Would the Middle Earth saga be considered a religion in of itself?

[Naaramare]

A discussion touching on religion need only turn into a debate should those dicussing it become antagonistic. ^^

As a side note, I've come from only four books ever in my life utterly changed by the time I've finished reading them. Lord of the Rings is one that, admittedly, has been shaping my perceptions of human truths--virtues, whatever you want to call them--since I was too young to care about much more than what was "fair" and what wasn't.

His Dark Materials was the second, The Witches' Goddess the third and The Fionavar Tapestry the last. No other book, no matter how much I enjoyed them or learned from them, has ever prompted me to close it at the end and simply . . .think, and reflect.

The same happens with some few pieces of music, and it's by this feeling I've come to identify an element that has some sort of "eternal truth" to it. :: shrugs:: But then again, I'm odd. ^^

[*Varda*]

Well I have to admit i'm slightly confused about this thread, I tried to read through every post but it's 11:30pm and my concentration's beginning to waver slightly.

Basically in my opinion it is entirely up to the individual person whether they choose to see Middle Earth as a religion, although it isn't really my thing. I love exploring Middle Earth and finding out all these new things about it every day, I can't help thinking that if I turned it into a religion half the fun and imagination would be sucked out of it. It could turn into meaningless rules and regulations to follow - and I'm sure Tolkien would never have intended that.

Fantasy books eg LotR and His Dark Materials do influence me a lot and possibly change my perspective on many things but to worship them - I personally think it's going a bit far.

Also, we know Middle Earth is fiction (at least we think it is, no matter how much we know it is) Isn't part of the point of religion believing entirely in that what the Qu'ran or Bible says actually happened? That's one reason I think it's ridiculous that Jedi actually became a religion... it's fiction pure and simple.

Still i guess i'm pretty open minded about the whole issue so my opinion could still change...

~*Varda*~

ps very sorry if i rambled on/repeated myself/contradicted myself, like i said, i'm really tired

[Child of the 7th Age]

Naarmare -- One other book that did that for me was T.H. White, The Once and Future King. At the end of the book, I lay my head down and wept. Then I sat up and started thinking.

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[Naaramare]

Sharon--I shall keep my eyes out for that one, then. ^^

[Legolas]

mark, I do see what you're saying...to a mature person (age and life experience-wise), they are reminders. To younger, growing minds, they are confirmation of these truths - 'confirmation' being a term I used in an earlier post on the thread.

Also, please don't take any of my posts to be "fact" deemed by me...everything I say is understood to be IMO. Trying not to sound all-knowing or something.

[Bêthberry]

Events in the Forest have been so numerous and even onerous that once again I have had limited time to reply to this discussion. And my mind now is muddled with fatigue, so I apologize in advance for omitting any important points which were directed towards me. There are several points which I would like to raise now, even in a cursory form.

Child of the 7th Age, your eloquent explanation of how LOTR cannot represent a religion but can offer grounds for discussion of spiritual values represents my thoughts precisely. One point I would like to ask is your use of the term 'fairy tale', and, for that matter, KingCarlton's and your subsequent 'legend' and 'myth'.

It might be interesting at this point to examine Tolkien's essay "On Fairy Tales", written in 1938, as he puts it, when events were on their way to Bree but he did not know how Gandalf and Strider were to resolve themselves. This essay is to me one of the most breath-taking, astounding feats Tolkien managed. It provides a brilliant analysis of the value of narrative when particularly fantasy was undervalued in academe and it predates by fifty to sixty years critical thought about the role of narrative in creating meaning in our lives. It is brilliant. It is also eminently readable without any of critical jargon.

For him, sub-creation was not an escape from reality but a turn to something clearer and more understandable than the primary world. It was a journey to something which would enable us to return to the primary world with new eyes, in a refreshed state. This idea is vitally important to my question of whether we can find transcendance in literature we do not worship.

mark12_30, I want to thank you also for the beautiful explanation of learning by heart rather than by head. Your analysis of Gollem is a point which I think is particularly important in understanding whether the moral universe of LOTR can provide any kind of enlightenment beyond mere entertainment. I do not know George MacDonald's work but I will look into it. Texts which have enlightened me are Matthew Arnold's essay "One Thing Needful" (and at the time I had little patience for his earnestness), Charlotte Bronte's novels Shirley and Villette, and the poetry and meditations of John Donne. There are more, but right now the shadows are long and deep in the Old Forest and my brain is begging for sleep.

Respectfully,
Bethberry

[Legolas]

I see "legend" and "myth," as they are used here in this thread, used because of the connotations they bring...both are still fairy tales. These other titles sound more attractive because they seem to imply stories of epic proportions.

[Beleglas]

I think the mythology created by Tolkien is complex enough to be a religion if it was written down earlier, about 600 - 0 b.C. or such. I think that if you would read the Silmarillion to an ancient Greek he may even believe it, and worship his "new" gods.

It has all aspects of a religion:
1.) A creation myth (and a very original one)
2.) Tales about an afterlife.
3.) A clear difference between good and evil forces. Manwe against Morgoth, Elves against Orcs.
4.) Little godly interfearance (none in the third age)
5.) Heros.

