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It seems to me that natural disasters are more profoundly moving simply because they are both inevitable & unavoidable. Unlike acts of an angry God, who can be pacified by obeying his rules, a nature cannot. They bring home to us our essential transitoriness - whatever we do, however moral our behaviour. From that point of view they require courage of us, simply to live & look the 'Dragon' in the face. Avoiding the wrath of an angry deity merely requires us to do as we're told.
To read LotR from a 'secular' perspective makes the display of courage far more moving. Imagine there is no eternal reward, that Frodo is giving up everything for others knowing that there is nothing beyond the life he is sacrificing, no healing in the West, because going into the West is simply to die. Not Tolkien's intention, certainly, but still a possible reading - does that make it more or less affecting?
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