Can atheists appreciate/understand Lord of the Ring?

[Lotrelf]

It is clear that LotR books are religious work and are widely loved and appreciated. And most of the readers I have come across are believers of God's existence. But there's no doubt there are people too who don't believe in God. Can they really understand the depth of the books; and appreciate as we do? Though, it is not easy to understand everything about the books(e.g. Tom Bombadil and his mystery; and Frodo's actions at Mount Doom are never ending debates), but there are many readers who understand the books(many I've met here).
But if it comes to atheists are they really going to get them the way we did?

[Nogrod]

Could you actually clarify the question a little bit? Are you asking whether atheists can understand the books (in some general sense) or understand the books like you do?


Also I find it curious that you think that you should believe in God in order to understand LotR in the first place.

I would agree with you that one should know something about basic Christian beliefs and ideas to appreciate some religious themes LotR contains, but would that require also a faith in (Christian) God's existence - well that's a bit more complicated matter.

And given your requirement, there is also the question: in which kind of (Christian) God you should believe in in order to understand the books? An (American) evangelical understanding of God, Liberal / (European) Lutheran God; South-American or African Catholic God... would belief in the God of the Mormons help you understand the book or would it lead one astray? Or should you actually hold on to prof. Tolkien's old-time abstractly academic yet conservative Catholicism to understand the books?

[Aganzir]

Yes.

I wonder if English people understand them better than we who are not from England? Do I understand Narn i Chîn Húrin better because I'm Finnish and it's based on the Tale of Kullervo? Does a religious non-Christian understand the books better or worse than a non-religious person raised in a Christian country because they don't share Tolkien's cultural heritage?

Religion/spirituality is just one aspect among many that makes up a person. The fact that somebody doesn't believe in something doesn't mean they're not able to relate to people who do or that they don't understand what religion or belief are about. Many non-religious people I know are very well-versed in different religions; better so than many religious people I know. A non-Christian can know more about the Bible than a Christian - can even have read it more times.

Also, while Tolkien's Legendarium has many Christian elements, it's not an allegory. Therefore understanding shouldn't depend on your own religious background. The depth of the books is not just for understanding, it's for experiencing.

As you keep posting on the Downs, you'll come to find there are many agnostic, atheist and non-religious members (yours truly included). That's what the discussion forum is for - talking about how we understand the books. And as you read these discussions, it's up to you to decide if a non-religious Tolkien enthusiast can fully understand them, or understand them as you do.

[Morthoron]

Tolkien synthesized mythos from Finnish, Icelandic, Germanic, Greek, Anglo-Saxon and biblical sources. As long as you understand the motifs and doctrines Tolkien employed, his Christianity becomes just another myth among many. Which is how I view his tale in its entirety.

In fact, if you view Middle-earth chronologically, from creation through the 1st, 2nd and through the 3rd Age story of The Hobbit, you'll find Christianity superseded by other mythos.

[Zigûr]

I think the issue with this question is that it presupposes some kind of "God-believer" or "atheist" divide with no middle ground. Tolkien was a Catholic. That is a very specific system of beliefs. You might as well ask the same question of "appreciation/understanding" for other denominations of Christianity, let alone other religions and spiritualities.

Can a Hindu appreciate/understand The Lord of the Rings? How about a Buddhist? A Muslim? A Jew? What about an Anglican? An evangelical baptist? etc.

Or, as has been stated, non-spiritual or less spiritual accounts of life: agnosticism and so forth.

The short answer is: yes. I find this quote relevant from Claudio Testi's article "Tolkien's Work: Is it Christian or Pagan? A Proposal for a 'Synthetic' Approach" in Tolkien Studies 10 (2013):
the fundamental catholicity of Tolkien’s work is not to be found in confessional elements related to his Faith, but paradoxically in the quite peculiar non-Christianity of his world, where the most authentic existential and ethical tensions involving the “mere natural” Man are represented.
Testi further argues that Professor Tolkien's work:
is meant neither for a single nation (England) nor a specific religion (be it Christian or Pagan), but for “all of Mankind” capable of sensing with their natural capabilities that beyond the Circles of the World there is “more than memory”
Perhaps an atheist does not believe, or "sense" as Testi would have it, that there is "more than memory" beyond the Circles of the World, but in any event I think that the themes of the work are universal and do not depend on a particular spirituality to be understood. Similarly, I consider the theodicy (and, I suppose, theology) of the narrative to be internally self-consistent, such that while, for example, an education in Christian belief might be useful for interpreting some of the text, no specific real-world belief system has a particular bearing on the "appreciation" or "understanding" of the work.

[Lotrelf]

Being theist does not mean you have to be religious. I'm not "religious" if being religious means belonging to a religion. The better word I use for this is SPRITITUAL. Professor certainly wrote his books for all mankind instead of just religious people. But do all the people understand the books?
I started the thread because my experience with atheists has always been bad, so to speak (and I think most of them are arrogant). They doubt God's existence in real life. How are they going to understand characters that are directly affected by "God" or "Eru"? Would they take him as a "character"? Or as an energy? If they do so(energy thought), why not think this is true in real life as well? Or would they say "in Tolkien's world God existed because he saved the world"?
As Prof. said mercy and pity are in divine nature, it's not only true for LotR but for our real lives too. At times it happens when our previous mercy or pity saves us from a disaster. This is what I call "miracle". Miracles do happen; and they take place because of the "divine intervention" Prof. talks about. I don't say atheists can not understand these words, but can they understand the depth of Frodo's actions that saved the world in this context?

[Aganzir]

I don't say atheists can not understand these words, but can they understand the depth of Frodo's actions that saved the world in this context?
Watch out lest what you say be interpreted as "You choose not to believe in a higher entity, therefore you're too stupid to understand this book." An attitude like that could well be returned with arrogance. :)

I'd be curious to hear what precisely you mean by "the depth of Frodo's actions" here. You spoke about that and Tom Bombadil's mystery in your first post but I'm not quite sure what you are referring to - there are a gazillion different aspects and ideas and theories to both.

They doubt God's existence in real life. How are they going to understand characters that are directly affected by "God" or "Eru"? Would they take him as a "character"? Or as an energy? If they do so(energy thought), why not think this is true in real life as well?
Because Tolkien's work is fiction. I don't see why enjoying, say, the Ainulindalë should suddenly make one believe in something similar in real life.

I actually do see Eru as a character, but mainly for narrative purposes. He's sort of the personification of the Secret Fire, which, then, is the "energy" you speak about (and which for example the Ainur channel in their work). It's hard to explain a god, isn't it? ;)

[Morthoron]

Being theist does not mean you have to be religious. I'm not "religious" if being religious means belonging to a religion. The better word I use for this is SPRITITUAL. Professor certainly wrote his books for all mankind instead of just religious people. But do all the people understand the books?
I started the thread because my experience with atheists has always been bad, so to speak (and I think most of them are arrogant). They doubt God's existence in real life. How are they going to understand characters that are directly affected by "God" or "Eru"? Would they take him as a "character"? Or as an energy? If they do so(energy thought), why not think this is true in real life as well? Or would they say "in Tolkien's world God existed because he saved the world"?
As Prof. said mercy and pity are in divine nature, it's not only true for LotR but for our real lives too. At times it happens when our previous mercy or pity saves us from a disaster. This is what I call "miracle". Miracles do happen; and they take place because of the "divine intervention" Prof. talks about. I don't say atheists can not understand these words, but can they understand the depth of Frodo's actions that saved the world in this context?

I am an atheist. I more than likely understand the context Tolkien wrote in better than you do. No, I take that back: I am certain I understand the context of Tolkien's entire corpus better than you do. So please, don't preach to the rest of us.

[Nogrod]

I think we might actually have a really interesting question here.

I don't say atheists can not understand these words, but can they understand the depthOkay, I edited the specific example out from the end of the quote to kind of stress what I think is interesting here.

So. If we have a piece of fiction and in there a fictional reality where some divine forces (internal to that fictious world) are at play, but which at the same time refer to actual religious or spiritual views held by some people in the Real World outside that work of fiction, is it then so, that those people who hold those beliefs in the Real Life kind of "get more" from that fiction than those who do not actually believe in those views?

I mean it is easy to say that if a fiction is written based on a particular world-view then the one who knows and understands the world-view in depth has better chances of understanding what the author has possibly meant and probably has a "deeper understanding" of the work than one who doesn't know much about the world-view in question.

But that's something based on knowledge, not on faith or personal belief.

I have always thought of myself as an enlightened reader of Tolkien's work because of my pretty extensive studies on humanities (like philosophy, literature, different mythologies, religions, general history of ideas, cultural anthropology and Christian religion - it's history, different doxa, sociology, psychology... - etc.). So I can see where Tolkien uses fex. the idea of providence, or where he gets inspired or plays with the ideas of grace, forgiveness, faith, sacrifice... and what is the status of these ideas in different versions of Christian belief - and how Tolkien kind of sides with certain interpretations and ignores some others - and oftentimes blends and sets them up side by side with many pagan beliefs and...

But how does my reading or understanding of Tolkien differ from the reading by someone who actually believes in some of the metaphysical views Tolkien uses as the basis of his story in real life?

That might indeed be a question worth pondering.

My first reaction would be that the experiences between a believer and non-believer would be different indeed. But if we have fex. a believer with only shallow understanding of the issues s/he believes in and a non-believer who has a thorough understanding of them, which one of them would then have the desired or "deep" understanding (it looks like you think there is a desired way to understand LotR)?

Or is it reasonable in a first place to put different readings of a work on a scale where some are worthy of praise or desirable and others are not?

Well. These are interesting questions...

[Lotrelf]

I am an atheist. I more than likely understand the context Tolkien wrote in better than you do. No, I take that back: I am certain I understand the context of Tolkien's entire corpus better than you do. So please, don't preach to the rest of us.

Obviously you do. I didn't deny the fact. My post was not meant to offend you or anyone. No, it wasn't. This thread I started to know the fact, more than discussing it. And I do not think you have any problem if I put up the questions to you or anyone here. I thank you for clarifying this misconception of mine.

[Lotrelf]

Watch out lest what you say be interpreted as "You choose not to believe in a higher entity, therefore you're too stupid to understand this book." An attitude like that could well be returned with arrogance. :)
That post of mine was not about the books; but in general. I see people in general who are atheists are very rude and arrogant. I've had many debates with folks who don't believe in God. This is where the "arrogant" thought came to me from.

I'd be curious to hear what precisely you mean by "the depth of Frodo's actions" here. You spoke about that and Tom Bombadil's mystery in your first post but I'm not quite sure what you are referring to - there are a gazillion different aspects and ideas and theories to both.

By the actions of Frodo I meant that there's more divinity in the scene than any direct action. Frodo destroys the Ring not by himself but by mercy and pity: that's in the divine nature. So, how does an atheist see this? As a moral failure? Misadventure of Gollum? I'd like to know that.
I gave Tom Bombadil's example to say that there's a lot about the books and characters that most can not interprete on their own. Many say whatever the interpretation of his character is done is false. Some see him as Evil. Some see him as Eru. So, in simple words: It is not easy to get all the facts just like that. And be it theist of atheist, we all find it hard to get many things about the book. Even those who are reading the books for decades. If there's another theory, please let me know.
Because Tolkien's work is fiction. I don't see why enjoying, say, the Ainulindal�0Š5 should suddenly make one believe in something similar in real life.
I didn't say if one would start believing in God after reading The Silm. I meant that can they really understand the meaning of it? May be they can. I'm proved wrong. *shrugs*
I actually do see Eru as a character, but mainly for narrative purposes. He's sort of the personification of the Secret Fire, which, then, is the "energy" you speak about (and which for example the Ainur channel in their work). It's hard to explain a god, isn't it? ;)
So do I. Eru is a fictional character but with lots of(or almost) real life values. We expect him to be perfect. Is he? He created both good and evil. Like in our world. Things in the fiction of Prof. Tolkien and in our real world are not too different. That's the reason I believed that atheists can't understand or appreciate the books.

