In many places he mimics the style of ancient English stories and sagas, which he loved and devoted his career to. The difficulty of his writing is likely deliberate.
Anyway, I used to feel the way you do, and it certainly is true that the Hobbit is an easier read and better paced as a story, but over the years I've come to believe that The Lord of the Rings is a masterpiece, one of the great works of art of the last century.
The same bias that pushed all debunking of WMD evidence to the back page? The same bias that generated so much praise for Powell's completely fact-free and degrading presentation to the UN? The same bias towards falling in love with John "100 years in Iraq", "Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran" McCain? The same press bias against mentioniong US casualties and even knowing how many Iraqi casualties there are? The same press bias towards ignoring the fact that the 9/11 hijackers were funded and managed through Saudi intelligence, and bin Laden is harbored in Pakistan, two of our closest so-called allies in this War on Terrorism?
Well, heck, why shouldn't they ignore those countries, we couldn't make war on them even if we wanted to.
The dinosaurs ruled the Earth for 200 million years, 3 times longer than mammals, but didn't produce any sentient species that we've discovered. evolution of sentience is far from guaranteed.
Another great benefit of the scientific culture is it's tendency to record and remember results from past generations so that we don't always have to start over afresh.
One of the chief points of Darwinism, that the strength of species lies in its variety, which is directly opposed to ideas like Social Darwinism, especially Eugenics and Genocide. Thus even from Darwin alone, some concept of what's good for the human species can arise. This is also why I hate the Darwin awards.
The "underpinning of morality" argument has always bothered me. Let's take as given for a moment that such things don't exist. But just by posing the question, you've demonstrated moral concern, so you've nurtured and maintained a moral sense without any underpinnings for it.
There's a pretty wide variation in people's morals, and people seem to come to them by their own paths. Fixed underpinnings for morals feels as wrong as fixed lines between species.
One of the chief benefits of scientific culture is its willingness to "persecute" bullshit.
Also, the God theory of the origin of species had a wide open shot on an empty field for two or three thousand years and never scored any explanatory points, so claims of not getting a fair shot are disingenuous.
Don't worry, there are plenty of smart people breeding in poor countries that can't afford good birth control that will be happy to kill our idiot children for our land and resources.
I'm probably an idiot, but I could never get VS 2005 to debug a remote device in Vista. After a few hours of fruitless tinkering and research, going back to XP was the only clear path left.
Any material hot enough to be an effective dirty bomb would register way higher than a cancer patient on any radiation test (and would kill anyone driving with it in a matter of hours).
That's the problem with computers, they're too good at counting. A suspicious human observer can't count along, and a computer with nefarious programming can slip one by you without noticing.
Slashdot Mirror
In many places he mimics the style of ancient English stories and sagas, which he loved and devoted his career to. The difficulty of his writing is likely deliberate.
Anyway, I used to feel the way you do, and it certainly is true that the Hobbit is an easier read and better paced as a story, but over the years I've come to believe that The Lord of the Rings is a masterpiece, one of the great works of art of the last century.
The same bias that pushed all debunking of WMD evidence to the back page? The same bias that generated so much praise for Powell's completely fact-free and degrading presentation to the UN? The same bias towards falling in love with John "100 years in Iraq", "Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran" McCain? The same press bias against mentioniong US casualties and even knowing how many Iraqi casualties there are? The same press bias towards ignoring the fact that the 9/11 hijackers were funded and managed through Saudi intelligence, and bin Laden is harbored in Pakistan, two of our closest so-called allies in this War on Terrorism?
Well, heck, why shouldn't they ignore those countries, we couldn't make war on them even if we wanted to.
The dinosaurs ruled the Earth for 200 million years, 3 times longer than mammals, but didn't produce any sentient species that we've discovered. evolution of sentience is far from guaranteed.
Pure ID (i.e without the superfluous Creationist baggage) is agnostic about the nature of the designer, other than it requires intelligence.
Either that, or every claim creationists have made about the phantasmal designer over the last few thousand years have been disproved.
Another great benefit of the scientific culture is it's tendency to record and remember results from past generations so that we don't always have to start over afresh.
One of the chief points of Darwinism, that the strength of species lies in its variety, which is directly opposed to ideas like Social Darwinism, especially Eugenics and Genocide. Thus even from Darwin alone, some concept of what's good for the human species can arise. This is also why I hate the Darwin awards.
The "underpinning of morality" argument has always bothered me. Let's take as given for a moment that such things don't exist. But just by posing the question, you've demonstrated moral concern, so you've nurtured and maintained a moral sense without any underpinnings for it.
There's a pretty wide variation in people's morals, and people seem to come to them by their own paths. Fixed underpinnings for morals feels as wrong as fixed lines between species.
Since Darwin expressed "doubts about the permanence of species" Does this mean we don't need to save EVERY endangered species?
Don't worry, we won't.
Or does this mean that we should get our own affairs in order?
Does anything ever mean we should get our own affairs in order, or is it just generally a good idea?
There are theories, they just aren't as settled as evolution.
One of the chief benefits of scientific culture is its willingness to "persecute" bullshit.
Also, the God theory of the origin of species had a wide open shot on an empty field for two or three thousand years and never scored any explanatory points, so claims of not getting a fair shot are disingenuous.
Don't worry, there are plenty of smart people breeding in poor countries that can't afford good birth control that will be happy to kill our idiot children for our land and resources.
And congress is on the verge of granting AT&T amnesty, so why should they care?
AT&T is evil, not just the normal corrupt incompetence of every big phone company, but they actively engage in wrongdoing.
What's your point? You think no-one in the Church was an atheist?
Those experiments are done and gone. God theory dominated science for thousands of years. It wasn't very fruitful and didn't hold up in the long run.
What beautiful thing is ever saved?
This is a bizarre point of view because God (the Designer) by definition does not have an origin.
Oh really? Do tell.
Dawkins still has to rely on a miracle as the explanation for the origin of life.
No he doesn't, since he doesn't explain the origin of life.
What he grapples with and refuses to acknowledge is the source of the miracle.
Dawkins seems to define a miracle as the random occurrence of an extremely rare event. In what way do such things have sources?
Agnosticism is likewise the only tenable position for theists.
It was bought by someone who didn't know that domain names are about to be nationalized.
"I suppose I could just change my goal to trying to see how long I can just keep talking on and on about nothing. You know, like women. ;)"
Well there's your problem.
It's the ultimate sport: everyone's going about 5 times faster than they ought while wielding deadly weapons.
We are the precursors, and all aliens are our descendants.
I'm probably an idiot, but I could never get VS 2005 to debug a remote device in Vista. After a few hours of fruitless tinkering and research, going back to XP was the only clear path left.
Any material hot enough to be an effective dirty bomb would register way higher than a cancer patient on any radiation test (and would kill anyone driving with it in a matter of hours).
(Blip disappears off of radar)
Tech: What was that?
Adama: That was my son.
That's the problem with computers, they're too good at counting. A suspicious human observer can't count along, and a computer with nefarious programming can slip one by you without noticing.
Ironically, the Simpsons movie wasn't half bad.