Christianity and The Lord of the Rings

Is it totally inappropriate for a Christian to watch Lord of the Rings?

Well, I don't think so.
I recently encountered the following argument. (I'm sure there are others out there.)

LOTR received huge popular acclaim. The Bible, however, says that friendship with the world is enmity towards God. Christians must not rebel against God by agreeing with the world.

I don't find this argument compelling, for the following reasons.

(a) Merely to like something that people who aren't (yet) Christians also like is not automatically wrong.
You must show that there is a link between the attraction and their unChristian mindset. I like a lot of things that receive popular acclaim: Mexican food, (some of) Pat Metheny's music, my Ford Freestar. These things aren't, for that reason, innately wrong.

(b) There may be multiple reasons for the popular acclaim.
It's categorically wrong for a Christian to watch MTV: to subscribe to Playboy, or to comparable publications; to pick up satellite TV signals in areas where it's illegal to do so. All of these things are praised by "the world," and for reasons that reflect the unregenerate nature's approval of what is wrong. In the case of the LOTR movies, though, I believe that the attraction is for reasons that reflect the unregenerate nature's approval of what is good: heroism (Aragorn and Boromir pledging their lives to protect Frodo); self-sacrifice (Gandalf sacrificing himself for his friends); unfailing devotion to a friend (Sam); romantic and honorable love that is platonic prior to marriage (Arwen and Aragorn); an unambiguous distinction between good and evil; an acknowledgement that evil is to be resisted, sometimes to the point of death.
When non-Christians approve of these things, they're approving of what is good. I see this as the incoherent longing of the unregenerate person for the God in whose image he or she was made. Christians, who by the grace of God are regenerate, are free to agree with them.

Now two important caveats.

One, if you don't agree with me and you don't think it's appropriate for you to watch LOTR, then don't watch it. Inform your conscience with what you believe is truth from the Bible, and follow it where it leads you.
Two, it's true that there are "magical" elements in LOTR. Now I don't think that they automatically fall under the condemnation that the Bible applies to what we call magic, which is the attempt to achieve power through communication with evil spirits. I.e., I don't see LOTR's "magic" as being in that category. But this subject will take longer to develop and explain, and I'm going to need more time to work up a good comment on the subject. Stay tuned. :-)

Star Trek Makes No Sense, Part IV

How To Tell That You're a Star Trek Alien

[1] You are completely human in appearance, except that there's something weird about your nose.
[2] You speak perfect 20th-century English. Mild accent is optional.
[3] You know how to work the Transporter.
[4] You can interbreed with humans. Worf's wife and Spock are two examples of the result. Then there's Kirk and the insane green woman, Marta [episode?], but I don't want to get into that whole thing right now. Anyway, it's because a super-race seeded the galaxy with DNA a long time ago. But evolution still happened, though, because Klingons for example used to be exoskeletal and Picard was a marmoset, but everybody converged again to the point of being able to have kids, i.e., the DNA structure is identical, ... no, don't try to understand it.

Nominations for Most Embarassing Moment

This could take a while. It's a target-rich environment.

[1] Spock Is Really a Playstation2
Here we have yet another alien race that (a) was completely human in appearance, and (b) spoke unaccented English --- well, except that "male" and "female" had been replaced with "morg" and "eyemorg." Or vice versa; I don't remember which was which, and I'm not real interesting in finding out, either.
Spock has had his brain surgically removed, without messing up his hair, but the perpetrators have helpfully set him up with a little hand-held remote that allows for robotic walking. (And takes two 9-volt batteries.) McCoy puts the brain back in without bothering to wash his hands, or provide for a septic environment, or any of that sort of trivia.

[2] The Space Hippies Episode
There isn't a Most Embarassing Moment in this one. The entire episode is an Embarassing Moment. But the crowning moment was the little jam session, with Spock On Vulcan Harp and Hippie Chick On Bicycle Wheel. Playing a moronic tape loop of annoying 1960's chords. Nope, I don't reach, Harold.

[3] Swahili Is Implemented On The Hardware
Nomad wipes out Uhura's memory, so that she needs to be retaught everything she knows --- communications technology, the English language, how to blow her nose, et cetera. But she still speaks Swahili: that part didn't get wiped. Must be physically imprinted on her brain cells. One good punch in the head and she forgets past-tense conjugations.

[4+] Runners-Up and Honorable Mentions

"I never forget a face, Mister ... Chekov," says Khan.
Chekov wasn't in the episode he's referring to.

