what faith is being discussed.

Douglas

Mustardseed, nobody's arguments have run out, they just haven't had time to reply yet!

Regarding your missionary work, I am firmly opposed to this; of course they do some very good work and I am sure that you have done much in this field as you have pointed out.

The problem is that missionaries have an ulterior motive for carrying out their work, as another and equally important part of their mission, as well as assisting the poor, is to actively convert them from their 'mistaken beliefs', and bring them 'unto the lord' etc. I believe this is fundamentally wrong and leads to a lot of social alienation as such cultures end up being stripped of their identity and are told that their ancient customs and culture are 'mistaken'.

Africa is still deeply troubled by its missionary, colonialist past, which is being addressed by development agencies with advice from social anthropologists. This 'culture of participation' involves giving the local population a say in how they would like to see their social problems addressed, rather than the old style cultural supremacy attitude of wading in and imposing a whole new system.

This brings me to my second point; the missionaries, although they do a lot of good work, are marred by their proselytising; however, they are not unique in their field. Development agencies, in hand with anthropologists, have been engaged in such work for many years and provide exactly the same assistance without the Christian indoctrination and undermining of local culture; it is this secular approach which is today, by far the greatest contributor to this area, which is supplemented by 'missionary's' (in the loose sense of the word as they also include other faiths on occasion) and other charities.

Mustardseed, as you are a Christian, you can't deny and indeed, you must agree and support the idea of actively converting people to your faith at the expense of their own 'mistaken' one. This area is what makes Christianity so antagonistic and conflict driven. Btw I don't think this of Christianity alone, but rather all the religions based on the Persian/Mesopotamian mythologies, which also includes, Judaism and Islam; all three owe their origins to the ancient mythologies and faith systems of Mesopotamia, with Zoroastrianism being a particular influence on late Judaism for example, as this is where they got their monotheism from, the Semitic tribes were never originally monotheistic.


On a final note, one hypocritical aspect of Christianity which I find serves to reveal the perverse core of this religious system is the claim that it is the religion of 'pure love', often it is quoted as being the religion of unconditional love;
unconditional yes, but only on the *condition* that you become Christian. This means that the Christian god apparently damns to hell the majority of the Earth's population, whom he created, on a continual basis.. He doesn't sound much like the god of pure, unconditional love to me, or any kind of true love for that matter;

Also, as Christians are intent on linking their deity with the god featured in the Old Testament (although this was originally done purely to give the new religion some solid background and weight)  they have really set up problems for themselves on a moral basis;
This means that Jesus, who preaches love, toleration, peace etc (although only on a limited bases as I have described) is also the same god who ethnically cleansed whole villages, killing, men, women and children, and who advocated divine wrath, vengeance, death to homosexuals, and lots of other nasty stuff.

In this sense, the cover story that the OT was the 'old law' which is fulfilled and Jesus represents the 'new law' smacks of complete hypocrisy, as now god has had a personality change and has decided to reverse some of his harsher polices; however, this god still has blood on his hands. For this reason, Christian morality is based on a very unsound basis, although most modern Christians have tried to accommodate this as best they can, and make the best out of a bad job..

Douglas

Ultimately, that's what's great about this country and partly why I came to it._
Ghostrider_
-----------------------------------

Hi Ghost rider, by 'this country' I presume you mean the United States. Its good to remember that this is atually an international forum (founded in Australia by RB of course); I agree with you that the religious freedom aspect is certainly a great aspect of the US although it is not unique in this, as many countries in Europe (such as UK, France and Germany, Norway etc) as well as other countries like Australia and NZ also do well in this regard.

In fact Australia is probably the 'new age' capital of the world, in the sense that it is a melting pot of different ideas right now, much to the dismay of christian fundamentalists (and to the delight of everyone else).

However, all countries including the US still need to work at the religious tolerance aspect. Even in the US the consitution states 'all are equal under GOD' therfore excluding athiests and also polytheists like Hindos or even budhists (who reject western notionsd of 'god' completly)

Now of course, no right minded person would take it that way, all I'm saying is that some nuts use this as an excuse and once again, fundamentalist christians are particularly bad..

