REDIRECTING!

Dear Readers,

This blog has obviously decided to take a semi-permanent vacation. In order to remedy this, I shall now post a link to The Filmmakers' Circle. I strongly encourage you to take a look at this network of beginning independent film making studios. If you're waiting for something to happen here, well, I'm afraid this blog has Dead Blog Syndrome. Its authors are rather stretched to thin with regards to scheduling.

http://filmmakerpi.wordpress.com/

Experience

I find it surprising that, since the number of various experiences seems to be important, that science has not tried to make it possible to see what it’s like to become a toaster oven.

Dear Flame of Arnor....

I have decided to become a Mexican, so I shall not see you for quite some time. Mexicans, please do not be offended; I love your lack of emphasis on productivity! Why else should I choose to become a Mexican? Honestly, though, there are some things in the Mexican culture that I love, like the afternoon siesta.

Off Topic

I would like to take the time to give a brief apology to our readers. We have gotten way off topic since this blog was founded, and I'm sorry if that causes any confusion. However, our blog description does say that we present the world through Tolkien's eyes. Now, that may be a bit of a false statement, since our eyes are completely different from those of the great Tolkien. But, that doesn't stop us from trying!

Somebody write something.... please. If you don't write something, I'll post all of my Facebook sayings on here.

We have nearly thirty followers now. It's summer, so you have no excuse for not posting anything. Seriously.

Enormous Controversy

Pope John Paul II. After some research, I discovered a few things about him that I did NOT know. Read for yourself. It sounds as if he was a man with good intentions, but wasn't very well rooted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II

The Difference Between Following and Reading?

Have you noticed that on average there are about twice as many hits on the reaction "didn't read it" than there are on the others combined? I suppose that means what is being written isn't worth writing? We need some fresh material on here. I am currently hindered as to the amount of time I can spend writing posts, so someone else will have to do it. :-)

Can We Disagree On This???

What does Chesterton say about cooking? About films? About war? About the economy? About environmentalism? About the feudal system? About democracy? About the Holy Roman Empire? About Napoleon? About ancient Greece? About ancient Rome? About ancient Egypt? About the city of Tyre? About France? About the occupation of Ireland by England? About the Hundred Years War? About the native Americans? About the Mongols? About James Horner and John Williams?

Is this enough to disagree on? Which one should we pick first? (am I asking enough questions?)

If I were George Lucas...

Wishing to disestablish the Force as a god in Star Wars, I invented this
historical retelling of general JedI history.

The Force has its origin in a small plant that is native to most plants in the
galaxy. When this plant is eaten, it greatly accelerates and strenghtens the
bodily functions of the eater, especially the nerve impulses to the muscles,
enabling the eater, through special muscle-use techniques, to project electric
fields into nearby objects and thus manipulate them in ways that seem
telekinetic. The relevant chemicals in the plant must be eaten on a daily basis
for the powers to be retained. These chemicals can be synthesized, in which
case only a person previously exposed to them by eating them or having a mother
who ate them while pregnant can eat them without being poisoned.

Because of the widespread habitat of this plant, amateur JedI-societies sprung
up independent of each other in many places. Some worshipped the Force, and
their “sacred” texts had some of the earliest JedI advice and techniques, hence
the value placed by all the JedI on them; some did not worship the force. Some
used the powers classified as Light, some used the powers classified as Dark.
When Palpatine was planning his takeover of the Republic, he sold government
offices in order to gain money for his plans. The office of state historian he
sold to a Force-worshipper who falsely made this religious Force the official
recorded religion of the JedI according to state records.

For thousands of years, there was no actual JedI Order. The small JedI
societies had no knowledge of each other; many did not even have any knowledge
that the chemicals they ate each day by tradition were the source of their
powers and/or intelligence. During this time (Referred to by JedI historians as
the Glorious Dark Ages of the JedI), these societies were merely amateurs.
However, many of the greatest JedI intellectuals wrote during this time, and
JedI achieved prominence as poets, artists, educators, and even religious
leaders of many denominations. (Cerea, Ki-Adi-Mundi’s planet, was especially
known for its high number of JedI who were also Catholic priests. ) During
this period, light saber combat was not one of the prime functions of the JedI.
The weapon was originally invented as an amusement for the JedI boys’ club in
Maputo, Correlia, and became an inter-planetary toy sensation. It went out of
regular children’s toy stores a few years later, but that was enough time for
many jedI-empowered families to have one in their possession. Because of the
durability of the toy, many became family heirlooms.