Sulu and the boys are going to freeze to death down on the planet, because the transporter is generating good-guy / bad-guy copies of everybody. ... So what was wrong with the shuttlecraft? Did it have a flat?

During the course of this episode, Bad Kirk tries to molest his yeoman, Janice Rand. She scratches his face. Later in the show, the scratches are on the other side. Then back again.
You remember Yeoman Rand. She was the one with the beehive hairdo. Yes, this was the show that lectured us about female equality, and then showed us female crew members in miniskirts and go-go boots.

Fight scenes in general are, well, different. Finnegan punches Kirk on the left side of the face. Kirk falls in the same direction --- to his own left. [Shore Leave].
Sulu hits a Klingon on the forearm with a robotic-looking little chop. The Klingon falls to the floor unconscious. [The Enemy Within].

Star Trek Makes No Sense, Part III

Out Of My Way, I'm In Charge Here

The "Environmental Control Panel" is three buttons in the middle of the wall next to the main screen on the bridge. (What a place to put it.) During an emergency, some guy is standing there pushing the buttons in and out. This guy's whole life is these three buttons, but Kirk runs over, shoves him aside and starts pushing the buttons himself.

Communication Is Important

When Uhura has to reach Kirk, she says, "Enterprise to Captain Kirk, Enterprise to Captain Kirk, come in please." But Kirk doesn't hear that. He hears beep-beep beep-beep. The same sort of thing happens when he calls back.
It's a shame, too, because Uhura has exactly three phrases in her vocabulary --- Enterprise to Captain Kirk, hailing frequencies open Captain and Captain, I'm frightened --- and one of them is constantly being editing out by her own equipment. That's gotta be humiliating for her.
In the "Nomad" episode, we are treated to the sight of Uhura learning the phrase The ball is blooo-ie but I don't recall her ever needing to use it thereafter.

Kirk has an intercom on his chair. All it has is one little white button and one speaker / microphone, but it always knows who he wants to talk to. Maybe it listens to his conversation. We aren't sure who he gets if he hasn't said anything for a while.

While looking for Nancy The Salt Vampire, Kirk calls the Enterprise. Spock, also on the planet's surface, interrupts his conversation. "Spock breaking in, Captain," he says. Communicators don't relay other conversations. How did he know what Kirk was saying? And how did he direct his communicator to break into that conversation? Was a pretty neat trick, because that's the only time anybody ever does it.

Spock has flipped out because of the spores and "doesn't feel like responding." Kirk is trying to reach him. "The channel's open, but he isn't responding," he observes to McCoy. He hits the communicator several times. So does he think there are moving parts in there that have jammed, and it'll start working if he jars them loose? [The Naked Time]

Almost every alien in the universe speaks English. Generally with an accent. If they don't, then there's a device called a Universal Translator, which looks like a magic marker. It translates unknown languages into English, and it gets the first word right. ... What if the first thing you do is sneeze?

When sneaking up on the Klingon "gulag" where Kirk and McCoy are imprisoned, the bridge crew need to play head games with the bored Klingons at the listening post, pretending they're a Klingon freighter carrying supplies. (It's well known that Klingon freighters have precisely the same radar signatures, or whatever, as Federation starships.) The universal translator, however, "would be recognized," so the best option is to have Uhura shout phrases like We am thy freighter. Uh, how about having the translator write correct phrases on a screen and have Uhura just read them out loud? ... No, that couldn't possibly work. [The Undiscovered Country]

They're trying to figure out what the huge tube-shaped machine is doing to planets [The Doomsday Machine]. They have terminals all over the place, hooked up to something called a 'duotronic computer,' but when they have to look up information on metallurgy, Kirk hands Spock a huge hardcover textbook.
They also use little rectangular diskette-type items. These diskettes have absolutely no writing on them, but McCoy sometimes picks them up and reads titles off them anyway. There are probably millions of them aboard, but at one point Spock identifies one as "tape H". (Tape, no less.)

Star Trek Makes No Sense, Part II

Maybe All That Hardware Is For Making Coleslaw

Sometimes the little hand-held items in the elevators make them go. Sometimes they make them stop. Sometimes they override RedJack who is trying to kill people. When Spock is taking the captive female Romulan commander from the bridge down to deck 3 --- I'm guessing they're numbered from the top down, so that's three decks, at the very most a trip of 50 or 60 feet --- they have an extended conversation and forty-one little light bars went by.

"Strike that last entry from the log," says Kirk. Spock reverses a white toggle switch and the terminal makes a chugging noise. [Mudd's Women].

