5 of twenty I think.

Which is a large number.

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

I prefer Random Numbers. Hmm. That rings a bell. Someone in a book somewhere had a cat named Random Numbers. I think?

The BBC have a cat named "Socks" who should have been named "Cookie".

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My computer beat me at chess, but I won at kickboxing

OC Not Wrote:
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> I prefer Random Numbers. Hmm. That rings a bell.
> Someone in a book somewhere had a cat named
> Random Numbers. I think?


No that would be me!

Cat - Random Numbers.

Robert A Heinlein - To Sail Beyond the Sunset.
Which links into the Woodrow Wilson Smith - Lazarus Long - Methusuleh story lines.

Anyone else into Heinlein here. I've moved on in the intervening 10 years or so.

i enjoyed Heinlein up to Glory Road.

The things he wrote after that seemed to indicate that he was a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

Most of the stories seemed to support incest, which should be kept in the family, and none of his characters seemed to learn by their experience. And most of the society models he was basing his stories on seemed to be Appalachian inbred of pre-war (WW2) years.

His technology drifted into the superhero actions of Doc Smith. We stick this in here, talk some confused pseudo scientific rubbish and switch on and it works first up without blowing a fuse or running backwards. We can't even get can openers to work that well from the start.

I can re read Doc Smith and the Lensman and Skylark series because my little mind says to me that these were the first of the super epic stories. Later writers need to improve on them, not be even less realistic, unless you are reading Harry Harrison Stainless Steel Rat stories or some of the other parodies.

Have read bits and pieces. He has some good ideas, but that is about it.

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

sic

Oooh! I just finally found my daemon- his name is Aerodon and is a snow leopard.
Nice website too.

Just heard that all good souls that wish to be 'saved' are supposed to boycott The Golden Compass movie because it is 'anti-church' and will teach our children to be atheists.

Won't rant about it too much, I know we are an all-access fforum, but jeez louise. How much more narrow-minded can they get?

I'm going to see it. Maybe I'll also take the book and go sit on a park bench somewhere and start reading it aloud to any kids that want to hear a good story.

Okay, rant over. Sorry bout that.

I know I'm going to hell, I'm taking marshmallows.

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Blood! Death! War! Rumpy pumpy! Triumph!

<collects some pointy sticks>

<brings veggie hot dogs>

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Signature or shameless self-promotion?
You decide:

[www.myspace.com]

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"Those people who tell me I'm going to hell, while they are going to heaven somehow make me very glad that we're going in separate directions"
-Martin Terman

OK, I will give them a point here, the third book is very much not a good idea to read unless you are open minded.

That said, IT IS FICTION! Honestly.... And it is not as though there is less sex and violence in the Bible. Actually, the only reason I would say that they dislike this series is because it makes some points about a religion founded on blood that the religion dislikes.

Argh....

Agrees with the delightful Ms. Kitten and her quotee.

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

In the mid 80's, I published a booklet for the Dept of Education (Riverina Region) on the teaching of Mythology, Legend and Folklore. It was an anthology of essays and included some of the papers from a conference I was running, with which the publication coincided.

One of the essays looked at the mythopoeic aspects of the book of Job and, a couple of weeks later I received some interesting gossip. On Sunday, I had been (because of the Job essay it seems) personally named as the antichrist from the pulpit of the Baptist Church in Walla Walla*.

* (NSW, not Washington; but it is indeed named after its US namesake)

Now, I always thought that they considered the Pope the antichrist, so I rang the pastor-chappie to ask him about my sudden promotion/ demotion - depending on one's point of view. After some hemming and hawing and what seemed to me to be somewhat embarrassed beating around the bush (figurative expression only; I never laid a hand on him) he admitted that the content of my enquiry was, so to speak, a fairly accurate description of his sermon.

I forget what I next said, but will no doubt receive some reminder on judgement day. I suppose the point is that when people get up on their high horses and pronounce eternal judgements which aren't theirs to pronounce, I always think, "Phht! That's pretty lame - I got personally named as the antichrist!"

For the inquisitive: the essay - not written by me by the way - was very respectful of biblical belief and the booklet itself, in strong terms, qualified 'mythology' of any and every sort, as something in which people believe (whether now or in the past) and deserving of every respect that faith deserves.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2007 01:07AM by robert.

Robert,

To be told you'll roast in hell.

Well done, or even medium well.

Aren't Baptists second only to Lutherans in their partyline adherence to some set of words that cannot be justified in reality, and their readiness to condemn nonadherents to some form of eternal pain for being an unbeliever?

But if you are the/an 'antichrist' does that mean that you will become some sort of evil lord of the darkness and Spike will come after you?


As for heaven and hell, if you ever hear the song 'Sam Hall' the last verse goes like this:

Oh, in heaven I do dwell, I do dwell
and there's bastards here as well
all the whores are down in hell
damn their eyes, blast their souls, up 'em all, one and all,
damn their eyes.

[It was a publicly sung song in the music halls of the 1700s. It would seem that political correctness is not a new thing as it has moved from the public arena as being 'unsuitable' for public consumption. I have a taped copy of it somewhere.]

I liked The Dark Materials series. But then again I number myself among the group of folks that're able to distinguish between books of fact and books of fiction. In any case, didn't Pullman say at one point that he wasn't anti-religion, just anti-Church, with a capital C? They've just got their panties in a twist because of the implication that they're not 100% homogenized holiness.

At the risk of being way too serious....

I have to defend my denomination. That's the first time I've EVER heard of Lutherans being more Bible-thumping than the Baptists. We have a creed that we stick to, and a strict idea of how man acquires grace, but I think (and I know I'm biased) that the Baptists are much more into that fire and brimstone condemning thing. Lutherans are always labeled as the stoic, dark, depressed denomination. Plus the real base of the denomination is in Minnesota. It's too cold up there for fire and brimstone.

I know there's very closed minded Christians in every denomination, but I've yet to hear about a Lutheran-sponsored book-burning. :)

Oh, and congrats, Rob, there's some very famous names on the list of "people who have been labeled the Anti-Christ". Perhaps we can arrange a boxing match between you and the pope to see just who really is the evil one?

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You kids with your long hair and Baroque music...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2007 04:06AM by Tari.

Tari: I will support you on that one. I am nominally Lutheran and do not really see the rest of them (who take it a great deal more seriously than I do) as the sort who would be into book-burning.

And yes, the series is definitely more anti-organised-religion of any sort than anything else.

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Quoting from a great article I just read on Cinematical:

"Here's how I imagine a conversation between child and parent will go immediately after watching The Golden Compass:

Parent: [sweating, shaking] So ... did you, gulp, like the film?

Kid: I liked the talking bear. He was cool. Can we get ice cream?

Parent: So, um [wipes sweat] -- you don't want to become an Atheist now?

Kid: No. I simply want a parent that isn't a complete moron. I want a parent that lets me make my own decisions in life. I want a parent that exposes me to all religions, to all beliefs, and allows me to learn about the world I live in. As a person who represents the future of this country, and this world, I believe I deserve that. So, can we get ice cream now?"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2007 10:02PM by OC Not.