[The Saucepan Man]

You seem to be saying that you cannot discuss the themes and values within Tolkien's works in any way that is meaningful to you with anyone who does not accept the existence of Truth (or at least accept its existence for the purposes of the conversation).

I didn't mean to imply that … If we exclude anything which will not fit with your & Aiwendil's worldview, then that would exclude a large part of what I consider to be important, & the discussion would become too restrictive for me - I would have to censor everything I wanted to say to fit it in.

But isn’t that really just saying the same thing?

If not, isn’t it a bit like trying to discuss Middle Earth, but refusing to mention the Elves?

Well, I can happily discuss my views on Elves and how their nature and experience within Middle-earth might be applicable to my life, my beliefs and values and my understanding of my world, without actually believing that they exist in my world.

… this thread, intentionally or not, has come to be about 'meaning' - what Tolkien meant, what his intentions were, what, exactly, his philosophical position was.

Has it? It started out as an exploration of whether we necessarily have to accept Tolkien’s meaning if we accept his text, or whether we are free to impose our own meaning on it. Although it has clearly moved on and covered a wide variety of related issues, I still see that issue as being central to the discussion.