[Mithalwen]

I have found many Christians rude and arrogant...even back in the day when I counted myself as a believer and was thus ashamed by the association. Nothing like an unshakeable bdlief in being right and righteous to make someone totally obnoxious in my experience.

It is knowledge that is the key to understanding not belief.

[Andsigil]

I have found many Christians rude and arrogant...even back in the day when I counted myself as a believer and was thus ashamed by the association. Nothing like an unshakeable bdlief in being right and righteous to make someone totally obnoxious in my experience.

It is knowledge that is the key to understanding not belief.

I've found the same thing about the current, strident crop of atheists lately. What a coincidence, yes?

[Inziladun]

This thread has an explosive potential, though the topic itself is quite interesting.

I'm merely going to say that I think Tolkien, though a Christian himself, deliberately wrote LOTR in a way that was thought-provoking and accessible to every reader. There are various truths and meanings that persons of different spiritual and intellectual bents can derive from these works. Hence, an internet forum over ten years old and still going strong, devoted to them. :)

[Zigûr]

I started the thread because my experience with atheists has always been bad, so to speak (and I think most of them are arrogant).
I have found many Christians rude and arrogant.
I've found the same thing about the current, strident crop of atheists lately. What a coincidence, yes?
I would argue that the important thing to realise is that people are not strident or arrogant or what have you because of their beliefs but because of their personalities. Being a Christian, an atheist, of any other belief or ideology does not make one arrogant, in my opinion, but arrogant people will use those things as a bludgeon to try to quash differing opinions or points of view which threaten their own self-image. For this reason I would argue that we ought to avoid generalisations wherever possible.

Returning to Professor Tolkien's work more specifically, I find the question of a generalised spirituality, setting any specifically Catholic doctrine aside, to not be irreconcilable with a non-spiritual view of the world. What are the most spiritual elements of the text, then?

1) The idea that there are 'divine' forces at work in the world: Eru, the Valar etc. I think even in a non-spiritual sense it is possible to appreciate the idea that human power has severe limitations in the grand scope of time and space, and that history is complex and rife with the unexpected, that evil will not always triumph and so on.

2) Mercy, pity and self-sacrifice: I don't think compassion and altruism need to be considered 'divine' traits but that from a non-spiritual point of view they can derive from a recognition of weakness and suffering in others as we ourselves are weak and suffer. Ultimately I would link this back again, I suppose, to a recognition of human limitations.

I am neither a religious nor a spiritual person. I don't know for sure what I would classify myself as: I'm not overly keen on "labeling" myself in any sense. Lately in fact thoughts have been troubling me when I consider Professor Tolkien's faith and the "catholicity" of his work and whether I'm to any extent a hypocrite for appreciating it as I do. I think the internal consistency of the narrative helps a great deal, however, what with the account of Eru, the Valar, the Ainulindalë and so forth, and again the recognition that the themes of the work, in my opinion, have great relevance to human life regardless of beliefs.

[Galadriel55]

Being theist does not mean you have to be religious. I'm not "religious" if being religious means belonging to a religion. The better word I use for this is SPRITITUAL.

You stole my thought, Lotrelf. ;) I was just catching up on this thread and thinking that it's more about the spitiruality of the person than his religious denomination.

I'm not an atheist, but I don't assign myself to any religious dimension. I have more than slightly visible paganistic tendencies, or pantheistic maybe, or panentheistic, or whatever they call it, except that I'm neither really. I've been educated in two different monotheistic systems of belief, but at a certain point I decided that it's not so much that religion is rubbish and therefore God doesn't exist as organized (and especially monotheistic) religion is unappealing to me and therefore I don't like it. And, now that I think of it, around the same age I stopped liking the beginning-of-The-Sil backdrop - the more organized "theology" of the legendarium. Yeah, I don't appreciate it enough, most likely. However, I can't appreciate more the more mysterious references to the more obscure "fate" in LOTR. (And I've always loved the First Age tragedies, they remain amazing no matter what :p)

So can I appreciate LOTR? (hint: if you answer "no" to this question, you will suffer a slow and painful... lecture :p). I can understand the relationship of Eru-Valar-World, but it doesn't feel right, or maybe doesn't appeal to me. I can still put myself in that perspective's shoes, though.

[Morthoron]

I'm not an atheist, but I don't assign myself to any religious dimension. I have more than slightly paganistic tedencies....

Good lord! G55 eats Christian babies!

Just when you think you know someone, they get all pagan on you.;)

[Galadriel55]

Good lord! G55 eats Christian babies!

They're best stewed with some spices and vegetables, if you have some at hand. The whole trick is not to put too much pepper.

;)


EDIT: well, crap, I've just wasted my 6000th post on this joke. After WEEKS of making sure I don't miss the anniversary. Blargh!

EDIT2: On a second thought, what better way to spend an anniversary post? :D

[IxnaY AintsaY]

I'm a devout agnostic, and I'll admit that the dependence of LoTR's plot on miracles, faith, and divine inspiration bothers me somewhat. But the work has enough other themes that I understand better or more intuitively that the whole still resonates.

Whether I understand "the depth" of it as well as I would if were a person of faith, I have no idea. But I'd guess one might as well ask similar questions with regards to having "scholarly credentials in philology", or "experience fighting in World War I", or "a West Midlands English middle-class background circa the late 19th and early 20th centuries."

Jeeze, it's some kind of miracle any of us understands the book in the slightest. :p

[Mithalwen]

I've found the same thing about the current, strident crop of atheists lately. What a coincidence, yes?

Almost certainly not. Extremists tend to have more in common with the opposing extreme than The inbetweeners and no one group has a monopoly on arrogance. Or indeed goodness and morality.

[Formendacil]

My initial inclination was to ignore this topic and given its inflammability, perhaps that would have been the better choice, but I've been ruminating on it and have been driven from my tree-like state into movement.

As with some prior posters, my reaction to the bare question "can atheists appreciate/understand The Lord of the Rings?" was "well, obviously they can." A lack of belief doesn't not mean the inability to understand a belief or to appreciate the artistry of something created under a belief. If it did, there were would have been a sharp decline in the appreciation of Bach and Michelangelo (to name but two) in the past century--or, to name some non-Christian religious art that has seen *increased* interest from those not sharing the faith of the original artists, in ancient Egyptian art in the past two centuries.

My second thought was that asking the question seems to fly a bit in the face of Tolkien-as-anti-allegorist. Although Christian apologists have flocked to The Lord of the Rings as their standard, Tolkien was much more ambivalent about the specificity of his faith in the work than, say, C.S. Lewis--let alone most of these apologists. The whole point of applicability-vs-allegory seems, to me, to be that the work can be appreciated as a story-in-itself by anyone.

That said, speaking out of my own intensely subjective experience as a Catholic sharing Tolkien's faith, this question isn't completely pointless, even if (first language barrier being in play?) it has to be sifted a little to get there. As I said, there is no bar to the capacity of an atheist or non-Catholic generally to comprehend or appreciate what Tolkien is doing, nor is The Lord of the Rings itself designed to be exclusive to non-Catholic/non-religious readers--yet, perhaps, I would be willing to admit that there's a certain intuitiveness that comes to sharing the perspective of the original author.

Of course, born a century later in the New World and lacking Tolkien's strong classical education--to say nothing of linguistic virtuosity--I do not dare say anything that remotely suggests I can read his mind, but certain analogies or impressions come to me automatically that I think do not come to others. When Tolkien says that The Lord of the Rings was an unconsciously Catholic work in the writing and conscious in the revision, I feel like I have a sense of what he is saying, and when he compares the eucatastrophes of his work to The Eucatastrophe of the Resurrection, it's not as though "ah, that's what he's going for" clicks on in my head, because it's already natural to my sense of storytelling (derived from my metaphysics of reality) that is how stories work.

I would add, too, that this is not the sort of intuitivity that is limited to shared religious belief. As I noted before, I do not share all of Tolkien's formative elements. I am not a philogist at all (though, thanks to Tolkien, I have frequently wished I were), but it is apparent to me that when a philogist reads Tolkien they *get* that side of him--this is, at its heart I think, why Shippey is such a good and instructive commentator on Tolkien: because there is one major element of Tolkien that comes to him with such naturalness.

This is not to say that any intuitivity is *needed*--all the connections that a linguist or a Catholic or an Englishman would make intuitively can be made with study by a non-linguist, a non-Catholic, a foreigner. Can be made and have been made. And if this extra effort (however minor or major it may be in individual cases) is required, Tolkien's storytelling is such that he invites the effort and encourages the exploration. The mark of a good professor, I suppose, as well as a good storyteller.

[Lotrelf]

Ugh! I'm just wondering if I need to defend myself here! The question wasn't asked to hurt anyone's feelings, beliefs, ideas be it believers or non-believers, theists or atheists, spiritual or non-spiritual. It was a general query.
The question rose in my mind because LotR's characters are Spiritual and has lots of stuff that connects this book to real life beliefs too. Atheists tend to ignore this all. Recently I came across someone who reads the books and is non-believer and asked him to read LotR. He just denied saying it is "crap" (see? Arrogance!). There are many people who I met on Facebook and are non-believers and atheists. I personally haven't seen anyone who is as good as being mentioned here.
By understanding I meant to point out the religious (or spiritual) beliefs that are in the book. And if everyone understands and loves the book like that, it's a good thing, and very much proud too.
P.S.: Now PLEASE don't take anything in a wrong way. I meant no harm to anyone.

[Inziladun]

Don't worry, Lotrelf. It is a valid topic. It's just that, like some other issues, threads touching on religion tend to have a polarizing effect on people depending on one's personal beliefs.

I personally am a Christ-follower, so what I take from these books is highly unlikely to match that of an atheist. But I reiterate that I believe Tolkien's works have immense value for any who take the time to read them, while opening their minds to the experience.

[Mithalwen]

It is a valid topic but it could have been phrased better without the assumptions... an observation not an attack nb. It is a very complex though since individual readers of Tolkien are going to be at different points on various spectrums that may have a factor in their understanding and appreciationof different aspects of Tolkien's work.

Then belief and understanding are not the same.Nor perhaps are understanding and knowledge -the distinction the French make between savoir and connaître. I haven't lost my knowledge and understanding of religion with my loss of faith.

Yes things will be more obvious or resonate if they chime with one's own experience Having roots in the same part of England may help my appreciation, or. y fascination with language but does that count for more than a Finn or Norse scholar's familiarity with the Kalevala and Eddas? Maybe the mathmagicians could work out a formula to decide if a sincere but otherwise ignorant believer has a deeper appreciation than a learned atheist, but it does rather head towards a method acting approach to literary appreciation. It is rather insulting to the human powers of imagination and empathy to think you have to be like the author or stories have to be "relatable". Stories let us try on another's life, another worldview, lead us to find out more and perhaps thereby increase in understanding and compassion.

Not forgetting of course that as our lives may affect our understanding of books, books may affect our understanding of our lives. I don't quite have a "What would Elrond do?" wristband but I discovered Mordor takes many forms.

[Morthoron]

It is a valid topic but it could have been phrased better without the assumptions... an observation not an attack nb. It is a very complex though since individual readers of Tolkien are going to be at different points on various spectrums that may have a factor in their understanding and appreciationof different aspects of Tolkien's work.

Then belief and understanding are not the same.Nor perhaps are understanding and knowledge -the distinction the French make between savoir and connaître. I haven't lost my knowledge and understanding of religion with my loss of faith.

