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Originally Posted by davem
My statements were based on Hutton's talk at Birmingham, but I think he got it right.
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I wonder...
Do you think that he got it right because you wanted him to get it right? Did you find his arguments compelling because they were well-woven and because they jived with your own personal opinions?
Throughout most of this thread, it seems to me, you have argued on the side of Eru is not God. I'm minded of this quote by Alatar, several posts back:
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Originally Posted by alatar
Is that the making of the next poll where one indicates his/her belief system and also how he/she perceives Eru? I'd wager that you'd see a strong correlation between 'beliefs' and the text.
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I'm rather willing to agree with Alatar. Certainly, his theory seems born out in my opinion. I am a conservative, orthodox, Catholic, and I have definitely been on the list of "Eru = God" defenders.
Which brings us full circle to Tolkien... he was Catholic, if strongly interested professionally in paganism. To say that Eru is intended to be God is not a ridiculous assumption at all, as far as that goes. And, as demonstrated, Eru might not be exactly YOUR personal vision of God, whoever you are and whatever that might be, but the way Eru is presented definitely falls within the boundaries of the average definition of God.
Although, for whatever reasons, you may not want to accept Eru as God, it seems to me that you should accept that Eru, at least at the time of the writing of the
Lord of the Rings, as well as thereafter, and I would even say beforehand, is intended to be God- in Middle-Earth.