One of the less desirable consequences of eating the Force-plant .is that bad
habits are formed much more easily and the brain is somewhat perverted so that
anger becomes especially attractive. This means that JedI must get angry as
little as possible, especially in combat, when they are the most susceptible to
anger becoming irresistible forever; if they do not control anger, they run the
risk of being perpetually angry. In fact, in some jedI, certain kinds of anger
are so dangerously habit-forming that avoiding them is a moral obligation. Some
JedI, known as Dark JedI, are immune to this effect. Plo-koon, Kyle Karhun, and
Palpatine’s master were some of these.

The force does not grant longevity! The ancient Yoda was actually half-elven
and immortal. According to his family history, he, Mace Windu, and Quigon (they
were half-brothers: Yoda was so short because he had a hobbit-father, Mace and
Qui-gon had human fathers) were descended from Middle-Earth elves who left
Middle-earth after the rounding of the world (see the Silmarillion) but whose
boats took a wrong turn on the Straight Road to Valinor. Yoda and his cousin
Palpatine (who was also of elvish descent) were mortal enemies due to the fact
that Palpatine fell for the Dark Side due to an encounter with the maddening
rhythms of Aztec music. As part of Palpatine’s assaults of Yoda, Yoda caught an
artificial aging disease that made him older but no closer to death.

Yoda was the one actually responsible for the organization of the JedI into an
organized system. When Yoda was about 20 years old, Palpatine, who had already
gained his hatred of Yoda, organized a convention of JedI from all over the
galaxy. Hoping to form them into a mob and then seduce them with Aztec music,
his plans were foiled when Yoda was accidentally invited to the convention.
Yoda managed to keep a few of the JedI present from becoming Sith.

Knowing that the Sith would attack eventually, their anger being
uncontrollable, Yoda re-made the lighsaber into a more potent weapon that only
people with the electric sensitivity of JedI could handle safely. The lighsaber
was forgotten and thrown away among non-jedI. Yoda also established a
Christian monastic order of warrior-monks, the JedI Order, whose Temples on many
planets (especially Courescuant) became renowned centers of learning. The
amateur JedI societies continued to exist, and some amateurs (such as Qui-gon)
rose to become professional full time JedI warriors and instructors, though not
actual monks or nuns. Such amateur rise was rare, although many amateur JedI
became renowned in the militaries of their own planets.

The JedI Order rose to great Intergalactic prominence when it conducted the
defense of Nubia when Nubia was attacked by the sith in the battle that started
the Great Sith war. The Galactic Republic, originally consisting of only three
planets, was founded in this time, and the JedI Order was given an official
place in the government to prevent government corruption. The order had an
excellent relationship with the bishops of Courescuant.

When the Republic experienced a grand expansion of membership about 30 years
before Star Wars Episode I, the religious order was disbanded and the JedI were
made an official funded branch of the Republic. It never lost it Christian
character, however, merely its monastic status. This federalization gave the
state historian (who remained so in the days of the Empire and the New Repbulic)
the leverage he needed to spread lies concerning the religion of the JedI. Many
of the incidents recounted in the movies are, in fact, false and his invention.
The others can be explained by the principles outlined above.