Yes things will be more obvious or resonate if they chime with one's own experience Having roots in the same part of England may help my appreciation, or. y fascination with language but does that count for more than a Finn or Norse scholar's familiarity with the Kalevala and Eddas? Maybe the mathmagicians could work out a formula to decide if a sincere but otherwise ignorant believer has a deeper appreciation than a learned atheist, but it does rather head towards a method acting approach to literary appreciation. It is rather insulting to the human powers of imagination and empathy to think you have to be like the author or stories have to be "relatable". Stories let us try on another's life, another worldview, lead us to find out more and perhaps thereby increase in understanding and compassion.

Not forgetting of course that as our lives may affect our understanding of books, books may affect our understanding of our lives. I don't quite have a "What would Elrond do?" wristband but I discovered Mordor takes many forms.

What irked me originally was the fallacious assumption that an atheist cannot comprehend Tolkien's symbology. People aren't born atheist, any more than they are born Catholic (ignoring Monty Python's song implying you're Catholic the moment dad did his duty with mum). It is based on your experience and most often on your familial background.

I was raised a Catholic -- yes, laughably, the Dark Elf was even an altar boy and an acolyte up to age 11 -- and I went to Catholic school. I understand Catholic dogma, and as a medievalist I have researched the Church and its doctrines moreso than many adherents who wash up and go to mass on Sunday, whether they need to or not.

I understand Tolkien's applicability and his Catholicism, but I reject Catholic doctrines in a real-life worldview; after all, isn't it the running joke that most atheists were once Catholics? I reject the Catholic worldview in reality, just as I reject the idea of a benevolent deity floating about benignly in the ether spraying his blessings about while mankind commits genocide. That, however, does not mean I cannot appreciate the deftness by which Tolkien built his subcreation.

On the contrary, and as I stated before, his is a synthesis of varying mythos that is transformative and unique in all of literature. His creation outdoes the biblical version in beauty and awe. It is great as a myth goes, just as there are great myths in the Eddas and Sagas, the Grecian works of Homer and Plato, the Mabingion, the Finnish Kalavela and the bible. And to really understand Tolkien, you must have a grasp of all these to truly appreciate his Middle-earth. But you don't have to accept Elves or Trolls as being real to appreciate it, any more than you have to accept Eru as the monotheistic god of Christianity.

[wilwarin538]

I was raised a Christian, and read the books for the first time when I still was and I remember especially with the Ainulindale feeling very 'connected' to what Tolkien wrote, and it really held a lot of deep meaning for me. Similarly, when I read the Narnia books, those really touched me and I saw Christian symbolism everywhere and I enjoyed them all the more because of it.

For the past three years, after quite the journey, I am an atheist (might shock a few people!), and though I think of these books in a different way I don't think I necessarily appreciate them any less. As I now view the Bible as an impressive work of (fictional) literature and still appreciate it for it's literary value, I hold that same appreciation towards Tolkien's and Lewis' works.

I love Tolkien's books just as much as I did before. I do think that my intensive knowledge of Christianity has made the symbolism more obvious than someone without that knowledge, but not to the point where I wouldn't have appreciated or understood the books otherwise. With Narnia the symbolism is way more blatant, I remember seeing the first film with a non-religious friend who didn't pick up on any of the symbolism, but it didn't stop them from enjoying it and understanding the plot (though it does sort of make it less enjoyable now for me, because it's just so blatant it brings up bad feelings, LotR is certainly not near that point).

Basically, I think there are religious aspects to Tolkien, but it isn't actually necessary for someone to be religious to understand or appreciate those aspects, and as someone who has had both mind sets when reading them it did not at all diminish my love or appreciation of the books, I perhaps wasn't "spiritually" connected to them anymore, but the religious aspects of the books didn't turn me off at all, because they aren't really blatant enough in my opinion, but rather very subtle.

So yeah, my complete turn-around in perspective did not at all change the way I see LotR, I love it just as much, if not more.

[Nerwen]

Amazing. A thread like this hasn't turned into a flame war within half-a-dozen posts? Truly an internet first!

[Inziladun]

Amazing. A thread like this hasn't turned into a flame war within half-a-dozen posts? Truly an internet first!

I think that's a big part of why this forum has endured so long.

And now, on to the Middle-earth Climate Change debate: natural, or Morgoth made? ;)

[cellurdur]

I see no reason why atheists cannot understand or appreciate LOTR, but I think it's generally hard to like a film, which goes against your morals and beliefs. The LOTR is a very catholic book, more than Tolkien probably intended, but it's virtually impossible for an authors beliefs to not seep into his work.

Knowledge of Catholic doctrine and philosophy would probably enhance the story, but book knowledge not mean you belief in something.

Ultimately I think some atheist would struggle to by the numerous times Eru intervenes to save the day. That being said Kingdom of Heaven is a film I completely disagree with, but I still love the film.

[Lotrelf]

It is a valid topic but it could have been phrased better without the assumptions... an observation not an attack nb.
I understand what you mean. The reason for my first post got posted they way it did is partially because English is not my first language. Yes, English is given a place in Indian Constitution like many other Indian languages; but not many, in my area, think it is good to speak English. Another reason is that I have never met a Christian. I don't know what their beliefs are or what terms they use. Had I known this my post would have been better.
This is another my "defence" post. Thanks for enduring.

[Zigûr]

I see no reason why atheists cannot understand or appreciate LOTR, but I think it's generally hard to like a film, which goes against your morals and beliefs.
Courage, hope, self-sacrifice, refusal of power, acceptance of the inevitability of change: are these solely theistic (or Christian, or Catholic) beliefs? The Lord of the Rings doesn't go against my morals or beliefs because a) I think a lot of its morals are universally good, and b) I don't think a reader has to believe in god, fate or providence in the real world to accept that god, fate and providence can exist in a story.

Frodo destroys the Ring not by himself but by mercy and pity: that's in the divine nature. So, how does an atheist see this? As a moral failure? Misadventure of Gollum? I'd like to know that.
I suppose The Lord of the Rings in isolation is sufficiently ambiguous about things (is Eru mentioned specifically anywhere outside the Appendices as 'the One'?) but within the context of the broader corpus of literature it's observable that in the narrative there is a god (Eru) who does influence things, subtly in some cases and directly in others. It'd seem bizarre to me if an atheist didn't consider the god within the world of a fictional narrative to be real.

Ultimately I think some atheist would struggle to by the numerous times Eru intervenes to save the day.
In all honesty I find some of Eru's actions to be rather inscrutable, or rather his fluctuating levels of involvement, but I don't think I struggle to "buy" his role in the narrative because, well, if Professor Tolkien says that's what happened then that's what happened. But that's a story of his invention. Surely it's entirely reasonable to differentiate between that and reality.

I agree that a particular faith or system of belief may influence one's reading of a text but in my opinion there are so many different beliefs and ideologies that it doesn't work to simply draw a line between atheists and all forms of spiritual belief and say that the latter are predisposed to "get it" better than the former. Many forms of "belief" are vastly different from Professor Tolkien's Catholicism and have different values and ethics despite still believing in a spiritual sphere of existence.

[Mithalwen]

I understand what you mean. The reason for my first post got posted they way it did is partially because English is not my first language. Yes, English is given a place in Indian Constitution like many other Indian languages; but not many, in my area, think it is good to speak English. Another reason is that I have never met a Christian. I don't know what their beliefs are or what terms they use. Had I known this my post would have been better.
This is another my "defence" post. Thanks for enduring.

Ah well there is quite a range of Christian belief, and also a range of unbelief. I would call my self agnostic rather than atheist and still regard myself as culturally Christian. But then a UK anglican upbringing is fairly low key as such things go and perhaps less likely to inspire rebellion. So iam in a different situation to Morth and both of us are different to someone who had no religious element to their upbringing and these days that is increasingly common.

[cellurdur]

Courage, hope, self-sacrifice, refusal of power, acceptance of the inevitability of change: are these solely theistic (or Christian, or Catholic) beliefs? The Lord of the Rings doesn't go against my morals or beliefs because a) I think a lot of its morals are universally good, and b) I don't think a reader has to believe in god, fate or providence in the real world to accept that god, fate and providence can exist in a story.

The 'hope' in LOTR is actually solely a Christian belief as is the acceptance of the inevitable change. The hope in Catholicism comes from the belief that God will never let humanity completely fall. To quote Hurin there is always a belief that 'Day shall come again'. However, at the same time Man has been in a downward spiral since the Fall and things will get worse. The latter is not strictly Catholic, but found in numerous religions and mythologies from Greek to African. Numenor will never happen again and even Aragorn is the last of the Numenoreans.

Nor does LOTR have any kind of theme about rejecting power. There is nothing wrong with power, when it is something innately yours or taking up your responsibility.

However, the biggest theme of the books and the mythology as a whole is Death and how we cope with the fact that one day we will die.

In all honesty I find some of Eru's actions to be rather inscrutable, or rather his fluctuating levels of involvement, but I don't think I struggle to "buy" his role in the narrative because, well, if Professor Tolkien says that's what happened then that's what happened. But that's a story of his invention. Surely it's entirely reasonable to differentiate between that and reality.

I agree that a particular faith or system of belief may influence one's reading of a text but in my opinion there are so many different beliefs and ideologies that it doesn't work to simply draw a line between atheists and all forms of spiritual belief and say that the latter are predisposed to "get it" better than the former. Many forms of "belief" are vastly different from Professor Tolkien's Catholicism and have different values and ethics despite still believing in a spiritual sphere of existence.
Maybe "buy" is not the correct word, maybe accept is more useful. I agree with you though it is too wide to draw a line between atheist and belief in God. I personally am agnostic, but was raised Catholic. Whilst I am no longer Catholic and I am agnostic, I would struggle to enjoy any story, which was anti-Catholic in nature like say the Dark Materials books.

[Zigûr]

The 'hope' in LOTR is actually solely a Christian belief as is the acceptance of the inevitable change.
Professor Tolkien may have written about them in a Christian way but my point is that personally I don't think we have to appreciate them from a Christian point of view, as I've already argued. I think much of The Lord of the Rings can be read (but does not have to be read) in terms of human limitations: applicability as opposed to allegory. But that's just how I tend to read it. I don't think there's a single, unilateral reading of the text and that other readings are bunk. Which leads me on to:

Nor does LOTR have any kind of theme about rejecting power. There is nothing wrong with power, when it is something innately yours or taking up your responsibility.
Maybe I should have said a rejection of totalitarianism, which is to say "power" in the sense of the capacity of an individual to force others to do and even to be what the power-wielder wants. I know Professor Tolkien says in his letters that it's not the main issue, but it nevertheless is part of the whole scheme. Of course the text seems to value leadership, responsibility and strength.

I suppose it's because of my own opinions (I won't say "beliefs") that I tend to generalise and abstract the ideas about "death and the desire for deathlessness" to apply more generally to "change and the desire for changelessness" but personally I think that's borne out in the text, especially in terms of the relationship between human lives and the passage of history.

[Aganzir]

And now, on to the Middle-earth Climate Change debate: natural, or Morgoth made? ;)
From the Silmarillion, it seems very clear Morgoth is responsible for a lot of the climatic unbalance in the First Age and before (as well as a number of natural catastrophies)! While we have to keep in mind the Silmarillion is mostly written from the Noldor's point of view and they are very unreliable narrators, especially when it comes to Morgoth, a few quotes from the pre-Noldor era need to be brought up in this context.

...and the light of the eyes of Melkor was like a flame that withers with heat and pierces with a deadly cold.
The combination of unexpected heat/cold exists from the very start. These seem to be among Melkor's dominant passions.

