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Well, I finally finished the Jules Verne's "Journey to the Centre of the Earth". A book that I had thoroughly enjoyed.

I must say that I actually found it quite amusing, as well as different to the movie (which is usually the case). There were many characters in movies that weren't in the book.

I would highly recommend people to read it, if they are interested in a short, quasi-science fiction novel.

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I enjoyed the book too..... It was a bit different from what I had expected and I could not put it down till I had finished it........

storyteller the thread has no Subject (did you forget to type one in or is this a trick)

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Yeah, I did forget. :-o

8(

Can't change it, can I?

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you are the Mod...... sure you can change it.......

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Not yet, we hope to give mods the power to do this soon, but it's not in place yet.

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i saw an adaption of this book on the hallmark channel one time. it was a mini series. wasnt like the book at all, but id read the book years ago. i also remember seeing the movie that came out back then of the book and wasnt too impressed with it. some of the movies back then were too umm..wahts the word..not depressing, but very dramatical i suppose you could say.

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I did like the movie when I was younger, but back then I was easier to impress. But seeing the movie through an adult eye, I am not very impressed with them using lizard and turtle to make them look like monsters. I supposed that after seeing dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park", it would be easier now to make a new movie.

I actually like the book. It was quite funny with the professor and the reluctant nephew as adventurers. They didn't have all those unnecessary characters that the movie have.

I haven't seen the mini series so I can't comment about that.

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 storyteller


I hadn't read this one but I did read "Aroudn the World in 80 Days." I liked it because I felt as I could've been the one travelling the world....do they really burn widows in India? that's a little too harsh, I think.

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JttCotE may not have travel the world, they did go a fair distance, across and under.

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Yes they really do burn widows in India........ It is part of their religion as is female infantacide (they either dump or drown baby girls)......... It is called Saati... a widow is tied and thrown into a fire along with her dead husband....

It is good that only Hindus in India do this.... barbaric lot.... deserve to go to hell

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i must remember to go to mass and thank od I'm not a Hindu! what if my future husband-----whoever he is----die before me?

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retarded........ seems to me that you are making fun of Hinduism...... before doing that you must read Indian/Hindu history.......

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If you like Jules Verne, I'm sure you will like a lot "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ". It's a really wonderful trip. I read all books from him, this one is my prefered one.

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20 000 Leagues Under the Sea is an OK book......

by the way their should be no comma in 20 000.... that is the new sci. convention.........

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 attila-the-hun writes...


Actually, according to what I've learned from the Anthropology course that I'm presently taking at the University of Maine in Orono, Sati (correct spelling?) isn't something forced on women and it has nothing to do with children. Sati is when a women voluntarily throws herself onto the fire burning her husband's dead body. There was a famous case of Sati in 1987 by a young woman named Roop Kanwar (you can read about it here: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A521524> )

It is interpreted as a sign of devotion to her husband and their family and in some forms of Hinduism, it is partly motivated by the desire to pass from the realm of the living along side the husband. In virtually all orthodox Hindu societies, the female lives as an inferior to the males and is meant to always remain with one from their family. If the husband dies, she goes and lives with the sons, if there are no sons then she goes with an uncle or cousin, etc.


And as far as killing baby girls goes... some of the very traditional Hindu communities kill their daughter(s) if they have too many or if a son is not born first. Some men actually leave their wives if they can't have sons.


At first glimpse, all this seems somewhat barbaric from an American perspective, but prior to making such an arrogant statement, it's only right to first educate yourself about the information you speak of--and also to try and imagine how they feel and believe. If you were raised in a strictly Hindu society and truly believed in this religion and all its laws and duties, you would certainly think differently towards their practices.

One perception of death that sets Hindus apart from most of us is that they believe in the cycle of rebirth, or samsara. It is believed that if people gain enough merit, or punya, they will be reborn into a good life. Conversely, if they gain more demerit, or or papa, then they are reborn into a less fortunate life. Escape from this cycle of rebirth is called Moksha. Killing an infant in their minds is simply sending the infant's soul away to be reborn again in another place and/or form. Now, to be fair, some Hindus recognize these acts as being wrong and believe just as firmly that you do that it is an atrocity. Thus, any blanket statement you make against Hinduism (such as them being barbaric) is wrong. I'm not religious, but I personally choose to respect, in general, a religion that has approx. a billion followers (Hinduism to be specific).

You are merely one mind, body, and (if you believe in this sort of thing) soul, but in making the aforementioned statement, you speak of billions. Humility is a word that comes to my mind when the notion of such vast numbers comes into any equation.

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 sirdeity writes...


I believe the correct spelling is suttee, where a widow die with her husband on a pyre.

And yes, I do believe it is done voluntary, though, I am not to well-acquainted that Hindu would actually tie a woman to it.

This practice can also be found in other places, but not necessarily being burnt in a pyre. They may die from having their throats cut or simply buried alive with husbands, such as in ancient Egypt and Sumer.

There are numbers of Norse sagas where the wive died in the pyres. The goddess Nanna died in boat burial with Balder (actually it was cremation on a boat).

The heroine Signy did not love her husband, because he had treacherously murdered her father and her brothers, but when brother torched the house, she chose to die with him, perhaps because she had murdered her own sons to get revenge.

An Arab diplomat, named Ibn Fadlan travelled along the river Volga (I think this is in Russia or Ukraine, where he encountered Vikings during the cremation of a chieftain in a boat burial. A slavegirl joined this dead chieftain in the burning boat.

According to the Greek myth, in the ill-fated war, known as Seven Against Thebes, the Argive princess, Evadne, threw herself into Capaneus' burning pyre.

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I just checked my notes from one of the previous lectures on Hinduism. Apparently Sati can be spelled as either "Sati" or "Suttee." My guess is that each spelling is derived from a different language or dialect. There are a lot of different languages spoken in India. The primary one in the North is "Hindi." However, Sanskrit is the sacred language in Hinduism (usually only spoken by the highest caste; the Brahmin priests). I don't have the time to find out exactly which language each spelling of the word "Sati" or "Suttee" is derived from, but I'd guess it's Hindi and Sanskrit.

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Yes, I guess it could be spelt both ways. I just remember it because I more familiar with suttee.

Anyway, I don't know whether to call this sacrifice or suicide.

There is an interesting suicide pact, where whole family would jump off the cliff, which was called "Family Cliff".

This was in the first part of the "Gautreks Saga", a translation of this story can be found in the Penguin Classics book (1985) - "Seven Viking Romance", translated by Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards. Sorry, but I don't know of any translation available as etext on the net, but I did retell this story in my website Timeless Myths, under the title - Gautreks Saga.

It is actually a funny episode.... that if you can call "family suicide" funny.

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That must be a medieval greek religious act? My Anthropology class doesn't cover Greek religion or mythology. (I've only learned in detail about Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shintoism.) That's an interesting site though, nonetheless. Thanks for the link. I remember some (very little) Greek Mythology from back in High school. It's probably the most entertaining mythology that I'm aware of.

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 sirdeity writes...

No, that's not Greek myth, if you are talking about the last post of mine. The story in Gautreks Saga is actually from Norse mythology, or more precisely from Icelandic saga.

 sirdeity writes...

WOW!

Shintoism, too. That's awesome.

I believed that Arizona or someone else started a topic on Shintoism at the religion forum. I'm sure that Arizona or others would be interested asking question about Shintoism.

Perhaps, you should visit the Free2Code's Religion forum?