Star Wars…You asked for it

A. What about Star Wars would you like to know? B. On the other hand, what
could I tell you that you wouldn’t know already? C. Or are you asking for an
opinion about Star Wars? B-cause of B, I will A-sume that you do not mean A, so
it Ceems that you mean C. Because Ancient Greek Phil. usually wants a
moralization of some sort, he shall get it. Is Star Wars a good thing, and for
whom and under what conditions?
Before writing, I did some reading on Wikipedia. They classify Star Wars as a
“space opera,” meaning that it is a melodramatic, comic-book sort of story with
exaggerated technologically advanced forms of conflict. You could visit
Disciples of Diotima and read the article ‘Between the Charbidys and Scylla of
Emma and Godzilla’ to get my views on comic-books. You could also simply accept
it on my word that comic books are an excellent way to instill basic morality or
immorality into the minds of little boys and other people who are fortunately or
unfortunately like them.
And, in Star Wars, many of the basics of morality (and it’s very difficult to
capture all of them in one story) are presented excellently. Especially
calculated to indoctrinate virtues of valor, obedience, patience, patriotism,
distributism, and the like, while at the same time instilling a horror of
treachery, anger, hatred, over-mechanization, laziness, greed,
over-centralization, and injustice, the story definitely achieves this part of
the end of being a good story without directly such preaching such ideas. I
don’t think I need to give examples of such moral instillations; the very genere
covers some of them and the others are more or less obvious features of the
somewhat simple general plot. For the observer enamored of action, the lessons
will be swallowed along with the moves and the chicken in the Tatioone market.
But I don’t think that is really what you want to know. Of course there is
good and evil in Star Wars in a very general sense, and nobody would object to
their children or themselves learning it. In swallowing one virtue from Star
Wars, is there not the danger of swallowing other less good things contained in
it. This is art, not life; we can pull out the tares and not damage the wheat,
but if we harvest the wheat we might get tares too.
And the tare said to be contained in Star Wars is the religion/ethics of
relativistic pantheism. Is it really in Star Wars?
(Here follows a quick summary of relativistic pantheism. RP is the belief that
all things are not separate from the god. By definition, this includes the
denial of individual free will and the denial of good and evil. It is generally
the religious system of non-Christian religions, including Hinduism (which
substitutes desirable and undesirable fatalistic consequence-punishments for
good and evil), Taoism, and Buddhism (which substitutes passionlessness and
passion for good and evil). Star Wars seems to moderate the ethical
consequences this claim (more on this later) by positing two sides to the same
pantheistic deity, dark and light, much as Zorastriansim and Manicheanism posit
two equal gods, one good and one evil, without giving any real reason to follow
one god and not the other. By the way, the Christian justification of being
good and not evil is that evil does not exist except as a good thing deprived of
a quality it ought to have, thus making pursuit of actual evil not only
undesirable, but impossible.)
For Star Wars to in fact be a story in which one could swallow relativistic
pantheism along with virtue, worship or acknowledgement of such a deity has to
be portrayed as desirable (not good, as there is no “good” in relativistic
pantheistic metaphysics or ethics) and true (it could be portrayed as good but
not true, as the statement “Buddhists are often good people” does, or true but
not good, as Sartre portrays atheism in ’Nausea,’ but neither of these would be
dangerous for the Christian.). Now, I cannot remember whether or not the Force
is ever explicitly treated as a god in the films (I suspect that if it is, it is
by Yoda on Dagobah). Whether it is explicit or not is irrelevant for the
viewer, however. For the unaware viewer, if the Force is treated
non-explicitly as a god, they will swallow it anyway. Making the treatment
explicit would make the viewer aware and would render the series preachy, thus
weakening both the moral and the theological messages. For the aware viewer,
non-explicit treatment can still be seen as paganism (its subconscious influence
on the viewer is debatable), yet give the viewer freedom to imagine around the
non-explicit difficulties.
The most significant argument in favor of a non-explicit treatment of the Force
as a deity is in the jedi’s source of morality. Christians, as noted above,
treat good and evil as existence and its deprivation, thus goodness comes from
the Essence of God and evil comes from “nothing.” Whether or not Star Wars is
compatible with this system of morality is at best unclear. What is clear,
however, is that the main source of morality for all the characters is the
light-dark dualism of the Force. G.K. Chesterton says that the denial of
morality is allied with the exaltation of less-than-moral rules, such as manners
and conventions. By emphasizing the Force-conventional-code (for the light and
dark sides are not sufficient to determine good and evil under God, and thus
have only the status of laws/conventions/etc, not objective good and evil) and
ignoring the God-Morals, the jedi, whether or not they actually believe the
Force is god, are undermining God’s ethics and setting up The Force in God’s
ethical place. Obi-wan even goes so far as to say in Episode III, that “Only
the Sith deal in absolutes,” thus lending even more credence to the idea that
the jedI are pantheist-relativists (the Sith, in this system, would be seeking a
thoroughly evil version of what the JedI want to be mostly good.)
Another argument is the JedI’s use of eastern religious meditation techniques
that, in the real world, are related to demonic possession even though those who
practice them. There are other similarities to such eastern religions in Star
Wars, thus making the idea seem all the more true, if not explicit. And, though
all of this, the Star Wars characters posit no God in addition to the Force,
thus letting and even encouraging our religious impulses in our imagination add
the character of worship to the use of the Force. I think it is plain enough
that Star Wars can be dangerous to the morals of the viewer, especially the
uninformed viewer.
There are, however, three ways to counter this.

