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I was raised Catholic, with both my parents being Catholics, though my mother was never confirmed. I remain a Catholic, and have no reason to break any ties with the Church, even though my 'religious philosophy' strays rather far from Catholicism in some cases. Indeed, I am discovering that quite a number of my beliefs correspond with Buddhist philosophy in reality. I've been an altar server for six years now, and I could probably say the Mass myself, but I still haven't felt the need to give it up.
As for my faith growing in meaning to me because of Tolkien...it did. Good, immersive reads such as Tolkien's works have helped me establish what are new philosophies to me that I never would have learned in Bible school, or in my current theology class. The Silmarillion was particularly inspiring for quite a few different looks at creationism. Rather than my 'beliefs' being what I learned simply from instruction in a Catholic upbringing, even though there is nothing wrong with those beliefs, I went further, and began to consider my own views without any guidance, except maybe inadvertantly from Mr. Tolkien. Of course, we are always deciding what we think of things as humans, establishing our own opinions, but further and deeper than that are the fundamental questions that we try to answer. When we really try to answer them for ourselves, then our faith is truly meaningful to us. For me, I may have decided that some Catholic doctrine just doesn't work for me, but I also 'connected the dots,' if you will, discovering why I believe the things I do as a Catholic, or not as one. And I will never feel that I must leave the Church because of any differences.
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