h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Having completely destroyed all atttempts at keeping this thread on topic, can I suggest that GiGaBaNE and I and anyone else who is actually (whisper who dares) not that intersted in LoTR leave the thread to those who are?

I do owe you guys an apology, and I am going to try to keep GiGaBaNE related comments to the other GiGaBaNE threads.

I did read the Antecedents of the Orcs posts with a moderate amount of interest, and the How Mythology is Created posts with a great deal of interest. (Which reminds me, I guess we are watching the birth of another HooToo legend right now).

See you in your other threads, GiGaBaNE, and thanks for replying to my post in such detail.



B

Ben.

Apology accepted Ben . I assume that you were posting as you went through the backlog amd didn't see the attempt to get back on track until later. Not sure what GGB's excuse is. I will reply to your and his points in the Clean Slate thread.


SC - can you say more about the revisions of the Bible and how that compares to how mythologies get changed?

i am also sorry for stepping on your thread.
the reason i continue, is only in response.
as mentioned erlier, i will be gone soon.
I am just trying to make sure that whereever thers reference to me, i address it directly.
i am not willing to let my story be warped by missunderstandings,mis quotes, or an un addressed isue i never got a chance to reply to.

i worry that some who wont bother to go to my threads will get half a story and cast judgment too soon.

GGB, one thing that you can do in a situation like this is cut and paste the post you are wanting to reply to, put it in another thread, and then put a link here to that thread explaining what you have done

