SR pointed out Peter Kreeft’s website, and today I noticed a lecture called, “10 Uncommon Insights Into Evil from Lord of the Rings.”
I haven’t listened to it yet, but I heard a coincidental news report today on the real evil in Ukraine. “Healthy new-born babies may have been killed in Ukraine to feed a flourishing international trade in stem cells, evidence obtained by the BBC suggests.” Killing unborn children isn’t enough for some hospital staff in that country. Newborns have been stolen from their mothers by their nurses so that their bodies can be mined for stem cells.
Is this the result of viewing children as non-persons or of viewing the human body as an organic machine, separate from spirit within it?
I can’t think of a more convincing reason.
The lecture by kreeft is excellent. I feel like I’m the last person on earth to read Tolkien, but I think one of the main reasons he’s popular is because he tackles the problem of evil. (When I was young; many, many years ago, I scorned the idea of reading about hobbits…. I was too busy reading Herman Hesse :-)I only read LOR a year ago; so most children have got me beat!
– I could go on and on about tolkien; but I’ll only say here that it’s the best book about politics (broadly defined) ever written. (Among many other things.)
I haven’t been able to listen to the whole thing, but I was surprised that he said fantasy was the highest form of writing or literature, satyre being the lowest.
Jerram Barrs has a great lecture on Tolkien at Bethinking.org. (The q+a is also well worth listening to.)