The only problem seems to be that everyone knows it has been invented by one person. Of course the Torah (and everything derived from that) are written by a bunch of people who just did it for fun (and are now laughing their heads of in their own created heaven). But try to explain that to Osama bin Laden... [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]
No offence of course [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] .

[Lush]

LOL! If you tried to get a an adult from ancient Greece to "worhsip" characters from the Sil, you'd have a better chance of being run through with a spear. It ain't that simple, dude. Just because people back then didn't have indoor plumbing and X-Box doesn't mean that they were as gullible as 3-year-olds. At least I hope not....I have too much faith in the human race, don't I? [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[Veritas]

I don't think that you could say that Middle-Earth is a religion. Not in the way of the Bible, the Koran and others. It doesn't exist that long, and people now know much about how the Earth is made and the stars. People have less need for a religion to believe in. Don't get me wrong, I say Less, not No.
As Beleglas said, if it was writen earlier, then there would be a big change that it would be a religion, but it's not. It's something where you can dream over in your fantasy. But believing that it would really exist? No, I don't.

[Bêthberry]

Good evening, Legalos,

I wonder if you would be intrigued by this passage from Tolkien's essay, "On Fairy Stories".

The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels--peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: 'mythical' in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe [Tolkien's word for the 'good catastrophe', which he calls "the true form of fairy-tale, and its highest function"]. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfilment of Creation.... It has pre-eminently the 'inner consistency of reality'. There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation.

Respectfully,
Bethberry

[ June 16, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ]

[ June 16, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ]

[Legolas]

It is a very interesting, unique description. However much 'fairy-story' the Gospels contain, though, it's still nonfiction as opposed to the strictly fictional works we've been discussing.

[ June 16, 2002: Message edited by: Legalos ]

[Beleglas]

LOL! If you tried to get a an adult from ancient Greece to "worhsip" characters from the Sil, you'd have a better chance of being run through with a spear. It ain't that simple, dude. Just because people back then didn't have indoor plumbing and X-Box doesn't mean that they were as gullible as 3-year-olds. At least I hope not....I have too much faith in the human race, don't I?

Well, if you can covert ancient Greeks to Christianity (as happened, knowing that Greeks are katholic nowadays), then you can certainly convert them to Tolkienism, being less rediculous then the Bible (I remember a story in it where some Jewish hero defeated a huge army with only three hundred man, "because he had the help of god", sure). Or letting a citywalls collapse only by singing prayers and walking around it with an ark (Jericho).

[burrahobbit]

But you can do that, Beleglas, if the prayers are ulta low frequency and the ark has cannons on it.

[Lush]

Beleglas doesn't know his cultural anthropology too well....He also apparently doesn't know of the Greek Orthodoxy.... *tsk tsk* Lush is very disappointed. Lush may have an aneurysm soon. It's all going to be on Beleglas' conscience.

[TheBlackRider]

Ok. I think thsi all may have happened. I think God (atleast God as I see him) may very well be Ivalutar. I see no differences. As for the Valar the were nto gods of Middle-Earth. I see them as spirites o liek nature and weather and angles nto gods them self. I think that mabey this might of happened and then God created Earth over....(ex. The Genius Story)

This is just my opionion so dotn flame me if you think I have Ivulatar shrines. I am a very decited Catholic and I think these books may have strengthed my faith.

[Beleglas]

In order to produce a resonance with a low enough frequency to collapse stone walls, you need tones lower then humans can hear, let alone produce, so far for the physical part of the story. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]
As for the Greek Orthodoxy: they indeed don't see the pope as their leader but Greek or Eastern orthodoxy is very much related to Katholicism, (a bit like the Kopts in Egypt) and I just didn't want to make things more difficult then they were, sorry if I failed with that. [img]smilies/confused.gif[/img]
And Eru indeed has many familiar features with god but Eru is not so hypocrite.

[Lush]

Beleglas, sweetie, please let the Orthodoxy be. Telling me that my faith "related" to Catholicism, is like shouting "God save the Queen!" in the face of an IRA member. Why don't we stick to the (rapdily degenerating) discussion at hand? All we're going to get otherwise is a rebuke from Mith, and a closed thread.
It's lucky that none of our passionate Protestants have discovered this discourse, or, if they have, have not unleashed some seriously angry invective. I hate to see this become just another hot-button issue that needs to be shut down because we can't stand the heat, and can't act like adults.
We're not here to discuss the supposed hypocrisy of the Christian God, etc., we're here to discuss the possibility of Tolkien's works being a religion "in of itself." I say no, though the spiritual wonder I feel upon reading the books can't be denied.

[Jessica Jade]

noted that there are no 'unique' lessons out anymore, and for that reason, everything that attempts to provide insight is only reiterating what we've all been taught -Legolos

Insight doesn't have to mean that we are being exposed to things that we've never thought of before. It just means that we've gained a newer and more profound way of looking at certain situations in life.And isn't that what art is all about? Great art and literature is something that opens up a new path to me and allows me to percieve things in ways that i would never have thought of, or that would not have been possible otherwise.

is writing in such a way that the "lesson" penetrates to the heart and becomes a deeper part of oneself. -Mark12_30

You put it so beautifully, Mark!

And for the record, in answer to Bethbery's question- I definitely believe that one can find spiritual inspiration/insight in fiction and in things that they don't believe in.