This problem is indeed one of the major paradoxes of the United States:
I agree with you that its level of tolerance is high, it has to be due to the myriad of cultures that join it, and you are quite right to say that this is a fundamental part of what the US is all about;

however the flip side, which I think is a reaction to this tolerance aspect, is a streak of christian fundamentalism which certainly can be found in some areas, particularly the south; christian fundamentalists are just as bad as their muslim brethren, luckily in the US the system is able to contain them from doing anything too awful, although sometimes it does happen, such as the infamous case of the crucifiction of that gay guy; during the trial of those involved, some fundamentalists ministers were flying in to pledge their support for the accused!!! btw if anyone can remind me of the name of this guy and when it happend I would be grateful!

Other tolerant countries need to work at it as well. As Adrian will be able to attest, On the Isle of Man (UK), a groups of christian fundis' broke into a Wiccan conference and started an exorcism and chanting the lords prayer etc, frightening many people there including children, with their frenzy; in the end many of them were arrested as such behaviour breaks UK religious toleration laws, although of course, Im sure Mustardseed would have supported it.

Also in the UK, the Archbishop of canterbury forbade the use of the Cathedral for the filming of the Harry Potter films due to their 'occult associations'... come on guys!!!
In the same vein, in the US some southerners were burning harry potter books... as you can see, this kind of frenzy is scary and can be found even in the most 'civilised' countries!

There is still much work to be done!

Douglas

Mustardseed_
I will be replying to your comments regarding your missionary work shortly (when I can get some spare time)...

Douglas

December the 19th.........oh yeahhhhhhh!

Douglas




'Hinder me? Thou fool! No living man may hinder me!'
The Witch-King    
     -The Return of the King-

Thanks for your comments folks!
This was indeed a strange experience, and perhaps it is some kind of transitional thing, although nothing else has happened (yet)

What's odd is that I have no personal connection with any gorillas (apart from the DNA at least!)

Perhaps it was some kind of perception thing, but I tried at the time to change my perception of them but there was no change.

Douglas

PS I have begun to keep a journal as of last month.

This would also return us to pagan lives we would all embrace whatever faith , or make our own. We would worship nature and so forth maybe angelic beings ufos and aliens. We would revert to being savages. Tribals, worshipping the spirits. I know that is not what you suggest but I ask if this is not a natural conclusion to make? All the things Jesus came (IMHO) to do away with! I know these faiths seem to prolifirate here on the pulse but a world ruled by them would in my opinion return the world to .......well lets call it savagry.
Mustardseed
---------------------------------------------------------------

Mustardseed... what you've just said is totally out of order and betrayes a typical ethnocentric, western view of the world (the typical view of the British empire in the 19th century), where all 'civilised' people are nice polite, well dressed christians, and everyone else, including indiginous tribes are 'savages' or are somehow 'mistaken'...

By this token, I presume you would support your colonialist brethren who periodically travel to visit native tribes in order to 'enlighen' them out of their 'superstitious ways' and while in doing so, completely failing to understand that their 'superstition' is in fact a part of a complex cultural system which is just as advanced as your own; however, due to complete misunderstanding you dismiss it as superstiion, delusion and primitavism.

This is called ethnocentrism and you have a bad case of it!


Can I just say that such views have been thoroughly discredited for at least the past 60 years; longer in fact, ever since the publication of 'witchcraft and the azande' by Evans-Pritchard, where he totally blew away the myth of western cultural superiority, INCLUDING that of 'religion' vs 'superstition'...

I can say that you would be ripped apart by any anthropologist if they heard what you just came out with!

This is a shame MS, as I thought you were perhaps an enlightened christian, in that you respect other societies way of life and culture, but it seems by your statement that you are in fact just another ethnocentric, christian fundamentalist who wants to bring the 'true faith' to all the 'poor mistaken savages'...

So when are you off on your next mission?

Douglas

Wow!
amazing story Mustardseed!