will do...thank you.

~~~

Just going back to the orcs... if the orcs were an artificial creation (by Melkor not Tolkien ) and so not really a race of peoples, what are the dwarves?

Tolkien explains the Dwarves in Appendix something or other in the Return of the King. Sorry. Don't have my copy ready to hand. I'll try to get to it later unless someone gets there first.

Think you're going to have to wait for someone who has read 'The Silmarillion' recently to get an intelligent answer to that one

>>What are the dwarves?<< Well, one of them is Sleepy ... as am I!

Okay. Appendix A III begins: "Concerning the beginning of the Dwarves strange tales are told both by the Eldar and by the Dwarves themselves; but since these things lie far back beyond our days little is said of them here." In fact, nothing is said of them there.

Chapter two of the Silmarillion begins:

"It is told that in their beginning the Dwarves were made by Aule in the darkness of Middle-earth; for so greatly did Aule desire the coming of the Children, to have learners to whom he could teach his lore and his crafts, that he was unwilling to await the fulfilment of the designs of Iluvatar. And Aule made the Dwarves even as they still are, because the forms of the Children who were to come were unclear to his mind, and because the power of Melkor was yet over the Earth; and he wished therefore that they should be strong and unyielding. But fearing that the other Valar might blame his work, he wrought in secret: and he made first the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves in a hall under the mountains in Middle-earth."

Anyway, Iluvatar says "why'd you go and do that? Are you trying to have a bunch of robot-slaves to do your will?"(I'm paraphrasing now)

And Aule said: "no way! I just was filled with such love for you and your works that I wanted somebody to talk to about it. But I'll smash them up with this big hammer."

But Iluvatar had compassion on the little bits and said "no no. I'll give them a place in the Music." And there was rejoicing, etc.

in 723, Kea said: "SC - can you say more about the revisions of the Bible and how that compares to how mythologies get changed?"

Well, before there were reliably literate people, the apostles' accounts were retold verbally. Supposedly, all 11 had given accounts of their time with Jesus. Yet the Bible doesn't include all of them, or even the entirety (?) of those that are included. It has been hinted that they contradicted the "main" accounts, so the only ones quoted as completely as possible are the ones which agreed with each other. The accounts that are left out are what have been termed by some historians as the "lost books of the Bible". Too valuable to toss, too heretical to keep.

And I also have another theory of my own: think of all those monks, copying away all day, every day: It's cold, your hand is cramped, there's a quicker way to say something..... Or perhaps a phrase which you think might mean the "same thing".... As rigorous as the Church was (and is!), a lot of tiny changes could have been overlooked in the very minor details. I believe that Bible contents were not of a more consistent nature until after the printing press, when many identical copies could be made at once and quickly. Less opportunity for deviation. As for the odd royals or popes offering their versions, well..... how much time have you got?

It is not a long leap to assume such slippage in accounts would occur to other sacred texts, over long periods of time. As things were passed down, they would become more polished, as anhaga suggested.

My Uncle spent a number of years in the middle of Australia, at Alice Springs, for TRW. He used his "spare" time researching the "lost books" topic. Not to mention collecting an impressive amount of aboriginal art and mythology. VERY interesting guy, my Uncle.

Still waiting for his book on the "lost books...."

SC

With the Bible, there's also the question of translation: Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, into Latin, on into modern languages - even just in English, there are a vast number of different versions, all with minor variations.

Then there are a host of pious beliefs which are associated with the Bible but aren't actually in it, if you see what I mean - virtually anything to do with Satan (the fall from Heaven, the Harrowing of Hell - 'Paradise Lost' a big influence on Tolkien too); there's no mention of purgatory, for example - things like the traditional belief that Jesus was *exactly* six feet tall. The Church Fathers write commentaries on the Bible and different churches disagree about what is orthodox and what isn't (you'd be hard put to work out a doctrine of the Trinity just from scripture, for instance - read St Augustine, then go back to the Bible and, oh ho, yes, Trinity, there it is, how did we not see it before: the commentary becomes part of the book).

So - if we all work out between ourselves that actually orcs *are* spawned in a big tank and then go back to LOTR, there'd be nothing in the text to contradict that and it could become something like a received opinion about LOTR in much the same way.

OK 184 or more posts over the weekend, I have read a a blob or two following my last post but have to go off line in a mo.

I just wanted to respond to te critique of Anarchy,

I always find it hard to follow the logic which says that in a political system where individuals take responsibility for their own actions that irresponsible people will rise to power.

The argument of true Anarchy is that this would be impossible because human nature being what it is, people would refuse to play.

Archys, whatever their form rely on the ignorance of the population, even Democracy, which in esence shouldn't.

There are many who will claim Anarchy is an idealised state we have drifted away from. Personaly I feel it is a state we are moving towards. in fact I believe it is inevitable.

The criticism seems to me to be a fallacy, a society of self responsible individuals will allways prevent attempted removal of their responsibilities, by the less responsible. A truly Anarchic society is a self regulating system which achieves equilibrium, through internal feedback and flexible responses to unexpected events. Again it is the principle of 'without Rulers' but not without rules.

The examples given to oppose the functionality of an anarchic society allways refer to some pre-anarchic state where the members of the society are not responsible, and allow those freedoms which they have to be taken away.

Society is always far more reluctant to allow it's freedoms to be taken away than was to fight for them in the first place.

I've never read LotR, but I'll be on the lookout for those things if I ever get around to it.

<>

That did happen, SpaceCadette, but in a different way - how it worked, was the way the Romans had done it, in a Scriptorium, with a reader up the front and rows of scribes (monks) writing to dictation. Occasionally, they would miss a line, or something similar - but it's not as disastrous as it sounds... (BTW, I am not an expert, other people know a lot more about all this.)

"And I also have another theory of my own: think of all those monks, copying away all day, every day: It's cold, your hand is cramped, there's a quicker way to say something..... Or perhaps a phrase which you think might mean the "same thing".... As rigorous as the Church was (and is!), a lot of tiny changes could have been overlooked in the very minor details. I believe that Bible contents were not of a more consistent nature until after the printing press, when many identical copies could be made at once and quickly. Less opportunity for deviation. As for the odd royals or popes offering their versions, well..... how much time have you got? "

Can't help but mention the joke about the monk who goes through the monestary's old collection of books and finds the origional copy of the order's founding creed, which the monks have been copying for centuries. Turns out the word was orrigionally "celebrate".

SC

Just about caught up now

GiGaBaNE's

Re little Timmie

I struggle with the assumption in your comments that some how Homosexuals have different overall morals to hetrosexuals: Evidence from Child Protection work would suggest you should should be far more worried about Timmy getting together with Angela and acting out what they watched Mummy and Daddy do.

Re Jamie,

That case, was a lot more complicated than you seem to realise, the lives of the two boys concerned were from all accounts quite harsh and difficult, It was the Media that picked up the TV theme, the experiences of both boys at the hands of real life adults had a bigger influence, than any film they watched.

Island cultures.

Most isolated cultures develop homosexual relationships quite naturaly without it necissarily having to be shown to them (Bisexul would be a better description.) A hetro Sexual Culture would only 'naturaly' develop if there was in initial Value/more/injunction in the society the participating individuals arrived from, and even then they would have to have been old enough at the start of the experiment to understand a little.

Homosexual Men and Women

Given I think we are all born Bisexual to greater or lesser degrees, I tend to think that a good proportion of Gay men and women are 'made' by their experiences. There is evidence to suggest that Gay men tend to idolise their mothers, and women generally as a result, they just don't fancy them.

The social group who can't handle women aren't so much a group as individuals, there are strong links between Psycho-pathology and threatening female figures, so Nielsen (superficially Gay) has more in common with Brady (Superficially straight) than he does with Oscar Wilde (Outrageous but suppressed queen).

Good Kings,

No Such Thing (or monarchial Queens, {As distinct from the other Kind})

Skunk

Careful, the manouver you are most vulnerable to when bombed is the 'I'm your freind, here have a joint, oh dear you have fallen asleep. My name is leslie let me introduce you to my freind the Bathtub'

Culture,

Without culture you don't have language and without language you have no education and without education ..... well you get the point.

Culture develops over time, sexuality is not the issue, power and abuse of power are. At one point you say that the king in your future world would have very little power, but your elimination of homosexuality would require power, you also posted a little while back that people act like moths to flames, well I'd tend to agree, why else would they join military organisations. I almost did myself once, luckily I was asthmatic and Colour blind so escaped an almost certainly disasterous mistake for myself.

Experimenting with homosexuality would seem less dangerous to me than experimenting with drugs. It has always interested me that modern society is so much more tolerant of violence than it is of sexual exploration.

Anyhow seems like some people on this thread think you are thinking about how you answer to different things so with luck there is hope for you yet.