[Wormtongue]

I was born and raised Roman Catholic and when I was old enough to learn fantasy from reality, I gave it up. I absorb more Christian views watching five minutes of Monty Python's "Life of Brian" than I have in reading the works of Tolkien. I read constantly, and most of it is medieval-tinged fantasy. I can't seem to draw any parallels between most fantasy epics and religion, unless of course some type of religion is contained in the story. I can tell you, I'm captivated more by ingenious yarn-spinning than warping a book with views of one's personal religious dogma. I find life is much easier without having to include faith in mythos. Faith is not concrete, and sometimes a backup plan rooted in reality is desperately needed and would actually help. Tolkien's masterful stories may be stuffed to the gills with Christianity but since I wasn't looking for it, it did not reveal it's profound fairy tales to me. That is precisely why Tolkien is such a master of the craft. Even a disdainer of religion, yet one well versed in that religion, did not pick up on any use of that particular set of beliefs in his writings.
The man was a genius at his craft. [img]smilies/cool.gif[/img]