He hath bethought him of bitter cold immoderate, and yet hath not destroyed the beauty of the fountains, nor of my clear pools. Behold the snow, and the cunning work of frost! Melkor hath devised heats and fire without restraint, and hath not dried up thy desire nor utterly quelled the music of the sea. Behold rather the height and glory of the clouds, and the everchanging mists; and listen to the fall of rain upon the earth!
It seems very much that not only did Melkor create ice and clouds, but the Climate Change was brought into the Music as part of his discord.

And seeing now his time he drew near again to Arda, and looked down upon it, and the beauty of the Earth in its Spring filled him the more with hate.
And so was the Spring of Arda marred - Melkor seemed to hate everything in its natural state. His need to corrupt reached even the nature and, I would argue, the climate.

Slow was their going by twilight or by night in the pathless wilds, and the fell winter came down swiftly from the realm of Morgoth.
This quote implies Morgoth had indeed some control over the climate. Of course the phrasing could be a result of Thangorodrim's northern location, but given Morgoth's earlier pendant for fine-tuning the weather, we can't rule out the option that the fell winter (and other such occasions) were entirely his doing. After all, we know even Saruman, who is considerably less mighty than Morgoth, could do all sorts of things with the weather.

Also, think about the fires they burned in Angband and Morgoth's other strongholds. Think about the dragons and the balrogs. It's not far-fetched at all to say that a horde of these spirits of fire could have raised the average temperature in Middle-earth by a couple of degrees during their main era of wreaking havoc.

Based on this, I'm led to the conclusion that the Peoples of Middle-earth had very little to do with the changes in the climate, but it was mostly the Enemies' doing. They played a major part in teaching Men and Hobbits the art of pollution, too - mainly Saruman here, what with everything he did at Isengard and in the Shire.

[jallanite]

In theory, Christians, in particular Roman Catholics, ought to appreciate The Lord of the Rings more than non-Christians. In fact Tolkien has more arguments and disagreements with obvious Roman Catholics in the book Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien than with anyone else.

The Lord of the Rings is obviously a fictional work. Manwë and Varda never existed, ever. The earth was never flat. Gandalf never existed. Hairy-footed hobbits never existed. Tom Bombadil never existed. Númenor never existed. Ents never existed. None of these things has any connection to Christianity.

But anyone who attempts to read The Lord of the Rings as though it were real is badly misreading it. Tolkien in his essay “On Fairy Stories” makes it clear that fairy tales, attract, to those who find them attractive, by their very unreality. The story The Juniper Tree is, according to Tolkien, an amazing tale. I agree. But it is not in the least realistic. It is not in the least Christian. Nor is it any kind of allegory. It is pure fantasy.

Lotrelf seems to miss that Christian theists are as ready to misread Tolkien as anyone. Anne Marie Gazzolo’s Moments of Grace and Spiritual Warfare in The Lord of the Rings I found to be hideous pious piffle, to take a recent example. And there are other well-known Tolkien fans who I find to my taste to be pure evil.

Tolkien himself very much enjoyed David Lindsey’s A Voyage to Arcturus, a gnostic tale in which the moral is that pain is the sole virtue. In later life Tolkien found at least some of George MacDonald’s fantasy works unreadable and loathed C. S. Lewis’ Narnia books. Like everyone, Tolkien had individual tastes which were not always in synch with his fans. He liked what he liked.

Personally I left the Mythopoeic Society years ago because of my revulsion for its leader, Glen GoodKnight, a purported Christian, and a person whom I grew to loathe for his continual flagrant dishonesty. Eventually the Society, who had previously made him permanent president, realized they could legally get rid of his influence by just removing all presidential duties, and did so. Glen was still president, legally, but had no further duties or responsibilities or role.

Note that Tolkien’s religion was, despite what is often claimed, not so Catholic as is often claimed. Tolkien, in his fantasy, did not claim death was brought on humans as a punishment for eating the forbidden fruit. Tolkien very much disagreed with some of the reforms of Vatican II, notably the replacement of Latin in the church service. In his fantasy he avoids anything like a parish priest.

See http://bustedhalo.com/features/of-god-tolkien-and-hobbits for the statement:

Scholars of Tolkien, including Matthew Dickerson, author of A Hobbit Journey, (http://www.amazon.com/Hobbit-Journey-Discovering-Enchantment-Middle-earth/dp/1587433001/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355522011&sr=1-1&keywords=a+hobbit+journey) adds that the Lembas, the thin small cakes that the elves make and eat, have sacramental or even Eucharistic connotations.

Wait a minute. How can lembas have “Eucharistic connotations” when it is supposedly consumed thousands of years before Jesus was born.

Dickerson says that Marian imagery also abounds in Tolkien’s work. “The Vala Elbereth, also called Varda, is certainly a Marian figure. She is a venerated and revered queen, whom the elves of Middle-earth call upon in times of need. Her name alone has power, and when those in need call upon her, help comes.”

The problem is that the same is true when in old legends believers call on pagan goddesses, and Elbereth, again, is supposed to exist thousands of years before the Virgin Mary was even born. And Elbereth has no son.

I am, or was, in personal communication with a fan who similarly believed, and presumably still believes, that Goldberry is really the Virgin Mary.

[Inziladun]

The Lord of the Rings is obviously a fictional work. Manwë and Varda never existed, ever. The earth was never flat. Gandalf never existed. Hairy-footed hobbits never existed. Númenor never existed. Ents never existed. None of these things has any connection to Christianity.

I don't think anyone would dispute that.

But anyone who attempts to read The Lord of the Rings as though it were real is badly misreading it. Tolkien in his essay “On Fairy Stories” makes it clear that fairy tales, attract, to those who find them attractive, by their very unreality. The story The Juniper Tree is, according to Tolkien, an amazing tale. I agree. But it is not in the least realistic. Nor is it any kind of allegory. It is pure fantasy.

Of course LOTR is a fantasy, and I have never met anyone who arose in the morning and went to the local tall hill to worship Eru Ilúvatar. But that is not to say that there cannot exist ideals and characters in the books that could have a particular resonance for a reader, whether they see the works from a Christian perspective, or not. The freedom to interpret a work as one reads is of vital importance, and why would anyone bother to read any work of fiction, if they were told they must limit themselves in what they take from it?

[jallanite]

The freedom to interpret a work as one reads is of vital importance, and why would anyone bother to read any work of fiction, if they were told they must limit themselves in what they take from it?

Do you mean that there is no point in reading anything in any fiction if one must in any way limit oneself? I am unaware that I am in any way limiting your freedom. Believe whatever you wish. And allow me the same privilege to disbelieve in Bilbo Baggins, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, and Peter Pan.

I strongly believe that one should not take Ents, or Hobbits, or Elves as factual. Why should this bother you? Is it ok to believe that Goldberry is really the Virgin Mary?

Believe whatever you wish. I have no power to limit your beliefs.

[Nogrod]

Even if I agree with the contents of your burst Jallanite, I would suggest we'd do well to steer this discussion back to those dimensions we can have an enlightened exchange of ideas on. I mean this atheism / theism and real / not real - POV gets us nowhere but into arguments which heat up unnecessarily...

I was kind of intrigued by the idea that if you were a devout Catholic, would you then enjoy or "understand" the work more deeply?

The former of course means something like an old time Catholic aka. agreeing with and believing in most of the prof's world-view from which he wrote his work - unlike many modern-day "true-Christians" who have all these frivolous ideas that they have the "fundamentals" of Christianity right when they have ultra-liberal and over-individualistic beliefs which people of the past, like the prof. or people in the Middle-ages, would have abhorred!

But would fex. Formendacil have a deeper understanding of the books as he is both a theologian and a firm Catholic?


In literary-studies the POV of the author has been held to be the key to understanding any work for a long time - with some marked counter-trends of course (which should not be passed with just a shrug as they have good points)... but just taken at the face-value it looks "natural" to say that you understand a work when you understand what the author was trying to say.

And if the author has a deeply religious world-view - even if he tries to keep that at bay or thinks he's looking at things from a wider perspective, from something like a shared human mythological POV in the first place - wouldn't that apply then? That someone sharing some of the basic metaphysical views with Tolkien would be more deeply moved or would feel the story more "deeply" in comparison to someone who only "knows" the theological and mythical aspects referred to in the books, even iof that was a result of decades of intensive humanistic studies?

So does sharing beliefs with the author add something to the experience, or to the understanding of a work?

To me that is a perplexing question as I have always thought I have a deep understanding of Tolkien's world just because I know a lot of different religions (and their theological schisms & their history), myths, general history of ideas & philosophy etc. But would it be different if I also believed in those things?

[jallanite]

I’m not sure what a devout Catholic is any more. But devout Catholics are under no compulsion or necessity to believe in Valar, Elves, Númenoreans, Hobbits, Trolls, Balrogs, or Tom Tombadil. Indeed the default pure Catholic position seems to me to be not to believe in any of them.

This is where Lotrelf’s position seems to me to be odd. Why should Christians have a better understanding of Tolkien than non-Christians, when much of The Lord of the Rings tells of things not believed by either Christians or non-Christians very much or at all? The events in the story are supposed to have occurred ages before the Virgin May or Jesus Christ were born or prophesied.

And that also is recognized by the author as nonsense. The religion practiced by Men and Hobbits is deliberately kept vague. No-one goes regularly to church or to temple.

[Lotrelf]

In theory, Christians, in particular Roman Catholics, ought to appreciate The Lord of the Rings more than non-Christians. In fact Tolkien has more arguments and disagreements with obvious Roman Catholics in the book Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien than with anyone else.

The Lord of the Rings is obviously a fictional work. Manw�0Š5 and Varda never existed, ever. The earth was never flat. Gandalf never existed. Hairy-footed hobbits never existed. Tom Bombadil never existed. N¨²menor never existed. Ents never existed. None of these things has any connection to Christianity.

But anyone who attempts to read The Lord of the Rings as though it were real is badly misreading it. Tolkien in his essay ¡°On Fairy Stories¡± makes it clear that fairy tales, attract, to those who find them attractive, by their very unreality. The story The Juniper Tree is, according to Tolkien, an amazing tale. I agree. But it is not in the least realistic. It is not in the least Christian. Nor is it any kind of allegory. It is pure fantasy.
No character of Professor's books exist in real life. Reality in not derived from fiction, fiction comes from reality. The ideals Professor represents are those that exist in real life. No Hobbit existed in real life, no dwarf, no wizard, no one. But their ideals do. There are still people like Frodo and Gandalf. It does not mean they exist in real life; it simply means these characters' ideals are real. Numenor's did not exist, indeed, but they exist because of reality. I didn't talk about if these characters are real or ever existed; it's all about their ideals and spirituality. And spirituality does not belong to any religion.
Lotrelf seems to miss that Christian theists are as ready to misread Tolkien as anyone. Anne Marie Gazzolo¡¯s Moments of Grace and Spiritual Warfare in The Lord of the Rings I found to be hideous pious piffle, to take a recent example. And there are other well-known Tolkien fans who I find to my taste[...]
It's not just about one religion. Not only Christians readers have read the books. I'm Hindu if we go by the religion, and many other Hindus do not get Hindu Mythology at all. Again, something not concerning any religion but one's spirituality. Many Christians have read our Epics, and they understood them better than many Hindus. As for the book you mentioned above, I've read some of her essays and disagreed with many points she made. I haven't read any other book except two of Professor's LotR & TH. No other book concerning LotR, TH or The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales. So how other authors interprete the text is something out of my understanding. Though I'd agree with you that it is easy to misinterprete the text because of the complexity and literary details. Probably those believers take things far too literally and see everything connected to One? This is what I found in Anne Marrie Gazzolo's essays.

