Can atheists appreciate/understand Lord of the Ring?

[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.

[FerniesApple]

Originally Posted by 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.

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

[Faramir Jones]

Originally Posted by 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.

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/showthr...ghlight=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. This argument appears to have won over Pharazôn and most of his people, the Downfall being the end result.

[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]

Originally Posted by Tar-Verimuchli

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.