[The Saucepan Man]

Just as I expect people to respect my right not to have any particular belief system foisted on to me as an essential element of my understanding of LotR, so I respect the right of those who do hold strong beliefs and see them mirrored in LotR to explain the connections that they see.

I don’t expect anyone to belittle me for having no strong religious beliefs. Equally, I don’t think that we should be in the business of belittling or ridiculing the beliefs of others.

It seems to me that some comments on this thread are getting close to doing that.

Please can all posting here make sure that they do so courteously and with respect for other posters’ beliefs and opinions.

Thank you.