[jallanite]

Originally Posted by TheLostPilgrim

Those works, while beautiful, are shallow compared to The Silmarillion and his other writings. … He created more than simply "fantasy" works--He created a universe, which I believe he on some level himself believed in.

Tolkien disagreed with you.

See Morgoth’s Ring (HoME X), page 370 (emphasis mine):

This descends from the oldest forms of the mythology – when it was intended to be no more than another primitive mythology, though more coherent and less ‘savage’. It was consequently a ‘Flat Earth′ cosmogony (much easier to manage anyway): the Matter of Númenor had not been devised.

It is now clear to me that in any case the Mythology must actually be a ‘Mannish’ affair. (Men are really only interested in Men and in Men’s ideas and visions.) The High Eldar living and being tutored by the demiurgic beings must have known, the ‘truth’ (according to their measure of understanding). What we have in the Silmarillion etc. are traditions (especially personalized and centred upon actors, such as Fëanor) handed on by Men in Númenor and later in Middle-earth (Arnor and Gondor); but already far back – from the first association of the Dúnedain and Elf-friends with the Eldar in Beleriand – blended and confused with their own Mannish myths and cosmic ideas.

Tolkien’s story of Elvish kings and nobles is not supposed to be true even within his imaginary world. Fëanor presumably really existed in this imaginary world, but much that is told of him in these Manish tales were deeds of other folk that were later “personalized and centered” on Fëanor.

Tolkien certainly knew that in reality Fëanor was invented by him.

Tolkien tried to rework his Silmarillion material to fit with scientific findings, which Tolkien himself really believed. However, in trying this, he found that he was destroying most of the basis of the Silmarillion story. So he ended up accepting it as yet another false Mannish mythology. Occasionally in his later writing Tolkien refers to what must have supposedly really happened.

If Tolkien had lived and had written The Silmarillion and his other works in ancient times, we'd probably consider them holy scripture today. That's how beautiful it is, and how much of a brilliant, insightful, gifted man he was.

Who are this we you mention? Do you mean the exclusive we, which means yourself personally and some others but not everyone you are posting to. Or do you mean the inclusive we which means yourself and everyone you are posting to? European languages avoid making it easy to make such an obvious distinction in simple speech. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clusivity .

I personally resent being told by anyone what I would believe, especially when it is something I very much do I not believe. Speak for yourself only and for others who you have reason to believe agree with you, and speak clearly.

As to people who believe in religions, there are thousands of differing contradictory religious beliefs in the world. It is possible that somewhere there are some people who believe in Manwë and Varda as non-fictional entities, just as occasionally one discovers that some people believe that Sherlock Holmes is real. I don’t find either belief at all uplifting. I very much doubt that Tolkien would.

Tolkien often makes it clear that he knew quite well that he was inventing, though at times he hoped that his inventions would prove pleasing to God. Tolkien certainly believed his fictional creations were in some way true, in the same way that almost every writer believes that his or her fictional creations are true in some way when they are writing them.

But the same writers also know that their creations are fictional.
Tolkien himself when writing about his fiction often appears to take it less seriously than some obsessive fans.

Tolkien was no different from most writers. Sometimes he was very into playing the game and sometimes he was not. But he knew at some level that it was a game.

From an interview with Henry Resnik, published in Niekas 18, page 38 (http://efanzines.com/Niekas/Niekas-18.pdf ):

T:  Yes I do. I shouldn't call it a fad; I wouldn't call it underground. I'd call it a game.
R: A game?
T:  Yes, because there is a whole lot of stuff that amuses people -- alphabets. history, etc.
R: Then I take it you approve of the game?
T:  I don't mind it, as long as it doesn't become obsessive. It doesn't obsess me.
R: Have you noticed any similar widespread game-playing in England?
T:  No, I don't think things catch on like that here quite so much.
R: I wonder if you have any suggestions about why it has caught on so widely in America; could it be anything other than the paperback edition, which came along logically?
T:  Why I've even had letters from children who have saved up, you know, who have gone to some work to get the hardback edition. I think it is, if you really want to know my opinion, a partly reactionary influence. I think it's part of the fun after so much more dreary stuff, isn't it?
R: What sort of dreary stuff are you referring to?
T:  I should say the Lord of the Flies, wouldn't you?
R: Many people I've spoken with here told me they enjoy the sheer fun of being in Middle-Earth.
T:  It's meant to please; it doesn't horrify.

Christopher Tolkien, who should know, writes in The Children of Húrin, page 7:

It is undeniable that there are a great many readers of The Lord of the Rings (as previously published in varying forms in The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and The History of Middle-earth) are altogether unknown, unless by their repute as strange and inaccessible in mode and manner.

It was Christopher Tolkien’s hope that by publishing The Children of Húrin in full for the first time, with little commentary, he might present some of this “inaccessible” material more accessibly.

Other fantasy writers have created what one might call universes in more than one book before Tolkien: William Morris, George MacDonald, James Branch Cabell, Lord Dunsany, Robert E. Howard, Mervyn Peake, E. E. Eddison, and probably others.

I do not think it does the works of Tolkien or any of these writers any favours to compare them with numerous books that disagree with one another: the Qurʼan, the Book of Mormon, the Mahabharata, the Gathas of Zarathusta, any of the Christian Bibles, Jewish scriptures, Buddhist scriptures, the Norse Eddas and so on.