[Nogrod]

devout Catholics are under no compulsion or necessity to believe in Valar, Elves, Númenoreans, Hobbits, Trolls, Balrogs, or Tom Tombadil. Indeed the default pure Catholic position seems to me to be not to believe in any of them.Of course. And I can't see sense in anyone trying to argue that they should.

But if you think of concepts like providence, grace, forgiveness... it's not hard to find these key-concepts of Christianity embedded in the books as some of it's central motives.

Because I have read about them I can see them in the books and even grasp something of how they work there, but if I also believed in them (if they were part of my metaphysical identity), would I then also "feel" them more deeply (or at least differently) while reading the books?

[jallanite]

No Hobbit existed in real life, no dwarf, no wizard, no one. But their ideals do. ... I didn't talk about if these characters are real or ever existed; it's all about their ideals and spirituality. And spirituality does not belong to any religion.

I’m sorry, but if the hobbits, dwarves, and wizards don’t exist, then neither can their ideals, except as fictions by Tolkien.

Also, I rather dislike the term spirituality. It has so many different and conflicting meanings. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality . However I think I get what you mean. Basically I have encountered numerous cases of supposed Tolkien fans who are morally garbage, though others who are very much not. I have not found that a supposed belief in Christianity matters much.

I know and respect some people who greatly dislike Tolkien and want nothing ever again to do with some who claim the opposite. And I admit I may be misled in arriving at some of these evaluations. Basically you have probably found by now in this forum that being a professed Christian confers no status.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Tolkien himself addressed the issue of shared experience between the author and reader, albeit on a different subject.
It is also false , though naturally attractive, when the lives of an author and critic have overlapped, to suppose that the movements of thought or the events of times common to both were necessarily the most powerful influences.
Now, I realise that for Tolkien his religious beliefs genuinely were an important part of his life, and someone who shares them might find a deeper connection to those elements in his work that were inspired by or related to his Catholicism. It is after all one thing to understand a belief system and quite a different thing to accept it as truth and live by its tenets; but that would only be like a soldier finding a deeper resonance in those parts of Tolkien's writings that arose from his military service, or a linguist responding to his philological jokes. The only person who has ever understood Tolkien's work the way he did was J.R.R. Tolkien, and even he changed his mind a number of times, as his letters demonstrate. Any attempt to suggest that our own experiences somehow give us a greater insight than other readers will only look like an attempt to possess Tolkien and his work and make them a part of our own agendas, which is unhelpful for criticism and tiresome to see.

[Galadriel55]

I’m sorry, but if the hobbits, dwarves, and wizards don’t exist, then neither can their ideals, except as fictions by Tolkien.

Are you implying that strength, weakness, mercy, relationships, pride, honour, misunderstanding, despair, rage, madness, and humanity do not exist?

[Lotrelf]

I¡¯m sorry, but if the hobbits, dwarves, and wizards don¡¯t exist, then neither can their ideals, except as fictions by Tolkien.
Why? Why their ideals can't exist in real life? Haven't you seen people like the characters in LotR? I'd be very suprised if you say "No". At many points I identify with these characters, have seen others too. How can their ideals and thoughts be alien to you?
Also, I rather dislike the term spirituality. It has so many different and conflicting meanings. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality . However I think I get what you mean. Basically I have encountered numerous cases of supposed Tolkien fans who are morally garbage, though others who are very much not. I have not found that a supposed belief in Christianity matters much.

I know and respect some people who greatly dislike Tolkien and want nothing ever again to do with some who claim the opposite. And I admit I may be misled in arriving at some of these evaluations. Basically you have probably found by now in this forum that being a professed Christian confers no status.
I don't understand what's there to dislike in the term "spirituality". It might have different meanings--there should be. And yes, I understood from the start that to understand LotR you don't to be Christian, but morally good. I also said how a non-believer with a glance declared the books "crap". It was all because *my experience* and was true. Though I'm proved wrong here, and am glad for that.

[jallanite]

Are you implying that strength, weakness, mercy, relationships, pride, honour, misunderstanding, despair, rage, madness, and humanity do not exist?

Not in the least. I am implying only that fiction is fiction, nothing more

Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged also shows “strength, weakness, mercy, relationships, pride, honour, misunderstanding, despair, rage, madness, and humanity”. So do many other works.

I apologize that I have apparently written so poorly that you have misunderstood me so badly. Tolkien did not attempt to set up a cult around his book, unlike Ayn Rand. Such things, especially when set up by a third party, often go badly. See, for example, http://virtualstoa.net/2002/01/24/8983057/ . I have had very bad experiences with Tolkien fans in the past. Most Tolkien fans are fine. You I find exceptionally fine. But some are liars and thieves and very much not worth dealing with. As with any group, atheists or believers.

I don't understand what's there to dislike in the term "spirituality".

It is used by hypocrites in bad ways and the word has been ruined for me.

I also said how a non-believer with a glance declared the books "crap".

What does that show? A non-believer doesn’t like a book you like. *Sigh!*

In Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, in letter 177, Tolkien writes:I also thought [the poet W. H.] Auden rather bad – he cannot at any rate read verse, having a poor rhythmical sense; and deplored his making the book [The Lord of the Rings] ‘a test of literary taste’. You cannot do that with any work – and if you could you only infuriate.
In the Foreward to the Second Edition to The Lord of the Rings Tolkien writes:Some who have read the book [The Lord of the Rings], or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.
In Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, in letter 294 Tolkien writes, unusually, about his normal reading. Tolkien mentions mainly “the S.F. of Isaac Azimov”, a mistyping for sf author Isaac Asimov, a popular atheist of Jewish birth who was also a fan of Tolkien’s work. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov . Tolkien then mentions the books of Mary Renault, especially The King Must Die and The Bull From the Sea. Mary Renault was known throughout her life as an openly gay writer. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Renault . I think she was also an atheist but am not sure. In any case Tolkien proudly relates that a couple of days ago he had unexpectedly received a card of appreciation from her which he calls “perhaps the piece of ‘Fan-mail’ that gives me most pleasure.”

The only person who has ever understood Tolkien's work the way he did was J.R.R. Tolkien, and even he changed his mind a number of times, as his letters demonstrate. Any attempt to suggest that our own experiences somehow give us a greater insight than other readers will only look like an attempt to possess Tolkien and his work and make them a part of our own agendas, which is unhelpful for criticism and tiresome to see.

Totally agreed. People usually surprise you when you get to know them.

[jallanite]

Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings has often been banned, especially in religious schools, because the authorities wish to protect their charges from unreal tales of wizards and elves (and sex) and so forth. For a charmingly told account with a happy ending of how Lindale’s copy of The Fellowship of the Ring was confiscated by a teacher, see:Once upon a time in a strict all girls Catholic school where even Harry Potter was infamous, a little girl called Lindale who would have her tenth birthday in two weeks saw in the Sunday paper a comparison of JRRT and the forbidden Rowling. She hounded her father, who never really was able to resist her when she was pouting, and three days before her birthday she had a copy of TH, bought at an insane price in the expensive bookstore because the local bookstore currently had none in stock.

The following Christmas, Lindale asked for her usual Harry Potter (number four, I think) and for the complete Lord of the Rings. She got so excited about her Christmas presents, she didn't really think that shoving FotR in her school bag might catch the nuns' attention. When a teacher of home economics saw the poor little girl reading a book that advocated wizards, she confiscated the book. Lindale already had a record of reading HP. She was in bad trouble.

During lunchbreak Lindale was very scared; her Christmas present was gone! She tried not to remember Gollum back in TH screaming about his birthday present. Struggling with whatever wits she had, she headed to the telephone booths and called her mother

...and thus began the bothersome affair of this little girl's book, which included her father threatening the teacher and some of the nuns. And then Lindale thought, whatever trouble that book has caused! It must be good. When she got her book back, weeks later and with a formal apology, Lindale read it very carefully.

And that is how Lindale learned of JRRT, read TH and LotR, and learned about the Inquisition too.

Two years later Lindale hounded her aging father for a copy of Sil and UT. And a little over three months ago she had a tantrum again, claiming she was the last girl without a CoH. Predictably, that spoiled brat has all Tolkien books her father and she could find.
Such tales of confiscating are not so usual nowadays. But see:
http://banninggandalf.weebly.com/satanism.html
http://www.donaanacountyhistsoc.org/HistoricalReview/2013/SNMHR2013art_book%20banning.pdf
http://bannedbooks.world.edu/2011/03/13/banned-book-awareness-lord-rings-jrr-tolkien/But there are still claims on the web that The Lord of the Rings should be not be read, at least by Christians:
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-fantasy-writing-of-tolkien-was.html
http://www.ericbarger.com/lotr.c.c.2.htm
http://bookofjeremiah1eighteennineteen.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/tolkiens-works-are-fables-and-far-from-perfect-in-front-of-godNote that I personally do not agree with any of these posts. But even if any of them were totally correct, there is nothing illegal with any person stating his or her own religious feelings about The Lord of the Rings or about anything they wish. If they wish to make a fool of themself they are at liberty to do so.

I was not able to find any sites in which arrogant atheists suggested that banning The Lord of the Rings would be a good thing. I did find three supposed illuminati sites whose supposed findings are, in my opinion, as bogus as that on the Christian sites I found:
http://www.illuminati-news.com/tolkien-occult.htm
http://www.illuminati-news.com/0/tolkien%281%29.htm
http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/spirituality/tolkien-lewis.htmI suppose that the writers of all six articles would believe that they are all being spiritual.

[Morthoron]

From http://bookofjeremiah1eighteennineteen.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/tolkiens-works-are-fables-and-far-from-perfect-in-front-of-god:

In Tolkien’s fables, Dorwinion is the kingdom of the dwarves. It is really the word “Darwinian”. So Tolkien had this idea that even Christ was inferior, because he was a Hebrew man.

Oh, this fellow is a hoot!

It is also notable that Gollum, the most despised creature in Tolkien’s imagination, was not only enslaved to seeking the master-ring, but was also the only person/creature in Tolkien’s fable described as catching fishes.
In the Bible, God/Christ has eyes that go throughout all the earth (II Chronicles 16:9).

Ummm...bzuh?

There is no resurrection in Tolkien’s fable world. Humanity in his fables are doomed to only have existence in the natural world, without hope of joining the divine. Tolkien’s overall theme is one of enjoy-the-moment (“hobbits”, his idea of forever childhood), but hopeless melancholy about the long-term view of human existence (his description of grown adult men).

It seems he pulls more out of his posterior than just scraps of toilet paper.

The whole “Lord of the Rings” is a perverted fable where, in Tolkien’s foolish imaginations, the gods of his pagan religion triumphs over his distorted portrayal of Christ (the Lord of the churches).

For this poor buffoon, religion is not the opiate of the masses, rather it is a lobotomy.

[demnation]

I am utterly indifferent to faith, spirituality, religion, what have you of any kind, and I still find LOTR to be a fascinating and inspiring piece of work. I'm of the belief that Tolkien deliberately wrote his work the be read by all kinds of different people.

[demnation]

I'm a devout agnostic, and I'll admit that the dependence of LoTR's plot on miracles, faith, and divine inspiration bothers me somewhat. But the work has enough other themes that I understand better or more intuitively that the whole still resonates.

Whether I understand "the depth" of it as well as I would if were a person of faith, I have no idea. But I'd guess one might as well ask similar questions with regards to having "scholarly credentials in philology", or "experience fighting in World War I", or "a West Midlands English middle-class background circa the late 19th and early 20th centuries."

Jeeze, it's some kind of miracle any of us understands the book in the slightest. :p


I'm also agnostic, but I have to say that I find LOTR to be almost devoid of any faith or divine inspiration, at least in any obvious way. Characters certainly aren't going around praying to the Valar or anything. Miracles.....maybe, but only a few. Unless you were talking about subtext, in which case I would say it's debatable!