You mention 'chrissy'... well, Tolkien's son is called Christopher.. he is now the editor of 'the history of middle-earth' series which publishes all of Tolkien's written material.

I wonder if its the same guy?

Douglas

Mustardseed_
Really? I didnt know about that. I know he was good friends with CS Lewis and other members of the 'Inklings' literary fraternity at Oxford.

btw its interesting that much of the mythology of lord of the Rings is based on Tolkien's Catholic leanings, as well as anglo-saxon stuff...

You certainly notice the Catholic influence when you read the 'Silmarillion', Tolkien's account of the creation and First Age of Middle-earth.

At that time, the First 'Dark Lord' was called Melkor (later named 'Morgoth' which means 'great enemy')..
Melkor was one of the greatest and most powerful of the 'Valar' (the angelic/godlike beings sent to watch over the world on behalf of Eru, the One God; Eru took no part in the world after the creation but remained outside the universe, leaving the running of things to the Valar)

but Melkor rebelled and tried to possess Middle-earth for himself.
In those days Sauron (the enemy in lord of the rings) was but a servant, the leutenant of Morgoth.

Eventially after great wars, Morgoth was defeated and was cast into the Void.. 'but his chief servant was not found, and he later rose up like a shadow of his ancient master and followed him on the same ruiness path'...

Sound familiar?

Later, in the third age, powerful Maiia spirits (servants of the Valar) are sent to Middle-earth to contest the power of Sauron, and to rally support among Elves, dwarves and men against Sauron, although they were forbidden to match Sauron's power with force.
These spirits came therefor in the shape of men, 'old in years but stong in body'.

The chief of these and the one deemed the wisest was called Saruman by men (who later becomes corrupted in lord of the rings), and also others such as Radagast and Gandalf.

The Istari, as the wizards were known, are best described as 'incarnated angels' from a christian viewpoint.

btw Tolkien has explicitly denied on many occasions that his book is any kind of christian analogy or that Gandalf represents Jesus as some have claimed, but there is certainly some similarities.

Tolkien has stated himself that like the great anglo-saxon poem Beowulf, the lord of the rings is absolutly a pagan story, set in a pagan world with pagan characters, *BUT is infused with christian concerns*.

Regards,
Douglas

Mustardseed,

I find it an interesting point you make about me (and others) demanding evidence about the bible while acccepting other theories without the same degree of verification.

You are quite right in pointing out this hypocracy!
I suppose it depends on the nature of the evidence. I have some experience of the astal through my own exploring; I have used this experience to construct a world view, as we all do.
My astal experiences, I regard as valid evidence *for me* because it is learned through *personal experience*. When I read of other accounts and they seem to co-orelate with my own then I give them a higher weight of validity *within my own world view*.

However, it is impossible of course to apply some kind of academic standard in tyring to validate such personal data as this is something that can only be learned though personal experience.

I would say that the bible, because it is a written text, CAN be tested by normal textual criticism and there is no harm in doing so. Because it is out there in the 'objective world' and has its own history etc which can be studied, I dont see any problem with applying standard critisism to it; any logical conclusions that arise from the study of it are quite valid.

What am I saying?
well, I still think it is right to criticise textual evidence in the normal manner, but it is invalid to apply the same criticism about personal experience that *may have arison from studying such text.*
ie this is really about personal experience vs information.

so personal revelations experienced by anyone, whether it is through studying the bible or asrtal dynamics is quite valid as it is learned through personal experience, but simple textual material itself is just that, and can be validated by the normal academic method.

I suppose its two kinds of testing methods for two different forms of data, you cant use the same method for testing both, as both are so different.  

Also, the main problem is that texts on the astral/spirit guides etc are all describing the non-physical world and therefor there is no way to validate them through normal means, you either believe it, based on your own experiences, or you don't.

However, texts (like the bible) which pertain to 'the real world' ,that is the physical world, because they claim to detail events in our own world, CAN be subjected to normal analysis, and therefor, they should.


hmmm, I don't know if any of that makes sense, I have a valid point I'm trying to make here but I dont seem to be able to articulate it properly today!