Spock has a round, spidery, psychadelic-looking display high up on his console. It never does anything except rotate, and he never looks at it.
He also has a black box protruding below it. Sometimes it has acoustic grill cloth on it. Sometimes it has little red and yellow lights. He never looks at it, either.
He has a little pyramidal viewer that he does use. All he every says, though, is "Energy of a form never before encountered." Maybe that's all it says down there. If he's never encountered it before, how does he know it's energy?
The computer voice has a background of little chattering machine-type noises. Apparently the computer itself is sitting in a room full of sewing machines.

"Is the computer working?" asks Kirk. Now remember, he's talking about a computer that oversees every last little detail of the workings of a ship capable of travelling faster than light, for years on end, with a crew of several hundred people. Spock reverses two white toggle switches on his console. There is no output of any sort, whether visual or audible, and Spock doesn't wait for any. "The computer is in perfect operating condition," says Spock.

Sulu has an array of at least thirty by thirty lights on his console. Not one of them is labelled. They're not buttons, but he pushes them anyway. He also has a goose-neck viewer that apparently acts as a sighting device for the ship's weapons systems. It seems to take several minutes to unfold and extend into position --- during emergencies. (23rd-century weapons apparently have to be aimed by eyeball.)

"Do you still measure time in hours and minutes?" asks Abraham Lincoln. "We can convert," says Kirk. In another episode: shows Sulu's board. There are bubble meters --- yes, bubble meters --- labelled HH, MM and SS. Maybe they changed the hardware for the convenience of other dead Presidents.

The ship makes a faint roaring noise as it moves through space. ... Space doesn't conduct sound.

Every alien race knows how to operate the Transporter, even though the procedure changes with each use. Sometimes you slide the three little bars up. Sometimes you slide them up, then down. Sometimes you slide them up, then cross-circuit to B, then slide them down, then cross-circuit to A, then ...

There's a chicken soup dispenser in the transporter room. People must have to spend a lot of time in there. Maybe using the transporter gives you a cold.

Star Trek Makes No Sense, Part I

McCoy, the Bipolar Ship's Surgeon

Maybe I Am, Maybe I'm Not. You Just Don't Know.

"I'm a doctor, not a psychiatrist!" says McCoy angrily. In another episode: "Dr. McCoy, you're well-known for your advances in space psychiatry," says the prosecuting attorney. "Yes," McCoy acknowledges humbly.

Dr. Engstrom, inventor of the Duotronic and Multitronic Computers, is hearing about the possibility of his latest invention causing casualties about the ship. "In which case you would be guilty of murder!" McCoy rants, before being reined in by Kirk. About a minute later he's gravely expressing his concerns about how stressed Engstrom has been looking recently. Perhaps drumming up business for his space psychiatry sideline.

Klingons Make Difficult Patients

"Heart rate all wrong, blood pressure non-existant .. Jim, this man's a Klingon!" No blood pressure means vascular collapse, which in turn means dead person. Interesting. McCoy doesn't explain how someone can have a heart beat that doesn't exert pressure on the walls of their blood vessels. It doesn't seem to bother him. [The Trouble with Tribbles]

"I'll go with you. They may have wounded," he volunteers, after Gorkhon's ship has been torpedoed [The Undiscovered Country]. Yeah, there probably is no such thing as a Klingon doctor. But when he gets there, he exclaims miserably, "I don't even know his anatomy!" (So why did he volunteer to come? Did he think there would be humans in the crew?) Then he wants the dying Gorkhon moved onto the conference table, for CPR. Maybe the floor wasn't solid enough. (He isn't worried that the movement will aggravate internal or spinal injuries.) Even though Gorkhon is still conscious and breathing, he starts CPR. For good measure, he begins with a pre-cardiac thump, which hasn't been common practice since the early 1980's. Guess he was going through a retro phase at the time.

He's Making It Up, Jim

McCoy's little hand-held sensing device can diagnose anything at all, in seconds. He holds it next to Kirk's shoulder, then his wrist, and looks at the base. He says, "It's advanced arthritis, Jim, and it's spreading." Uh-huh. There isn't even room to write ADVANCED ARTHRITIS, SPREADING on the base of that thing.

Scientific Study of Prayer

From Does Prayer Work?, Breakpoint commentary of 13 April 2006 (click here to read the original article):


The headlines seemed almost triumphal in tone.
“Prayer Doesn’t Aid Recovery, Study Finds.” That was the Washington Post. “Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer.” That was the New York Times.
Both papers were describing a study designed to determine the power of prayer. Not only did it show that prayer apparently makes no difference, but some prayed-for patients in the study actually fared worse than the unprayed-for ones.


