I wholeheartedly agree with Saucepanman! However, i have noticed that many people have likened Eru to the Christian god God. You could say that Eru is based on any of the major deities, including Jupiter, Zues, Tautatis, Odin etc. Although Tolkien himself was Christian, he had very wide views upon the subject of religion and though true to his faith, was not discriminate in either his beliefs or writings, he chose rather to keep an open mind. Though unwittingly he may have modelled some of Eru's traits on those of the Christian God, many more of his traits are drawn from Norse or Scandinavian deities. As far as comparing God and Eru, that's like saying birds share many traits with beasts, it is true yet does not explain things as well as it could. Rather than say; "This is Eru, he is based on God..." I would always think along the lines of "This is Eru, he is." Tolkien invented his angelic powers, and though he may have drawn ideas from other places in their creation, they were never meant to be 'based' on any god. Someone posted earlier that Eru could not possibly know the future. I challenge you to find somewhere that says he cannot. The Music entailed the building of Arda's past, present and future did it not and as Eru was the only one who heard the whole of the Music, it can be said that he knows the history of Arda before it unfolds.
I hold with Saucepanman ( [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img])'s idea, the actions that the characters took were their own, but because Eru knew the outcome (as he designed/desired it himself) 'chance' or 'fate' took opporunte times and caused things to happen.
The subject of fate, or the preordaned in Middle Earth is an elusive one. My commendations to the thread starter.
Osse
[ September 19, 2003: Message edited by: Osse ]
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'A thinking tyrant, it seemed to Vetinari, had a much harder job than a ruler raised to power by some idiot system like democracy. At least HE could tell the people he was THEIR fault.'
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