The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post - Does LotR have cross-cultural appeal?

**The Saucepan Man** · 08-25-2005, 07:05 AM

I haven't time right now to respond to all of the great points that have been made recently on this thread, but hope to do so shortly.

So this is a brief response to HerenIstarion's proposal for a poll.

The problem with focussing on religion is that it is only one aspect of a person's culture, and therefore only one aspect of what I wanted to address on this thread. I also have in mind social considerations, ethnic origin, history, traditions etc. Some religions, or branches of particular faiths, have a very strong sense of culture such that one can almost define the believer's culture by reference to his or her faith (devout Muslims, Orthodox Jews, Mormons etc), while others permit greater scope for more cultural diversity among their adherents. So religion is only one part of the picture. And a rather small part for those who, like me, have no strong religious belief.

Having said that, I can see value in a poll such as that which HerenIstarion suggests. But then should we also set up polls for location (although the list compiled by Amanaduil that TGWBS linked to does provide a lot of information in this regard), place of birth, ethnic origin etc etc? Or perhaps we should conduct a Barrow Downs census (voluntary, of course)!

Unfortunately, having only 10 possible categories severely limits the scope of any poll on religion, given the multitude of faiths that there are in the world. With this limitation, my suggested list would look like this:

1. Atheist
2. Agnostic/No strong religious belief
3. Buddhist/Shinto
4. Hindu/Jain
5. Christian - Catholic
6. Christian - Protestant/Other
7. Jew
8. Muslim
9. Sikh
10. Wiccan/Spiritualist/Other

I am happy to include a poll in this thread but, given what I have said about religion only being one aspect, it might, if people are interested, be worth starting a separate thread for this purpose.

08-25-2005, 07:05 AM	#38
The Saucepan Man Corpus Cacophonous Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: A green and pleasant land Posts: 8,390	I haven't time right now to respond to all of the great points that have been made recently on this thread, but hope to do so shortly. So this is a brief response to HerenIstarion's proposal for a poll. The problem with focussing on religion is that it is only one aspect of a person's culture, and therefore only one aspect of what I wanted to address on this thread. I also have in mind social considerations, ethnic origin, history, traditions etc. Some religions, or branches of particular faiths, have a very strong sense of culture such that one can almost define the believer's culture by reference to his or her faith (devout Muslims, Orthodox Jews, Mormons etc), while others permit greater scope for more cultural diversity among their adherents. So religion is only one part of the picture. And a rather small part for those who, like me, have no strong religious belief. Having said that, I can see value in a poll such as that which HerenIstarion suggests. But then should we also set up polls for location (although the list compiled by Amanaduil that TGWBS linked to does provide a lot of information in this regard), place of birth, ethnic origin etc etc? Or perhaps we should conduct a Barrow Downs census (voluntary, of course)! Unfortunately, having only 10 possible categories severely limits the scope of any poll on religion, given the multitude of faiths that there are in the world. With this limitation, my suggested list would look like this: 1. Atheist 2. Agnostic/No strong religious belief 3. Buddhist/Shinto 4. Hindu/Jain 5. Christian - Catholic 6. Christian - Protestant/Other 7. Jew 8. Muslim 9. Sikh 10. Wiccan/Spiritualist/Other I am happy to include a poll in this thread but, given what I have said about religion only being one aspect, it might, if people are interested, be worth starting a separate thread for this purpose. __________________ Do you mind? I'm busy doing the fishstick. It's a very delicate state of mind!