1. Be informed. I just informed you.
2. Do an implausible re-interpretation of Star Wars so that you can understand
it in a Christian way. I have done this, and I can show you that too. Later
3. Find a way in which Star Wars portrays the pantheistic system as
insufficient. An example would be a connection in the movies between the false
ethical/religious system and the fall of the Republic. This would make it
appear that no matter how pagan the jedI were, they end up being more or less
wrong, though honorable. I can try to do this, though I might have to watch the
movies again.

Dreamers

Well it seem as though no one thinks I'm weird!!!! I'm really surprised, since I think that was a weird poll!!!! Whatever happened, it turns out that the majority of you that voted can control your dreams slighty. I'd be interested to know who it was that can control their dreams entirely!!!!

My Favorite Politician

Believe it or not, there's one politician that I REALLY LOVE!!!!!!! Can you guess who? This politician never intended to be one, but she certainly is one. When the next presidential election comes around, I will vote for:

That's right, my cute, cuddly, CAT!!!!!!

A New Quote!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As you can see, I finally got around to putting up a new quote. I
didn't actually go through and pick one though: Carmen suggested
it. So as you can see, I'm still getting settled here.

Another quick note. The poll is over. It was a tie between the
Fellowship and both the Fellowship and The Return of The King
(I changed my mind by the way).

The Music Of The Night

I won't post an article on the temperaments just yet, so you can all
relax. :-) One or two more articles, and I'll post one. However, this
article won't be an LOTR article, but similar lessons can be learned.
In this post, I want to explore all of the lessons from a certain novel
that can be applied to our present day (whether or not the author
was aware of them. Don't you just love it when the author writes
something that has moral benefits and doesn't realize it? It's much
more hilarious when they're intending to cause moral harm, although
I don't think that is the case here). After this post, you can do the
same with "Dracula", Old Fashioned Liberal. :-)

The novel I wish to examine is "Le Fantome De L 'Opera' ", or more
commonly known in English as: The Phantom of the Opera. Well, I
fibbed actually. I've never read the book :-), so I'm judging it off of
the interpretation of the famous musical.


I assume you all know the tale of the hideous figure that hides below
the opera house. But have you ever thought of the spiritual themes?
I will extract two particular ideas:

One: the frequently appearing struggle between good and evil.

Two: the practice of perfect Christian charity.

Of the two, the most obvious idea that is present the second. But
because of the overall evil nature of the Phantom and the somewhat
sinister and dark themes that occasionally occur, as well as the
seductive elements, the struggle between good and evil is also
present (Raoul is often looked on as "the good side"), but this is not
as obvious as . This theme might be harder to follow, because you
have to look at it from a supernatural point of view. The second is
easy to follow, because it is on the natural level. It is present in
Christine's practice of charity toward the Phantom, who has had
an unhappy life after all (I will discuss this in another psychology
post sometime).

The two ideas, or themes seem to go back and forth as far as which
one is prominent. So I will give a brief analysis of the musical and
examine each number.


Prologue:
Nothing to see here!!!


Overture:
Nothing to see here either.


Think of Me:
Still nothing to see. The Phantom has not made his entrance yet,
and the two themes rely on his presence.


Angel of Music:
Here we have Christine talking about the Phantom. She describes
him as "The Angel of Music". This scene strikes me as having
elements of the first theme. It seems to illustrate how easily one
can be fascinated by something evil, and how something evil can
appear to seem like a good part of our lives (although I might be
playing this part up just a little bit). The Phantom is an unseen
force that seems to have brought about great good in Christine's
life, so she naively mistakes him for "The Angel of Music". A perfect
example of "a wolf in sheep's clothing".


Little Lotte/The Mirror:
This scene is much similar to the previous one. The only
difference is that Christine is talking to Raoul now. :-)


The Phantom of The Opera:
This is yet another portrayal of the first idea (theme). However, the
lyrics to this number are very abstract, so it is difficult to explain.
In general, the first half talks about being "called", drawn to
something, which doesn't sound very good does it (don't worry,
it gets better, and "lighter". Maybe...)?


The Music of The Night:
In this number, we the Phantom on a more natural level, but he
speaks (or sings in this case) with a voice that seems to be more
than meets the eye: a certain darkness which has enveloped him,
and he seeks to draw Christine to it with him. So there's definitely
elements of theme one going on here.


