Posted on 09/08/2014 8:10:36 AM PDT by rktman
Fantasy versus reality.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings [1] was sometimes faulted by literary critics for caricaturing the evil orcs [2] as uniformly bad. All of them were as unpleasant to look as they were deadly to encounter. There is not a single good orc or even a reformed orc in the trilogy. The apparent one-dimensional assumption of men, hobbits, dwarves, and elves is that the only good orc is a dead orc. So the absolutist Tolkien tried to teach us about the enduring nature of absolute good and evil. Apparently he did not think that anything from his contemporary experience might allow him to imagine reforming or rehabilitating such fictive folk.
Tolkien’s literary purpose with orcs was not to explore the many shades of evil or the struggle within oneself to avoid the dark side; he did that well enough in dozens of once good but weak characters who went bad such as the turncoat Saruman the wizard, his sidekick Wormtongue, a few of the hobbits who had ruined the Shire, and, best of all, the multifaceted Gollum [3]. Orcs, on the other hand, are unredeemable. Orcs, goblins, and trolls exist as the tools of the even more sinister in proud towers to destroy civilization, and know nothing other than killing and destruction. Their reward is to feed on the crumbs of what they have ruined.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
We are living in the ‘Shire’ with no Scouring insight.
At no point in those stories did the good guys have the power to destroy all the Orcs if they wanted to. We have had that power with respect to our Orcs for 2/3 of a century.
TEA PART HOBBITS TO ARMS!!!
OOPS- THAT’S TEA PARTY HOBBITS!!
But only at the cost of our souls - and isn’t that kinda the point that differentiates between good and evil? It’s like in the Hobbit when the opportunity to kill Gollum arose, but instead Bilbo takes pity on him.
In the end Gollum brings his own downfall in ROTK, but the hobbits saved themselves from a similar fate through their compassion (if that’s the right word).
Obama is to ISIS as Saruman is to the Uruk-hai.
I didn’t say we should, I said we could. There is an entire doctrine about when Christians may engage in self-defense, and the means by which they can do so. They may be justified in actions up to and including the firebombing of civilians in Dresden and the atomic bombs in Japan. We will at some point be justified in nuking Mecca, but we are not there. We have to do all we can to avoid such actions. But the problem is, we are not taking any actions to defend Christendom. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying throughout the world, wherever Muslims have contact with civilization. There should be push back, there should be outreach to convince them their religion is a backward invention of a mad man, there should be containment, there should be protection of minorities, and whatever we need to do militarily for all those actions is authorized. What we don’t do is kill indiscriminately or without necessity to a higher, moral purpose.
or Hooded Dashers, Flatwings, and Swift Grazers
concur
That is a tricky one, trickier than you might think -
Joshua 6:16, 17, 21 And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the Lord hath given you the city. And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the Lord: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent . . . And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
I think we can solve this problem decisively, without damage to our souls, if we do it for the right reasons and knowing not just that wiping out enemy orcs is safer but that it is right. It is possible to know such a thing, although I will admit it is easier to feel confident in such knowledge when you have a true prophet leading you into battle.
Sauron did not play golf. Obama is more like Denethor
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