The Hall of Fire

These may be occurrences in a fringe group, but I have trouble reconciling the outrage against a whole church because of child-abuse among a minority of priests with the downplaying of the sort of practice described here. So, because the Catholic Church have been unjustly branded in the media becau...

Taken from TED's link: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) is by far the largest denomination in the Mormon movement . They regard themselves as the only true Mormon church. They regard the term "Fundamentalist Mormon" as a contradiction in terms. And: There is an estimat...

Thanks for putting things straight TED I'm quite shocked and sad at the amount of prejudices about mormonism poured out here by otherwise intelligent persons. Mormons are strictly monogamous (except for some traditionalists who are excommunicated). They operate with two kinds of marriage, a normal c...

especially with:

MithLuin wrote:I assume that a revised Fall of Gondolin (wouldn't we all like to see that!)

Oh yes we would!

Is it okay for non-catholics to post here? Pope John Paul II is one of the very few world leaders that I respect, he seemed to always follow his conviction instead of being political, and just as important: he genuinely wanted to make the world a better place for all of us, never dividing people in ...

I am not where my books are at, but I'm pretty sure that somewhere Tolkien makes it clear that the name Legolas was simply reused because he liked it (unlike Glorfindel) and that there was no connection between the two characters. Are you sure about this? I can't remember that at all, but I think t...

Oh yes, by all means there should be a sequel! Next time the codebreaker discovers secret symbols in Mah Jongg tiles, leading him by obscure ways to the discovery of an ancient secret society, whose members include Kublai Khan and Chairman Mao, a society whose task it is to guard the secret that Con...

When visiting my parents this weekend, I looked at an illustrated Faerie book that I remember fondly from my teenage years. Great was my surprise when I saw that it was made by Brian Froud and Alan Lee :shock: I was all the more surprised, because I'm not a big fan of his Tolkien illustrations. I'm ...

Well, AFAIK Dan Browne haven't actively said that the Historical background of his novel is factual. On the other hand, when he's asked about it, he doesn't answer. And given the amount and popularity of books that does take him seriously, that tells me that he's quite happy to make some extra bucks...

Whew, that is one long discussion, too long for me to read through right now, but I'll add my 2 cents anyway. I haven't read the DaVinci Code ,and I don't intend to do it, there's loads on my to-read list already. But I've read and heard enough about it to form an opinion, and I've read Holy Blood -...

Were you just having us on? - wicked!

I was just skimming through my illustrated The Hobbit today, and I realized how much those illustrations (by Michael Hague) has influenced my mental pictures. I really like his pictures, and they're faithful to the text. :) There's two of his pics here: http://website.lineone.net/~istari/gal-hague.h...

Excellent theory Voronwë! I don't believe it for a second, but it's extremely eloquent! :thumbsup: Well, I might believe it if we could clear up a few details. Can Saruman's breeding project be reconciled with your theory? - And I don't buy that it's just rumours. Why does the separated fëar of elve...

What is the improvement, Alatar? To me, the main problems of the original cosmogeny are: 1) Varda arranging the Sickle of the Valar to encourage the elves. Knowing the size of stars, that is an impossible feat and way beyond the scope of a Vala (they're powerful, but not omnipotent). 2) The Sun is ...

What is the improvement, Alatar? To me, the main problems of the original cosmogeny are: 1) Varda arranging the Sickle of the Valar to encourage the elves. Knowing the size of stars, that is an impossible feat and way beyond the scope of a Vala (they're powerful, but not omnipotent). 2) The Sun is a...

Myths Transformed is a part of HoME that I choose to ignore, the idea that the Two Trees lighten up Valinor while the Sun and Moon was hidden behind the clouds of Melkor, diminishes the value of the trees and indeed the value of the whole mythology to my mind. The Earth made round is a powerful imag...

For the non-Australians here, the White Australia Policy was enforced through a dictation test – applicants needed to write down a passage that would be read aloud in, as Samaranth pointed out, any European language. If the applicants were a nice family from Suffolk, they’d be given a simple passag...

Oh yes Mithluin , I quite agree: Middle-earth is our own world, it's Home , and that makes the legends much more important. But even believing that God created our world, and accepting the book of Genesis, I cannot accept the story of how the Valar constructed Middle Earth as 'how our world really f...

I don't really have much to add, my thoughts (and more) have already been said in a much more profound way than I could ever hope for, especially by Scirocco and Voronwë. For me, Middle-earth is our Earth, but in an imagined past. That poses no problem for me. I love the stories of the Two Trees, th...

Hi Di :D I enjoyed meeting you and Wildwood too :hug: Thanks for the warm welcome Di, Voronwë, Elsha and Jnyusa :hug: and thanks to you too Holbytla, since "welcome to one and all" obviously includes me :D I've heard that this is the place where the high-brows post long philosophical these...