Regards,
Douglas

Well, how could I not post to this topic, esp. with my user name!!!!!


No prizes for guessing my favourite book!

About the movies, I know a lot of Tolkien fans complain about the movies, in that they miss out a lot of stuff and waste valuable time on pointless scenes that are not even in the book; however, most 'reasonable' fans realise that there has to be some kind of sacrifice if you want to see a 1000+ page novel turned into a movie, which we do!

So, I would just like to say that myself and most reasonable Tolkien fans *loved* the movie (the hardcore Tolkienites will never like any film version no matter how good).

However, just because I love the movies doesn't mean that I like everything they've done:

Bad points:

e.g. the utterly stupid 'Indiana Jones' sequence in Moria with the falling staircase, which goes on for about 15 minutes... snore!!
Not in the book, and not even in the script! It was added afterwards as PJ (the director) thought it was 'cool'. No it wasn't, it just made me press FF on my remote.

Gimli the dwarf turned into comic relief character... not in books, utter waste of a character AND a race.

Elves with pointed ears.  Well Tolkien fans are split on this issue, one camp (the majority) say they dont, the other camp think they do... Tolkien never says one way or the other, but in the book the main way to spot an elf is NOT their ears but rather their 'inner light', a kind of metaphorical spiritual thing which doesn't really translate into film very well. Anyway pointed ears just sends out images of D&D (inspired by Tolkien but 'vulgarised to some extent') which is not what is really wanted.

The omission of so many secondary characters but who are firm favourites with book fans; like Prince Imrahil, The Sons of Elrond, Tom Bombadil, Farmer Maggot, Fatty Bolger, Beregond, Haldir, Radagast, no sign of Glorfindal!!!, all the characterisation and interaction that is lost in the movie version, etc

In the same sense, the omission of important scenes in the novel:
The house of Bombadil, the Old Forest & old man willow. The meeting with Haldir and the other elves on the road in the shire, which is the other hobbits first encounter with elves, the fight on Weathertop between Gandalf and the Nazgul, The ommission of the beautiful scenes in the 'fire room' at Rivendell, Aragorn going to the hill of Cerin Amroth in Lorien:'the heart of elvendom on earth', etc

Ok, so I realise that these are due to time constraints so I accept it...

Other gripes: not enough mention of the human allies of Sauron.
People watching the movies would think that Sauron's army consists primarily of orcs... it doesn't...
All the lands of the east and south of Gondor are under the dominion of Sauron; these nomadic tribes including easterlings and southrons, make up a massive part of Sauron's army.

They are seen briefly in the Two Towers movie however, and we might see more of them in the final film.
Talking of the Two Towers, at Helms Deep, Saruman's army also consists of Dunlendings, men form a wild hill tribe to the west, who are enemies of Rohan; did anyone see any men in Saruman's army in the movie? No, because it must screw up the crap version of the movie storyline where Aragorn says that Saruman wants to 'destroy the world of men'

Actually he doesn't, he wants to rule over them (as a tyrant of course), as does Sauron for that matter, otherwise why would men fight on the side of a force that wants to 'destroy the world of men'... doh!

Tisha...Please please please DO NOT be put off by the battle scenes in the movies.... THE BOOKS ARE NOT LIKE THAT!  There are some battle scenes in the book but I can assure you that they are very much in the minority and are NOT what is great about this book... it really IS all about the other stuff!

Because the movies are appealing to blockbuster cinema viewers, all the fight scenes have been blown out of all proportion AT THE EXPENCE of all the good stuff!

The wars/fights are actually the smallest part of the book and are not what book fans remember the novel for... It is a sad fact that most people who have seen the movies now think otherwise!

Anyway, I'll stop now as I have been sounding far too sad for far too long and you all need a rest!

Regards Douglas,

PS I'm looking forward to return of the king, should be awesome!
But everyone... READ THE BOOKS, THEY ARE SO MUCH BETTER!

Why is it that the Baseball World Series is called the 'World' series when it is only held within the confines of the United States?

It's just one of those odd things I've always wondered about!

Douglas