[alatar]

I always wanted to read Frank Herbert's Dune while having sand under my feet and some kind of cinnamon nearby.

Which then made me wonder how people read LotR while living no where near a forest. Where I live, we take trees for granted. We also experience all four seasons, so I can imagine climbing Caradhras as well as escaping the Shire.

So surely an atheist can appreciate LotR, but it might feel a bit differently to someone with a more spiritual viewpoint.

[Inziladun]

Characters certainly aren't going around praying to the Valar or anything.

Not as a formal action, no. But I think prayers are indeed present in LOTR.

When attacked by the Witch-king on Weathertop, Frodo cries:

O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!

In The Two Towers, when Faramir's men Mablung and Damrod see the Oliphaunt, we see Damrod saying:

'May the Valar turn him aside! Mûmak! Mûmak!'

The sense of that one, to be fair, might be more akin to a 'Lord help us!' as spoken today; an exited utterance in fear.

However, when facing Shelob alone, Sam resorts to Elbereth again:

Gilthoniel A Elbereth!

And to escape the Watchers at the Tower of Cirith Ungol, Sam again, in desperation, cries:

'Gilthoniel, A Elbereth!'

I think prayers to the Valar, Ilúvatar's governors in Arda, were not uncommon with the Eldar, and apparently not to the Númenóreans in exile either.
At Henneth Annûn, Faramir and his men stand facing west for a moment of silence, as Faramir explains:

'So we always do,' he said as they sat down. 'We look towards Númenor that was, and beyond to Elvenhome that is, and to that which is beyond Elvenhome and ever will be.'

Miracles.....maybe, but only a few. Unless you were talking about subtext, in which case I would say it's debatable!

If by 'miracle' you mean something unexpected that accomplishes a great good, I think the book is rife with them. It seems to be a running theme that the players in the story are being directed by something other than their own conscious thoughts and goals, and that Purpose brings good from evil.

[jallanite]

The three examples I found of anti-Tolkien preaching by Christians are rather odd. All three authors claim that they only noticed what they say are discrepancies between what Tolkien’s writing tells and what their religion supposedly teaches recently. This suggests to me that all three writers do not know what their faith officially teaches, or they are deliberately lying.

That the Earth revolves around the Sun, not the reverse, was supposedly first proved by Aristarchus of Samos (c. 270 BCE), but only persisted as a minor theory. Then it was revised by Copernicus and supported and his version first fully published in 1543, the year of his death. Galileo Galliei using the newly invented telescope found that observations of planetary bodies fully supported the Copernican system. Arguments ensued, and Galileo was forced unwillingly to recant his theories by Rome in 1633. The Pope and the Magisterium were in the event shown to be utterly wrong in their condemnation of these theories. But not until 1753 did the Church cease to make fools of themselves by no longer listing any works supporting the then generally accepted Copernican theory in The Index of Forbidden Books. Pope Pius VII approved a decree in 1822 by the Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition to allow the printing of Copernican books in Rome.

Since the Galileo fiasco, the Roman Catholic Church has been very careful about making pronouncements on findings of scientists. For what is taught by the Roman Catholic Church, see http://www.catholic.com/tracts/adam-eve-and-evolution or http://americamagazine.org/issue/786/article/fundamental-challenge. The three authors’ insistence that the account of creation in Genesis is to be considered to be complete and to be taken literally is not part of current official Roman Catholic teaching. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution .

These authors pounce on Tolkien’s avowed fiction rather than on the numerous purportedly factual writers who have proven that the Earth was created long before 6,000 BCE and have proven the theory of evolution, as much as anything can be proven. The Roman Catholic Church no longer denies this officially. These writers are cranks who are pushing an agenda of Biblical inerrancy which not supported by their own church.

Nor, as one of the authors claims without providing support, is Tolkien’s creation story particularly Gnostic. The author does not bother to indicate which of the many Gnostic texts he finds to be similar to Tolkien’s creation story. I think he is just making this up.

They claim that nothing in the Bible is a myth is a least arguably untrue. These author state that position, but don’t bother to provide support for that position, I presume is because they prefer not to get into the doubts which many Roman Catholic theologians have put forth, as well as those that non-Roman Catholics have put forth. It’s much easier to just pronounce your sources as entirely true without looking at any evidence, and then blame Tolkien for not following completely a creation story which the Roman Catholic church itself no longer officially believes to be necessarily fully true.

[IxnaY AintsaY]

I'm also agnostic, but I have to say that I find LOTR to be almost devoid of any faith or divine inspiration, at least in any obvious way.


By divine inspiration, I mean things like Gandalf and Elrond deciding that Merry and Pippin tagging along with the Fellowship was a good idea; or Gandalf again, suspecting Bilbo's ring to be The One and that Sauron would be a-hankering after it, concluding it would be safe enough with an unwitting Hobbit for a couple of decades.

Miracles.....maybe, but only a few. Unless you were talking about subtext, in which case I would say it's debatable!

Hmmm, I'm not sure how sub into the text you have to get. Let's put it this way: counting the history in "The Hobbit", the storyline of LoTR can be seen as bookended by two events. The first is Bilbo blindly putting his hand on the One Ring while lost under the mountains. The second is Gollum biting it from Frodo's hand at what would otherwise have been the moment of his ultimate ruin and the ultimate triumph of Sauron. But as Inziladun said, the tale is rife with miracles.

You know though, "providence" would have been a finer fit to my meaning than "miracles", since I wasn't talking about flashy talking-topiary type stuff.

[jallanite]

The unnamed priest who is responsible for the tirade at http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-fantasy-writing-of-tolkien-was.html had much to say about miracles, but in fact, there is not much done by Moses, Elijah, Elisha, or Jesus in the Bible that could not just as well be called magical or miraculous, if one chose.

Good magicians were commonplace in medieval legends: Menw son of Teirgwaedd in medieval Welsh Arthurian tales, Merlin and Gansguoter in continental Arthurian tales, Maugis of Aigremont in tales of Charlemagne, Arrow-Odd in Norse saga, and numerous others who appear occasionally.

Nor do modern times appear more dangerous than former days when teachers like Eliphas Levi, Madame Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner, Samuel Liddell MacGregor, and Aleister Crowley were at their height. Wolfgang Smith and Louis de Wohl are indeed odd modern people to be searching for truth. Perhaps the priest wanted to believe what these people wrote just because he wanted to believe it, until he caught them obviously claiming to be dabbling in the occult, which should not have taken much searching. Then he starts his fear-mongering.

The apocryphal book Judith is commonly thought to be unhistorical by Protestants and Roman Catholics alike. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Judith . More importantly most critics believe the Book of Daniel is also unhistorical and was written during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, not during the last days of Babylon and the beginning of the Persian period as it claims. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Daniel . These Biblical books have long been believed to be not history. Information agreeing with this was included in the Roman Cathlic Jerusalem Bible translation, for which J. R. R. Tolkien aided in translating the Book of Jonah. This information can also be found on the web in the conservative Catholic Encyclopedia, originally published in print in 1917. See http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04621b.htm .

The anonymous priest who wrote the Tolkien article either did not know this, which I think unlikely, or is simply neglecting to include anything that disagrees with his claim that the Bible contains no myths. Or perhaps this priest means something odd by myths.

Why this priest goes on and on about Gnosticism I do not know. See http://gnosis.org/library/advh1.htm which contains almost everything known about Gnosticism until the Nag Hammadi Library was discovered 1945. The most coherent account is in chapter XXX. The high God gives birth to a number of beings, and the last of these is named Sophia (Wisdom). She gives birth to Ialdabaoth, the name apparently derived from Aramaic yalᵊd- (‘begetter of’) [s]abaʼōt (‘hosts’). In this heresy Ialdabaoth becomes the Hebrew God, but is rather an evil being. Ialdabaoth subcreates the physical universe and 365 angels. He also creates the human race. In them some of the divine sparks from the original heavenly Father are to be found. Jesus Christ is then sent by the ultimate Father and Sophia to obtain this heavenly matter and return it to heaven.

This does not resemble Tolkien’s imaginings very closely. The Zoroastrian story of the creation of the universe is closer. See http://wisdomlib.org/zoroastrianism/book/the-bundahishn/index.html . The anonymous priest probably is not aware to this story. He wouldn’t like it either, even modified.

[Morthoron]

Hmmm...based on the hereticating rhetoric from various fanatical religious sites presented here in the last several posts, perhaps a better title for this thread should be:

Can Christians appreciate/understand The Lord of the Rings?

[IxnaY AintsaY]

These Christians are to the majority of Christians approximately as giant, man-eating robots are to the majority of atheists. :p

[Inziladun]

These Christians are to the majority of Christians approximately as giant, man-eating robots are to the majority of atheists. :p

Indeed. Broad-brush generalizations are unwise, whatever side of a debate one happens to be on.

[Morthoron]

Indeed. Broad-brush generalizations are unwise, whatever side of a debate one happens to be on.

My post was meant to be ironic, given the original poster's utter disbelief in atheists appreciating the books. Perhaps an emoticon, that modern age marvel of internet writing, should have been inserted to alleviate any comprehension issues.

And Ixnay, I am a giant man-eating robot. Pass the mustard, m'dear.

[jallanite]

Note that nothing I have posted in this thread was intended to prove or disprove any scientific theory.

What I did try to show is the results of a search on the web for oppositions to Tolkien where supposedly Tolkien’s teaching in his fictional work was against what according to some thought Tolkien ought to have believed.

I found only three such articles, very view indeed, none of which, in my opinion, actually pointed out anywhere where Tolkien really disagreed with Roman Catholic doctrine. Tolkien can be accused of inventing much, if one wishes. But Tolkien has proclaimed in many places that he was writing or intending to write fairy stories.

Tolkien was writing imaginative fiction, for the enjoyment of readers, not works of Roman Catholic doctine—though part of his intent was that his tales should not specifically contradict Roman Catholic doctrine, as he understood it. Tolkien, for this purposes, was quite justified in setting his tale before 6,000 BCE, introducing angelic beings in a role somewhat corresponding to pagan deities, and introducing Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, Ents, Orcs, and Trolls into his story. He was quite justified in producing pterodactyl-like creatures from an older geological age, regardless of whether some Biblical literalists would also wish to deny that any such era existed in reality. Roman Catholic teaching did not deny an age of dinosaurs long before Mankind existed.

What seems to have bothered Tolkien more was his story of the creation of the Sun and Moon and that the Earth was at one time physically flat, and that seems to have bothered him more from a scientific point of view than theologically. In The Lord of the Rings itself Tolkien did not mention anything of this late creation of the Sun and Moon. In the last three books in the HoME series Tolkien restricts this account to a supposed Silmarillion proper, but otherwise imagines his early Elves as living under the Sun, the Silmarillion proper being purportedly partially derived from inaccurate Mannish legend.

Tolkien appears to have drawn his beliefs from Pope Pius XII who held the papacy from 1939 to 1958, as to what is allowed, though Tolkien began writing his Silmarillion fantasies much earlier.

If indeed Tolkien did stumble on occasion I note how few readers seem to care.

[IxnaY AintsaY]

My post was meant to be ironic, given the original poster's utter disbelief in atheists appreciating the books. Perhaps an emoticon, that modern age marvel of internet writing, should have been inserted to alleviate any comprehension issues.


Ya, and (if there was any doubt) mine was meant to be amusing not admonishing. Thread is now about pointing out irony after the fact, yay! <-- That last bit may not have been completely serious, by the way. <-- Totally serious.

And Ixnay, I am a giant man-eating robot. Pass the mustard, m'dear. A kindred robot, and mustard-lover, I knew it. <--This was typed in solemn tones.

