Tolkien

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20 Jan 2018, 1:46 pm

Make no mistake! Tolkien was a Pagan. Christians love to claim him as one of their own. Do not be fooled. His work, The Silmirillion reads like the Sacred Text of a New Religion, altogether.

DarthMetaKnight
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20 Jan 2018, 2:01 pm

TwinRuler wrote:

Make no mistake! Tolkien was a Pagan. Christians love to claim him as one of their own. Do not be fooled. His work, The Silmirillion reads like the Sacred Text of a New Religion, altogether.

Nope. He was a devout Christian.

He just understood that old Norse myths were historically important.

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20 Jan 2018, 3:33 pm

DarthMetaKnight wrote:

TwinRuler wrote:

Make no mistake! Tolkien was a Pagan. Christians love to claim him as one of their own. Do not be fooled. His work, The Silmirillion reads like the Sacred Text of a New Religion, altogether.

Nope. He was a devout Christian.

He just understood that old Norse myths were historically important.

This. If I recall correctly he was a Catholic, specifically.

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TwinRuler
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23 Jan 2018, 3:30 am

Are you quite sure about that? The Silmirillion does read like a Sacred Text unto itself.

naturalplastic
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23 Jan 2018, 3:36 am

Wasn't he also good friends with C.S.Lewis (a religious Christian author)?

adifferentname
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23 Jan 2018, 3:44 am

naturalplastic wrote:

Wasn't he also good friends with C.S.Lewis (a religious Christian author)?

Not only were they good friends, Tolkien is cited as being a significant influence over Lewis' conversion from atheism to Christianity.

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23 Jan 2018, 3:58 am

TwinRuler wrote:

Make no mistake! Tolkien was a Pagan. Christians love to claim him as one of their own. Do not be fooled. His work, The Silmirillion reads like the Sacred Text of a New Religion, altogether.

Tolkien was a Roman Catholic, the Silmarillion was a work of fiction.

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EzraS
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23 Jan 2018, 5:10 am

Tolkien wanted to create a mythology for England similar to Norse and Greek mythologies.

However the supreme being of the story Illuvatar, the name basically maning one singular all powerful ruler, is pretty much like the god of the bible being pure and righteous rather than hedonistic like Zeus and Odin.

He created the earth though the angelic choir he created, who are like the heavenly host.

The greatest among theses angelic beings became jealous of Illuvatar and desired dominion. So he's quite obviously a representation of the devil.

There's also mention of the flame imperishable which seems to be a refference to the holy spirit. Gandalf (who's really one of the angelic beings in disguise) mentions it when confronting the balrog (elf word for demon) saying that he was a servant of the secret fire.

But it's also pagan type mythological in that the angelic beings are also like norse and greek gods, such as Ulmo so obviously being like Poseidon and another ties to mythology like Numenor obviously being Atlantis etc.

Ironically I've been currently re-reading the Silmarillion on my phone
http://ae-lib.org.ua/texts-c/tolkien__t ... _en.htm#06

C.S. Lewis' chronicles of narnia was also loaded with pagan elements and beings.

AshtenS
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23 Jan 2018, 11:44 pm

Just because he wrote stories involving pagan mythological elements does not mean he was a pagan. He was actually a very devout Catholic, Christian. He was somewhat influentual in CS Lewis's conversion if i remember correctly though Lewis became Anglican.

Ezra is correct. Tolkien was very much inspired by ancient myths and used them to build his story. Lewis even explicitly had the Roman god, Bacchus show up in one of his books. If you read Lewis's "Till We Have Faces", its basically a retelling of a greek myth but with a Christian twist.

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24 Jan 2018, 12:39 am

I heard that at one point C.S Lewis mentioned adding a lamp post to a story as a significant point and tolkien said that could never happen...so that is why there is a significant lamp post in Narnia. Not sure if that is true but I do find the thought of C.S Lewis and Tolkien debating about this to be funny.

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24 Jan 2018, 3:26 am

Sweetleaf wrote:

That would be interesting and amusing.

As far as Tolkien's comment goes, I can't help but think about the two colossal lamp posts in the Silmarillion that provided light for a sunlesss moonless flat earth. Maybe Tolkien was being tongue-in-cheek.

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24 Jan 2018, 8:59 am

Still, Adolf Hitler was also born into the Roman Catholic faith!

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24 Jan 2018, 12:59 pm

TwinRuler wrote:

Still, Adolf Hitler was also born into the Roman Catholic faith!

The difference being that Tolkien always self-identified as a Catholic and remained a part of the church. You're edging closer to being 'not even wrong'.

EzraS
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25 Jan 2018, 2:24 am

Okay lets say Ronald and Edith were closet pegans and held secret pegan ceremonies. What difference would it make?

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25 Jan 2018, 10:40 am

From EWTN.
https://www.ewtn.com/library/HOMELIBR/TOLKIEN.HTM

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AshtenS
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25 Jan 2018, 8:39 pm

TwinRuler wrote:

Still, Adolf Hitler was also born into the Roman Catholic faith!

Last time I checked, lots of people were. In what way does this relate to Tolkien?

Hitler was also a human. Wait, you're a human too right? So that means....

Nothing makes you sound smarter than reductio ad hitlerum.

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