LOTR is the spawn of satan

[Skier672]

I love fantasy literature. *rolls eyes*. I must be a satan worshipper. By the way. I saw the Brothers Grimm movie today (or yesterday). I did not think it was nearly as bad as some of the online reviews said.

 

[Father Niko]

I think if you read a book that make you feel really bad when there is alot of demons and ocult stuff in it then you really shouldent read that book.
I like HP as well as LOTR.

 

[McDLT]

The Hobbit yes, but LOTR?

I fixed my typo - thanks for pointing it out. I did mean the Hobbit.

 

[HisJavajunkie]

The content of LOTR is made by a fellow believer in Christ. The gendre' of writing may be one of the hang-ups that some people have with him. But I still find it as very well done with a lot of metaphores, pictures and references of national history. But the truth of the matter is that his writing was done for entertainment not necessarily teaching. At least that is my take on it. I give it a 2 thumbs up!

 

[Nienor]

javaJunkie's post reminded me of this article http://www.christian-fandom.org/ess-strangers.html

Christian fans of SF and fantasy are a peculiar minority group, frequently hit with a double whammy of prejudice and misunderstanding.

In fandom, they are often looked upon as uncool, narrow-minded, anti-science devotees of an outmoded belief that a truly enlightened civilization (like the one in Star Trek, The Next Generation) should have left behind by now. In the literature of the field, authors like James Morrow and Phillip Pullman can take broadsides at traditional Christianity with impunity, setting up straw men (and straw gods) to attack, perpetuating stereotypes in works that, if aimed at any other identifiable group, might almost be called hate literature.

In their own faith communities, Christians who like that sci-fi stuff are likely to be regarded with puzzlement or even downright suspicion of dabbling in amusements that are atheistic, immoral, or occultic. Whole congregations have been known to involve themselves in the burning of the wildly popular Harry Potter books; when some Christians refuse to jump on the anti-fantasy bandwagon, their own fellow-believers may throw vicious accusations of apostasy in their faces.

These are the extremes, of course; but even without active persecution from different directions, Christian SF fans live in an odd and decidedly not neutral zone on the border between the two worlds of SF and Christendom. And those of us who are actually trying to write and publish fantasy and science fiction informed by our faith are perhaps even more acutely aware of our unique and strange position. To either side of us we find secularists and Christians alike wondering: Isn't there a fundamental incompatibility between Christianity and speculative fiction?

The rest of the article is good as well

 

[sethad]

wow.

I really think wizardboy did this just to see what would happen. and I've kind of abandoned the thread, but stuff definitely did happen this is ridiculous.

I read through everything. LOTR and HP and everything else IS just books and the amount of people who think they're evil in any way is very few. there are christians who think LOTR is bad too. so what? to each his/her own why is it any of our business?

I hated HP. I liked LOTR. nothing to do with the so-called levels of witchcraft and whatever else. I thought HP was terrible with bad acting etc and I thought LOTR was really well done. my opinion, nothing more.

(now if people can pick that apart and debate it I'd be really impressed )

 

[Nienor]

wow.

I really think wizardboy did this just to see what would happen. and I've kind of abandoned the thread, but stuff definitely did happen this is ridiculous.

I read through everything. LOTR and HP and everything else IS just books and the amount of people who think they're evil in any way is very few. there are christians who think LOTR is bad too. so what? to each his/her own why is it any of our business?

I hated HP. I liked LOTR. nothing to do with the so-called levels of witchcraft and whatever else. I thought HP was terrible with bad acting etc and I thought LOTR was really well done. my opinion, nothing more.

(now if people can pick that apart and debate it I'd be really impressed )

ahhh, but you can't debte the truth

 

[Lovesonsofthundet]

Ugh next someone will be bashing Star Trek good grief!!!!!

 

[Petros2015]

LOTR says that this ring will destroy the world so thats liek tha anti-christ, and than wizards who openly practice witch craft go to destroy it. there are demons and creatures from hell and the heros are all possesed buy the ring(anti-christ) so if you don't like harry potter because of witchcraft this is worse guys.