[Tar-Verimuchli]

This is my first post on an interesting topic. I'm about as hard/strong/positive atheist as is possible and I have no problem understanding or appreciating Tolkien. There seems an obvious difference between understanding an ideology and believing it. Most atheists in my experience have a pretty good understanding of the dominant faith in their culture as they really need to understand it to reject it rather than take a neutral agnostic position. Besides, there are obvious differences, e.g. God moves in mysterious ways but Eru mainly uses eagles.

[IxnaY AintsaY]

God moves in mysterious ways but Eru mainly uses eagles.

Hey, I've seen that bumper sticker!

[Tar-Verimuchli]

Hey, I've seen that bumper sticker!

This one is better.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31OWLBcVQ2L.jpg

[Faramir Jones]

This thread has been a very interesting one so far, though I think it got sidetracked for a while.

My own answer, based on my experience of fellow fans, is 'Yes'. Those I have been involved with have been of various faiths, none, or agnostic. All appeared to be very appreciative or understanding of The Lord of the Rings, and other works by Tolkien.

Obviously, to have such an appreciation or understanding, a person should develop a knowledge of the writer, a Roman Catholic in that part of the United Kingdom called England, born to a particular social background, and in a particular period in history. He believed his faith to be a fundamental part of who he was, including his writings. In my opinion, while Middle-earth was a pre-Christian world, it was one influenced by Catholic moral teaching.

Anyone can develop such a knowledge, regardless of his or her feelings towards the faith Tolkien professed and believed in. Someone raised as a Roman Catholic may have an initial advantage over others in beginning to appreciate or understand Tolkien, regardless of whether he or she continues in that faith in later life, as long as he or she pays attention at the time.

That's my personal opinion. ;)

[Tar-Verimuchli]

I think the only element of Tolkien's fictional world that I find awkward (rather than appreciate or understand) as an Atheist is the Tale of Adanel with Eru speaking to men as a voice in their hearts but not providing any answers to their questions. I find this awkward because it's a familiar argument used to explain why the Abrahamic God requires blind faith and punishes skeptics with eternal damnation transposed to Tolkien's world. It's also even more illogical in Middle Earth because men are required to have 'faith' and are punished for seeking knowledge whereas Orome is sent to the elves and they are given proof, taken to Valinor and given knowledge by the Valar. That said, it's probably intended by Tolkien to be a mannish myth/parable.

[Faramir Jones]

Welcome to the Downs, Tar-Verimuchli!

What you said here was very interesting:

I think the only element of Tolkien's fictional world that I find awkward (rather than appreciate or understand) as an Atheist is the Tale of Adanel with Eru speaking to men as a voice in their hearts but not providing any answers to their questions. I find this awkward because it's a familiar argument used to explain why the Abrahamic God requires blind faith and punishes skeptics with eternal damnation transposed to Tolkien's world. It's also even more illogical in Middle Earth because men are required to have 'faith' and are punished for seeking knowledge whereas Orome is sent to the elves and they are given proof, taken to Valinor and given knowledge by the Valar. That said, it's probably intended by Tolkien to be a mannish myth/parable.

The issue with the elves was that the Valar wanted to encourage them to come to Valinor, in order to protect them; so their leaders were brought there in the hope that they would persuade their people to go there. While many do, some do not. As we know, some of those who came there later rebelled and returned to Middle-earth, showing the strategy to be unsuccessful.

Also, Valinor is a hallowed place, hallowed because of the deathless (later including elves) being present. Elves live as long as Arda, but the downside is that they become burdened by its sorrows, and envy the Gift of Men, given by Eru to the latter, which allows them, after death, to go beyond Arda and the Music of the Ainur.

[Tar-Verimuchli]

Thanks for the welcome, Faramir Jones. I was particularly referring to the part of the tale of Adanel which implies that men were originally intended to be immortal or very long lived as they only start dying when they all bow to Melkor and are judged by Iluvatar. As an atheist, I find the notion that all men are punished due to original sin/'sons bearing the sins of the fathers' inherently unjust and the notion that a omnipotent/omnipresent God would speak to everyone as an internal voice which non-believers refuse to hear an excuse for unreasoning faith. That said I think either Finrod or Andreth or both acknowledge that it may be a parable or not accurate due to successive retellings through generations. That would fit with Tolkien considering making 'unscientific' elements of the history of Middle Earth elements like the flat world into mannish myths.

[FerniesApple]

When the OP says 'atheist' does he/she mean someone who doesnt believe in modern organized religion like Christianity. or ALL religion? I suppose an atheist doesnt believe in God, but do they have spirituality of any kind? I am not sure about the definitions. Can one be a Druid and an atheist?
Anyway I think its perfectly possible to be an atheist and understand Tolkien, the moral codes Tolkien writes about are cultural as well as Catholic, its not mutually exclusive. If Tolkien was inspired by Viking/Nordic myths, they arent Christian are they, they are probably pagan.

[Tar-Verimuchli]

It's the rejection of God beliefs. An atheist may believe in some form of spirituality so many Buddhists as well as non-theistic Druids are theoretically atheists. However, self-identifying Atheists tend, in my experience, to be skeptics in that they require evidence before they believe in something so they would probably reject any form of spiritualism.

I agree about moral codes, very little of the values that are usually considered Christian are original to the bible. They have value because they have their origins in human culture and thought rather than in unsubstantiated claims of personal revelation.

I suspect the obvious response to the OP is that knowledge of Christian beliefs (and the various other theology/mythology Tolkien was influenced by) is important to understanding Tolkien but belief is not.

[Faramir Jones]

Thanks for the welcome, Faramir Jones. I was particularly referring to the part of the tale of Adanel which implies that men were originally intended to be immortal or very long lived as they only start dying when they all bow to Melkor and are judged by Iluvatar. As an atheist, I find the notion that all men are punished due to original sin/'sons bearing the sins of the fathers' inherently unjust and the notion that a omnipotent/omnipresent God would speak to everyone as an internal voice which non-believers refuse to hear an excuse for unreasoning faith. That said I think either Finrod or Andreth or both acknowledge that it may be a parable or not accurate due to successive retellings through generations. That would fit with Tolkien considering making 'unscientific' elements of the history of Middle Earth elements like the flat world into mannish myths.

Glad to have you here. :)

There are a lot of issues with the tale of Adanel, which have been discussed on the Downs, including on this thread:

http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=18338&highlight=Adanel

As you said, the teller and listener are aware that, even if the former is accurately telling the latter what she was herself told, the tale may have changed significantly over generations due to the successive retellings.

There's also the fact that the text we have was not intended for publication by Tolkien, being a rough draft, and not therefore an accurate expression of his views. This is quite apart from the fact that he wanted to overhaul the whole matter of the awakening of Man and what followed.

Looking at the issue of atheism in Tolkien's world, I recall that Sauron, after surrendering to Ar-Pharazôn, being brought captive to Númenor, then becoming that king's favourite, eventually argued that Eru didn't exist, being merely an invention of the Valar. :D This argument appears to have won over Pharazôn and most of his people, the Downfall being the end result. :eek:

[FerniesApple]

It's the rejection of God beliefs. An atheist may believe in some form of spirituality so many Buddhists as well as non-theistic Druids are theoretically atheists. However, self-identifying Atheists tend, in my experience, to be skeptics in that they require evidence before they believe in something so they would probably reject any form of spiritualism.

I agree about moral codes, very little of the values that are usually considered Christian are original to the bible. They have value because they have their origins in human culture and thought rather than in unsubstantiated claims of personal revelation.

I suspect the obvious response to the OP is that knowledge of Christian beliefs (and the various other theology/mythology Tolkien was influenced by) is important to understanding Tolkien but belief is not.

hem.. I like your forum name. I say Tar-Verimuchii a lot back home. :D I am a very polite Hobbit.

[Tar-Verimuchli]

Thanks for the link Faramir Jones, it's interesting to know that Tolkien thought about having myths in his pseudo-mythology and the comparison of Elvish and Mannish memory and history is also interesting. I do remember HOME recounting his attempts to remove the flat world and light from trees elements and make them mannish myths.

On Ar Pharazon's beliefs, that sounds a bit like the Middle Earth version of saying that Hitler was an atheist. I'd say he was more of a satanist (Ar Pharazon, not Hitler, he was probably a deist). When atheists start giving blood sacrifices and worshiping Richard Dawkins then that comparison might be made.

Thanks for the compliment, FerniesApple, although I didn't really give it much thought.

[jallanite]

I do remember HOME recounting his attempts to remove the flat world and light from trees elements and make them mannish myths.

Tolkien did more than make attempts to make some of the unscientific parts of the Silmarillion into Mannish myths. In The Lord of the Rings Tolkien has Gimli recite a poem beginning with the lines (emphasis mine):The world was young, the mountains green,
No stain yet on the Moon was seen,
No words were laid on stream or stone
When Durin woke and walked alone.
This conflicts with all Silmarillion accounts in which Durin and the other first Dwarves wake before the first rising of the Moon and Sun.

Gandalf later sings a short poem about the Ents (emphasis mine):Ere iron was found or tree was hewn,
When young was mountain under moon;
Ere ring was made, or wrought was woe,
It walked the forests long ago.
Here the moon predates the first cutting of trees, presumably by Elves.

Also, in The Lord of the Rings, in Tolkien’s summary of early days in the Appendices, Tolkien makes no mention of the late creation of Moon and Sun from flower and fruit or of the tradition that the Earth had been flat before the drowning of Númenor.

In the The Hobbit in the chapter “Flies and Spiders”, Tolkien had originally written:In the Wide World the Wood-elves lingered in the twilight before the raising of the Sun and Moon; and afterwards they wandered in the forests that grew beneath the sunrise.
In the revision of 1966 this was changed, removing all mention of a “raising of the Sun and Moon”:In the Wide World the Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon, but loved best the stars; and they wandered in the great forests that grew tall in lands that are now lost.
In the last three HoME volumes, except for text which is represented as part of the Annals or of the Silmarillion, in all mentions of the days before the return of the Noldor to Middle-earth, the Elves who appear as living in Middle-earth dwell under the Sun, where this is mentioned.

In Morgoth’s Ring (HoME 10), page 370, Tolkien makes clear his dissatisfaction with the tale of the late creation of the Moon and Sun from flower and fruit. Attempts to revise this did not work, and so Tolkien’s decision was to consider the Silmarillion to have been a legendary document in which Mannish tradition, sometimes false, has been mixed with Elvish tradition. This seems to have been Tolkien’s final and permanent opinion on the matter, perhaps first arrived at when he was considering publishing the Silmarillion for Milton Waldman.

On page 374 of Morgoth’s Ring (HoME), note 2, Tolkien writes:The cosmogonic myths are Númenórean, blending Elven-lore with human myth and imagination. A note should say that the Wise of Númenor recorded that the making of the stars was not so, nor of Sun and Moon. For Sun and stars were all older than Arda.
Here Tolkien seems to imagine The Silmarillion eventually being published much as his son eventually did, but also including some notes, attributed to “the Wise of Númenor”, indicating that the account of The Silmarillion is not be taken as true on all points.

[Galin]

Attempts to revise this did not work, and so Tolkien’s decision was to consider the Silmarillion to have been a legendary document in which Mannish tradition, sometimes false, has been mixed with Elvish tradition. This seems to have been Tolkien’s final and permanent opinion on the matter...