I Remember/Stranger Than You Dreamt It:
After all this darkness, we have a change of pace in this number.
There's no trace of the first theme, but instead we have the second.
We have the sad tale of this man whom has been rejected by
society and neglected by his family on account of his disfigured
face. Surely this awakens memories of similar stories, most of
which are true. How many people have been misunderstood or
abused because of mere disabilities which cause them to seem
different to us. Some might believe that they are inferior to the
majority of us who are "normal". And one might make this less
specific. One might compare this to the countless number of people
who grow up to be involved in shootings, drugs, drinking, and other
such vices which can only lead to despair, all because they were
neglected as children due to divorced or excessively working parents
(more specifically the case where the mother works and the small
children end up in daycare). These people have never learned to
respect God's gift of life, because no one ever showed it to them by
example. Why is it any surprise then, that women have no respect
for their unborn children? Of course, if these people had heroic
virtue, they could overcome these terrible circumstances. But how
many of us are perfect? How many of us can say that we would
overcome those conditions if we were in their exact same position?
The only way we can overcome it is with God's grace.


I'm sure you can see the similarities here. I think all of these people
have sang "The Music if The Night" at one time in their lives, and
many will continue to sing it.


Magical Lasso:
Nothing to see here. Just a bunch of old tales about the Phantom.


Prima Donna:
Comic relief!!!!!!!!!


Poor Fool, He Makes Me Laugh:
In this number, we see the truly evil nature that has possessed the
Phantom (for those of you who don't know the story, he hangs a
man during the performance.). Believe it or not, this number still
follows the second theme, because there is nothing to indicate any
supernatural themes.


Why Have You Brought Me Here/Raoul, I've Been There:
This returns to the first theme. Christine talks about having been to
the Phantom's "lair", and is naturally afraid. This is undoubtedly an
evil place, and evil usually brings fear (not like I had to tell you that).
This can be compared to the fear of sin (grievous sin at least). Once
one knows the true evil and consequences of sin, and from where it
comes, one can have a great fear of returning there.


All I Ask Of You:
This is a beautiful number that the rest of the world might picture
as a nice love song, but I see more in it. This number still follows
the first theme. It is a beautiful portrayal of how Christ draws us
away from sin and darkness, and calms our fears if we put our trust
in Him.


All I Ask Of You (reprise):
We return to theme two now. After hearing Christine profess her
love to Raoul, he is grief stricken. Christine was the only light in
his life of terrible darkness, and his grief turns to great rage at her
absence. Perhaps he is obsessed with her because she is the only
ray of light in his dark world. In that case, can you not understand
his plight? It's true, however, that he wants her for the wrong
reasons, and only Christine can make him realize this.

-to be continued-

The War is OVER!!!!!!

Just letting all of you know that the debate is resting now (in peace
we'll hope). Absolutely NOTHING was accomplished by it. It was
a rather trivial debate and while it was fun fighting until the number
of comments rose past fourty, I never want to do it again. But it
would be fun to have a post on here with over fourty comments.
Why don't we try it?

LInk (Not the Nintendo Character)

The description of the link to the Disciples of Diotima blog is now officially accurate. In the space of one day, one post has recieved 25 comments.


(A note from Ancient Greek Philosopher)
COME SUPPORT MY SIDE!!!!!

Seriously, this is probably the most heated debate I've ever seen.
And I need help with the negative (okay, only partially negative)!!!!

To Spell Check or Not To Spell Check??

I have heard about many complaints on the subject of the
automatic "spell check" from an English major I know. He first
of all says it is ineffective and misleading. So, should we use it?
When I think of the spell check, the first thing it (for me) appears
to symbolizes is the laziness of the American culture by means
of technology. One could easily type any way they want and then
just run through it with the spell check. The problem with that is
the spell check has the possibility of giving the wrong word. So
our glorious technology isn't infallible after all. However, when
it's use is correctly monitored, it can be a very useful tool. Now,
of course, it would be much better if one knew how to spell the
word in the first place. But we humans are imperfect, so we need
a little (a lot!) help.

Having said all of this, I will tell you what I do. When I write
something, I make the best effort to spell everything correctly.
Then I simply use the spell check to be sure. I think if one uses
it correctly, there's no reason to object to the spell check,
unless you resent the fact that you can't spell perfectly (by the
way, I used the spell check to write this article :-) ).

Non-Topical Subject :-)

Just so none of you are in the dark about this label. :-) When I label
something as "Non-Topical Subject :-)", I simply mean something
not Tolkien related. This is simply to emphasize that this blog is a
Tolkien blog first, but that anything may be discussed on it
(anything reasonable).