In "That Hideous Strength" by C.S. Lewis (who was a good friend of Tolkein,
even mentioned by name in the preface below) , the bad guys resurrect Merlin.

Enjoy

http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/arts/lit/PDFs/HideousStrength_CSL.pdf

“The shadow of that hyddeous strength, sax myle and more it is of length” (Sir David Lyndsay: from Ane Dialog, describing the Tower of Babel)

“Plenty of people in our age do entertain the monstrous dreams of power that Mr. Lewis attributes to his characters, and we are within sight of the time when such dreams will be realizable” [The Scientist Takes Over”, Review of C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength (1945) by George Orwell, Manchester Evening News, 16 August 1945]
============

Preface

I called this a fairy-tale in the hope that no one who is likes fantasy
may be misled by the first two chapters into reading further, and
then complain of his disappointment.

If you ask why — intending to write about magicians, devils, pantomime
animals, and planetary angels — I nevertheless begin with such hum-drum
scenes and persons, I reply that I am following the traditional fairy-tale.
We do not always notice its method, because the cottages, castles, woodcutters,
and petty kings with which a fairytale opens have become for us as remote as
the witches and ogres to which it proceeds. But they were not remote at all to
the men who made and first enjoyed the stories.

They were, indeed, more realistic
and commonplace than Bracton College is to me: for many German
peasants had actually met cruel stepmothers, whereas I have never,
in any university, come across a college like Bracton.
This is a “tall story” about devilry, though it has behind it a serious
“point” which I have tried to make in my Abolition of Man. In the
story, the outer rim of that devilry had to be shown touching the
life of some ordinary and respectable profession. I selected my own
profession, not, of course, because I think fellows of colleges more
likely to be thus corrupted than anyone else, but because my own
is the only profession I know well enough to write about. A very
small university is imagined because that has certain conveniences
for fiction. Edgestow has no resemblance, save for its smallness, to
Durham — a university with which the only connection I have had
was entirely pleasant.

I believe that one of the central ideas of this tale came into my
head from conversations I had with a scientific colleague, some time
before I met a rather similar suggestion in the works of Mr. Olaf Stapledon.
If I am mistaken in this, Mr. Stapledon is so rich in invention
that he can well afford to lend, and I admire his invention (though
not his philosophy) so much that I should feel no shame to borrow.
Those who would like to learn further about Numinor and the
True West must (alas!) await the publication of much that still exists
only in the MSS. of my friend, Professor J.R.R. Tolkien.

The period of this story is vaguely “after the war.” It concludes the Trilogy of which Out of the Silent Planet was the first part, and Perelandra the second, but can be read on its own.

C.S. Lewis — Magdalen College, Oxford. Christmas Eve, 1943.

 

[Petros2015]

I think if you read a book that make you feel really bad when there is alot of demons and ocult stuff in it then you really shouldent read that book.
I like HP as well as LOTR.

HP goes a little far for me

 

[RDKirk]

In "That Hideous Strength" by C.S. Lewis (who was a good friend of Tolkein,
even mentioned by name in the preface below) , the bad guys resurrect Merlin.

Enjoy

http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/arts/lit/PDFs/HideousStrength_CSL.pdf

“The shadow of that hyddeous strength, sax myle and more it is of length” (Sir David Lyndsay: from Ane Dialog, describing the Tower of Babel)

“Plenty of people in our age do entertain the monstrous dreams of power that Mr. Lewis attributes to his characters, and we are within sight of the time when such dreams will be realizable” [The Scientist Takes Over”, Review of C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength (1945) by George Orwell, Manchester Evening News, 16 August 1945]
============

Preface

I called this a fairy-tale in the hope that no one who is likes fantasy
may be misled by the first two chapters into reading further, and
then complain of his disappointment.

If you ask why — intending to write about magicians, devils, pantomime
animals, and planetary angels — I nevertheless begin with such hum-drum
scenes and persons, I reply that I am following the traditional fairy-tale.
We do not always notice its method, because the cottages, castles, woodcutters,
and petty kings with which a fairytale opens have become for us as remote as
the witches and ogres to which it proceeds. But they were not remote at all to
the men who made and first enjoyed the stories.