Puh-LEEEZE. This entire 'study' misses the point by about a thousand miles. Prayer is not some mystical energy called into action by a certain set of words, postures or attitudes. It is communication with a living, conscious Being --- the God described in the Bible --- that has the ability to intervene in human affairs, whom the Bible also says does not perform tricks on demand to prove that He exists. (Nor were we told what motives were suggested to the praying participants regarding their praying for the health of their assigned group and not for the other patients.)

Put it this way. It's Friday night around 9:15. Both our kids are asleep, and my wife and I are going to make a bowl of popcorn and watch a movie. She's going down to the basement fridge to get herself a Coke. I say Honey, would you please get me one while you're down there? and she will. Now, suppose I gather 45 guys with white coats and clipboards, line them all up to observe and say Ahem! Observe, ladies and gentlemen, my wife responds to verbal requests! Cheryl Would You Please Get Me a Coke From The Basement!

What do you think she'd do? what would you do? ... So what do you think God should do if people treat Him that way?

travels (26T): heidelberg, germany

September 1993. Like many Bavarian cities (many European cities?) Heidelberg has an "old city" and a "new city." We had a hotel reservation waiting for us in the old city as we travelled up the Romantischestrass. It was a cold, rainy afternoon as we pulled up to the little B&B jammed in between the other centuries-old buildings. Not a parking lot in sight, despite the fact that they advertised parking, but we had learned that in Germany this typically meant that they had a bunch of reserved spots a few blocks away.

So I ducked inside and checked in with the portly lady behind the counter. Where's the parking, I asked, figuring she'd whip out a map and give directions. Not quite. Out she comes from the counter and into the tiled entrance hallway; opens out a set of double doors to a little courtyard between buildings, then the double doors to the wet and windy street where my Missus was waiting in the rented 190E; and gestures. Drive 'er in here, buddy.

This was too weird. She wants me to drive the car down the hallway. Had to kind of bite my tongue to keep from asking Can I park it next to the room?. So, feeling foolish for some odd reason, I drove it between these sets of doors and out to the spot at the back left.

We encountered stuff like this a number of times in Germany. I guess when you're dealing with buildings and streets that were laid out centuries before motorized travel, you just gotta do what it takes. One more European thing that we don't have to deal with in Canada.

travels (13B): estes park, colorado

October 1991. The rented Jeep Cherokee grumbled up the mountainside. We came to a place where the highway widened out a dozen yards or so, parallel parking spots lined up along the low stone wall, nothing but empty space beyond that, another mountainside many miles distant. When I got out to admire the view, I could see that there was actually a jumble of boulders beyond the wall, then a gently sloping hillside for quite a distance, and then an apparent dropoff. (I had wondered why people were so brave about walking along that low stone wall.) My poor wife, however, was by this time traumatized by the five-digits-above-sea-level environment and wouldn't get out of the Jeep.

I briefly considered pretending to frantically lose my balance atop the wall, then hopping down to crouch on the other side. Decided against this for two reasons: (a) didn't wish to cause a coronary in the woman who had said I do to me in our church only two weeks earlier; and (b) October in the Colorado Rockies is way too cold to spend the night alone in a Jeep Cherokee.

BTW, we visited lots of other places on our honeymoon that she did enjoy.

being somewhere else

Ever notice how we seem to spend a lot of time being somewhere else?

Recently I've been noticing how much I do this. Perhaps noticing more than usual, or just doing it more than usual, not sure which. Today always seems to be lived with reference to (a) some day that hasn't happened yet, or (b) some day from the past.

The thing that both (a) and (b) have in common, of course, is that they're inaccessible. I can't get back to the past, and I can't jump ahead to the future. Kind of like my four-and-a-half-minute walk to the bus stop every weekday morning: down the street / turn right / up to the entrance to the park / through the park / across the soccer field / down to the bus shelter. Can't be done in three seconds, no matter how hard I train. It always has to be done one step at a time.

So what's with all this concentration on the past or the future? The thing I always seem to forget is that five or ten or twenty years ago this was the future that I was looking forward to, and I'm in it now. Conversely, five or ten or twenty years from now --- if I make it that far! --- this will be the past that I look back on. So, by induction, it seems like all days are the same after all. Guess I oughta spend more time in the here and now after all.