[VanimaEdhel]

Turgon - I never saw said National Geographic program. However, I do know, based on biographies, that Tolkien was through and through a Catholic. He was, in fact, the one that truly introduced C.S. Lewis to Catholicism. If you do any search on Google, you will find that Tolkien called himself a Catholic. I did just one, and there were many, many articles that discuss his religion.

Now that I know what National Geographic says, however, I'm certainly going to think more than twice about believing anything they say in the future...

And Fordim - I think we all agreed that it was, in fact, up to the reader. There are many religions out there that were begun unbeknownst to the "creator." The founder of the religion died, and only after he died did people begin to examine his personal philosophy or the philosophy created through literature. My argument was more whether Tolkien would have wanted people to take the mythology he created and form a religion around it, or whether he would argue that we entirely missed the point.

I know that things can come from writing that the writers don't intend - so many times critics and reviewers will comment on a certain piece of writing and examine an element or symbol in it that the author never intended to exist. Does that mean that it does not exist or that it has just transcended - that it has been taken out of the author's hands and put into the public's to make of it what they will?