They were, indeed, more realistic
and commonplace than Bracton College is to me: for many German
peasants had actually met cruel stepmothers, whereas I have never,
in any university, come across a college like Bracton.
This is a “tall story” about devilry, though it has behind it a serious
“point” which I have tried to make in my Abolition of Man. In the
story, the outer rim of that devilry had to be shown touching the
life of some ordinary and respectable profession. I selected my own
profession, not, of course, because I think fellows of colleges more
likely to be thus corrupted than anyone else, but because my own
is the only profession I know well enough to write about. A very
small university is imagined because that has certain conveniences
for fiction. Edgestow has no resemblance, save for its smallness, to
Durham — a university with which the only connection I have had
was entirely pleasant.

I believe that one of the central ideas of this tale came into my
head from conversations I had with a scientific colleague, some time
before I met a rather similar suggestion in the works of Mr. Olaf Stapledon.
If I am mistaken in this, Mr. Stapledon is so rich in invention
that he can well afford to lend, and I admire his invention (though
not his philosophy) so much that I should feel no shame to borrow.
Those who would like to learn further about Numinor and the
True West must (alas!) await the publication of much that still exists
only in the MSS. of my friend, Professor J.R.R. Tolkien.

The period of this story is vaguely “after the war.” It concludes the Trilogy of which Out of the Silent Planet was the first part, and Perelandra the second, but can be read on its own.

C.S. Lewis — Magdalen College, Oxford. Christmas Eve, 1943.

Olaf Stapledon was one of the early science fiction masters.

 

[RDKirk]

wow.

I really think wizardboy did this just to see what would happen. and I've kind of abandoned the thread, but stuff definitely did happen this is ridiculous.

I read through everything. LOTR and HP and everything else IS just books and the amount of people who think they're evil in any way is very few. there are christians who think LOTR is bad too. so what? to each his/her own why is it any of our business?

I hated HP. I liked LOTR. nothing to do with the so-called levels of witchcraft and whatever else. I thought HP was terrible with bad acting etc and I thought LOTR was really well done. my opinion, nothing more.

(now if people can pick that apart and debate it I'd be really impressed )

One big difference between LOTR and HP is that in LOTR, magic is not a good thing, it's actually a bad thing. In LOTR, the practice of magic is always perilous, and its overuse leads to disaster.

 

[Tom 1]

LOTR says that this ring will destroy the world so thats liek tha anti-christ, and than wizards who openly practice witch craft go to destroy it. there are demons and creatures from hell and the heros are all possesed buy the ring(anti-christ) so if you don't like harry potter because of witchcraft this is worse guys.

Spawn as in frogspawn? So each part of the trilogy comes from a different egg?

 

[DragonFox91]

I never understood why people claim LotR is some big Christian allegory. There's some themes Christians can back in it, but that's all.

 

[RDKirk]

I never understood why people claim LotR is some big Christian allegory. There's some themes Christians can back in it, but that's all.

It's actually an allegory of WWII in Europe.

 

[Ceallaigh]

There's actually very little magic performed in LOTR. The most magical thing Gandalf does in the Hobbit and LOTR I can think of, is ignite some pinecones and a campfire. Non-Tolkien geeks don't know that Gandalf is actually an angelic being in disguise who essentially proclaimed himself a servant of the Holy Spirit.

 

[Ceallaigh]

It's actually an allegory of WWII in Europe.

To a degree. But Tolkien's primary goal was to create a mythology for England rather than allegory.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Ugh next someone will be bashing Star Trek good grief!!!!!

Ah, so you are the one responsible for resurrecting a thread whose last post was in 2005, only to start it up again 17 years later. Once stirred, the pot cannot be unstirred.

 

[Petros2015]

Ah, so you are the one responsible for resurrecting a thread whose last post was in 2005, only to start it up again 17 years later. Once stirred, the pot cannot be unstirred.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Yes, exactly like that. (I assume Godzilla was sleeping for 17 years?)