I agree with this. And in addition to the verse examples in The Lord of the Rings, I think part of Treebeard's description of the Entwives at least suggests that the Sun existed very early on, although I believe there is a way to interpret his words in light of the 'Silmarillion myth' of the Sun and Moon. I also think (with admittedly scant references and no way to certainly prove it) that Tolkien 'authorized' The Drowning of Anadune as a late text, because as written, it fit nicely into his Elvish versus Mannish tradition, and even provides a different way to think about the term 'Straight Road'

Some bring up certain Bombadil references, but I'm not sure these are being read without being influenced by other flat world descriptions -- descriptions that do not appear in the books Tolkien actually published. Granted that argument is probably based more on the idea that, despite what Bombadil says, if the reader knows nothing about Tolkien's ideas outside of The Lord of the Rings, how likely is it for a first time reader to certainly conclude, from Bombadil's remarks, that the world the Hobbits live on was once flat?

There is also the argument that Bombadil was just echoing Mannish Myth, although I would admit that's a bit of an 'easy out' to say: well Bombadil really knew the 'truth' but he just didn't report it here to his Hobbit audience... and on a similar note some have argued that the verses in The Lord of the Rings are poetic works of art, and thus need not reflect the 'truth' of the Silmarillion matter.

I think, but haven't gathered up 'all' instances lately to really look at them again, but I think the Appendices (and possibly the story proper of The Lord of the Rings) include references to the Twilight, or a Twilight or time of Twilight, or similar... and so I can't recall if each is easily explainable in the context of the pre-existing Sun notion. Although again, if pressed Tolkien might have explained that a given description could be stamped with: that's part of the Mannish ideas or tales getting woven in, no matter what was meant originally.

I believe also that the 'Change of the World' need not refer to Eru altering the actual shape of the World, which phrase does appear in the Appendices if I recall correctly.

[jallanite]

I believe also that the 'Change of the World' need not refer to Eru altering the actual shape of the World, which phrase does appear in the Appendices if I recall correctly.

In Appendix A the actual wording is (emphasis mine):But when Ar-Pharazôn set foot upon the shores of Aman the Blessed, the Valar laid down their Guardianship and called upon the One, and the world was changed. Númenor was thrown down and swallowed by the Sea, and the Undying Lands were were removed from the circles of the world.
I think the world was changed is simply a summary of what is immediately said following: Númenor is thrown down and swallowed and the Undying Lands are removed from the circles of the world. There is no specific mention then or at any point in The Lord of the Rings that the Earth was formerly flat.

I agree that many readers try to interpret The Lord of the Rings according to The Silmarillion, but such interpretation disagrees with what Tolkien actually writes, when not writing The Silmarillion proper or The Book of Lost Tales or the material printed on The Lays of Beleriand. Tolkien makes it quite clear that he plans to cut out non-scientific material from his legendarium, except as part of this Silmarillion which he explains as being polluted by Mannish legend.

[Tar-Jêx]

To address the original topic, I think it's quite clear that one does not need to be religious to appreciate all of the symbolism and references that Tolkien has included.
One just needs to understand the religion being referenced and symbolized. Being of that religion shouldn't really mean anything if you understand what is going on.

[Galin]

In Appendix A the actual wording is (emphasis mine


Without checking what I probably should have said is even if the specific phrase I mentioned is somewhere published by Tolkien, the phrase itself need not refer to a flat world becoming round at the fall of Numenor.

Anyway I not only agree with your interpretation of the actual passage, but if Akallabêth is meant to be a 'mixed' tradition (Elvish and Mannish), I think it too can surely contain the idea of a world made round, at the time of the fall of Numenor, according to certain Men, in distinction to the World being originally made round. And if The Drowning of Anadune had been published by Tolkien as a Mannish version, as I believe JRRT might have done, then the seeming 'truth' of certain statements in Akallabêth could arguably be read in a different light.

And not that you asked or anyone cares, but the passage I was thinking about regarding Bombadil is where he refers to the bent seas. As for twilight: in Appendix A Twilight appears to refer to a place, West Over Sea (Tale of Aragorn and Arwen) but there are at least two references to a seeming time period: a time of 'twilight' (not Twilight)... one with respect to trolls, the other connected to a reference to Thingol in the language section. I think both are in Appendix F.

I don't know how these might be explained if the pre-existing sun is the truth, if they need explaining in some way other than mannish ideas seeping in that is, but in my opinion they do seem to suggest the time before the Sun arose -- again at least when thinking of, or being influenced by, the Silmarillion tale.

[jallanite]

And not that you asked or anyone cares, but the passage I was thinking about regarding Bombadil is where he refers to the bent seas.

In Fellowship, page 131, Tolkien writes:When they [the hobbits] caught his [Tom’s] words again they found that he had now wandered into strange regions beyond their memory and beyond their waking thought, into times when the world was wider, and the seas flowed straight to the western Shore; and still on and back Tom went singing out into the ancient starlight, when only the Elf-sires were awake.
That the Undying Lands were once on Earth is part of Tolkien’s thought in all his writing. The removal of the Undying Lands from the circles of the world at the time of the drowning of Númenor is being referred to here. Tom is telling of days before the Undying Lands were removed.

In Morgoth’s Ring (HoME 10), page 377-78, Tolkien writes of the waking of the Elf-sires:From the far North (where [they are] dense) to the middle (Endor) great clouds brood. Moon and stars are invisible. Day is only a dim twilight at full. Only light in Valinor.

Varda arises in her might and Manwë of the Winds and strive with the Cloud of Unseeing. But as fast as it is rent Melkor closes the veil again – at least over Middle-earth. Then came the great Wind of Manwë, and the veil was rent. The stars shine out clear even in the North ([I]Valakirka) and after the long dark seem terribly bright.

It is in the dark just before that the Elves awake. The first thing that they see in the dark is the stars. But Melkor brings up glooms out of the East, and the stars fade away west. Hence they think from the beginning of light and beauty in the West.
In The War of the Jewels (HoME 11), beginning on page 420, Tolkien relates an Elvish legend of the waking of the first Elves, in which several groups of Elves awake on different days, each beneath the stars of early twilight before the dawn.

In Fellowship, page 131, Tolkien has Tom claim:When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent.
This refers to later accounts in which after the drowning of Númenor and the removal of the Undying Lands from Earth, Elves could still sail there following the old track whereas the vessels of Men normally followed the bent seas and were therefore bound to Earth, no matter how far they sailed.

At least this is how I interpret these references.
As for twilight: in Appendix A Twilight appears to refer to a place, West Over Sea (Tale of Aragorn and Arwen) but there are at least two references to a seeming time period: a time of 'twilight' (not Twilight)... one with respect to trolls, the other connected to a reference to Thingol in the language section. I think both are in Appendix F.The reference to Thingol on page 1128 of Return reads:There Thingol Greycloak of Doriath was their king, and in the long twilight their tongue had changed with the changefulness of mortal lands and had become far estranged from the speech of the Eldar beyond the Sea.
Twilight literally refers to the light in the sky just preceding full sunrise or just following full sunset. Metaphorically it may refer to light that is similar in some way. The reign of Thingol before the raising of the Moon and Sun in the Silmarillion is literally a reign under the darkness of night, not a reign illuminated by literal twilight. As already mentioned, in The Hobbit, Tolkien had originally written, “the Wood Elves lingered in the twilight before the raising of the Sun and Moon” but in the edition published in 1966 changed the text to, “the Wood Elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon”. I think this later text represents the metaphor intended by Tolkien here, that Thingol reigns under what is a long twilight in comparison to the Undying Lands beyond the Sea illuminated by the Two Trees.

Tolkien’s reference to Trolls on page 1132 of Return reads:In their beginnings far back in the twilight of the Elder Days, these were creatures of dull and lumpish nature and had no more language than beasts.
Here I think Tolkien is metaphorically referring to the years of cloudy darkness brought on by Morgoth.

I admit that neither of these meanings can be proved from the texts.

[Galin]

In Fellowship, page 131, Tolkien writes:When they [the hobbits] caught his [Tom’s] words again they found that he had now wandered into strange regions beyond their memory and beyond their waking thought, into times when the world was wider, and the seas flowed straight to the western Shore; and still on and back Tom went singing out into the ancient starlight, when only the Elf-sires were awake.
That the Undying Lands were once on Earth is part of Tolkien’s thought in all his writing. The removal of the Undying Lands from the circles of the world at the time of the drowning of Númenor is being referred to here. Tom is telling of days before the Undying Lands were removed.

I agree. I didn't refer to this section as I think it's more easily explained than the reference to the seas being bent.

In Morgoth’s Ring (HoME 10), page 377-78, Tolkien writes of the waking of the Elf-sires:From the far North (where [they are] dense) to the middle (Endor) great clouds brood. Moon and stars are invisible. Day is only a dim twilight at full. Only light in Valinor. [... cut for brevity...] In [I]The War of the Jewels (HoME 11), beginning on page 420, Tolkien relates an Elvish legend of the waking of the first Elves, in which several groups of Elves awake on different days, each beneath the stars of early twilight before the dawn.

Yes I think the legend of the Awakening of the Quendi, a very Elvish legend, could be a nice way to represent the matter of the Sun in comparison to the mixed (Elvish and Manish) Silmarillion. Possibly also the legend of the death of Ambarussa for example, though not that (I've any proof that) Tolkien was prepared to employ this as a separate Elvish account distinct from Quenta Silmarillion (in any case).

In Fellowship, page 131, Tolkien has Tom claim:[INDENT]When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent.
This refers to later accounts in which after the drowning of Númenor and the removal of the Undying Lands from Earth, Elves could still sail there following the old track whereas the vessels of Men normally followed the bent seas and were therefore bound to Earth, no matter how far they sailed.

At least this is how I interpret these references.

That works. My attempt was that the seas were (or could be said to be) 'bent' into the great chasm when Numenor fell and Aman was taken away.


The reference to Thingol on page 1128 of Return reads:There Thingol Greycloak of Doriath was their king, and in the long twilight their tongue had changed with the changefulness of mortal lands and had become far estranged from the speech of the Eldar beyond the Sea.
Twilight literally refers to the light in the sky just preceding full sunrise or just following full sunset. Metaphorically it may refer to light that is similar in some way. The reign of Thingol before the raising of the Moon and Sun in the Silmarillion is literally a reign under the darkness of night, not a reign illuminated by literal twilight. As already mentioned, in The Hobbit, Tolkien had originally written, “the Wood Elves lingered in the twilight before the raising of the Sun and Moon” but in the edition published in 1966 changed the text to, “the Wood Elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon”. I think this later text represents the metaphor intended by Tolkien here, that Thingol reigns under what is a long twilight in comparison to the Undying Lands beyond the Sea illuminated by the Two Trees.

Just to state it, and this being obviously subjective: I find 'twilight' as in 'the period under the stars' quite beautiful and poetic, and this reference from The Hobbit (before revised) is of course echoed in the Silmarillion traditions, or at least the Annals of Aman, in the early 1950s phase.

My reaction to this revision in The Hobbit centered on the special emphasis, (noted in the Appendix on Calendars in The Return of the King) that the Eldar placed on the two twilights, morning and evening (the question of these Silvan Elves being Eldar or not aside here. And of course they are Elves, and Eldar in the sense of 'Star-folk' in any event). And if taken to mean a period of time, to me it would stretch from the creation of the Sun to our day.

But you make a good point here, as, if the Dome of Varda is in place this could be a period of time in contrast to a time before the death of the Trees, after which the Dome would be removed and the two places would be lit in the same way.

If I read you correctly here, that is.

Tolkien’s reference to Trolls on page 1132 of Return reads:In their beginnings far back in the twilight of the Elder Days, these were creatures of dull and lumpish nature and had no more language than beasts.
Here I think Tolkien is metaphorically referring to the years of cloudy darkness brought on by Morgoth.

I admit that neither of these meanings can be proved from the texts.

This twilight I don't find very beautiful given that it is dim day caused by smoke and clouds, but on the other hand it arguaby connects well to Trolls.

Thanks for the considered response!