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Originally Posted by Holbytlass
I don't see it as so much aligned with religion as just the way things are. All things come to an end..places, kingdoms, races and so forth. I suppose that's part of some scientific theory I couldn't name.
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Good point. Extremely good. I have heard, though I have not seen a direct quote from Tolkien, so don't take it for granted, that he didn't want it to be allegorical.
I've never heard of Caligula, Alatar. Sorry.
The media do go around broadcasting things, but that's also what makes it so bad. Without the media, TV, horrible movies, perverse commercials, and whatever else you wish to add, everyday life and everyday people would be a lot better. We've receeded a long, long ways from real Christianity (and other moral things). The pioneers (I use 'em because someone mentioned them earlier in this thread) didn't go around dressed as we do, they didn't go around talking about the things we do, they didn't go around thinking like we do, they were probably ten times as smart as most of us. We've deteriorted a long way in a matter of two hundred years or so...
But then you might argue that we've also become a lot more efficient and smarter in the fact that we have tons of machines that do every little thing for us (even eat, in some cases) and our technology that we have now wasn't even dreamed of a hundred years ago...I think, though, that even these great accomplishments have helped to corrupt us.
We are yearning for immortality. That's what these life supporting machines in hospitals, all the drugs that are out, and just about everything else are made for. Of course, people don't use the term 'immortality', but all in all, that's what we're searching for. And wasn't that what caused the destruction of Numenor? Wasn't that what ended up ruining everyone?
Okay, I think this has actually strayed from the point of the thread. *sigh* I could start up my own thread, but I don't know if we want discussions like that here.
Did I answer
anything you said, Alatar? Reading over the last few posts, and yours, I don't know that I did. But I've spent too much time typing here as it is. I'll come back later and say more if you think it necessary.