Quote:
Originally Posted by skip spence
His moral standard is not a judgemental one in the sense that many conservatives now and in the past hold dear, where a failure to comply to orthodoxy leads to condemnation, but rather one tolerant of differances between peoples and individuals, as long as the heart is in the right place and you try to do what is good. I don't feel excluded from this moral standard, penned up by a deeply religious man, although I've no theistic beliefs myself and I respect Tolkien for that.
|
Well said - and I hope we can all agree that while for
some people (as
Bêthberry carefully put it) religious behaviour can be a way to achieve a moral/ethical standard, it's by no means a prerequisite, and may (again for
some people) even have a contrary effect (as
TMT noted).
Which is one reason why I'm not quite comfortable with the (modern?) tendency to reduce religion to a system of ethics (sort of a last resort of liberal theology when all else fails) - I don't feel it does complete justice to either ethics or religion. But this doesn't touch the importance of doing the right thing over belief or ritual in Tolkien. Very good point IMO.
Quote:
Originally Posted by skip spence
You mistyped and mixed up the terms here, didn't you?  |
I don't think so. The wikipedia article
Bb linked to treats ethics as only one aspect of orthopraxy, others being e.g. "tradition, sacrificial offerings, concerns of purity"; look at the importance of keeping the Mosaic law in Judaism, or of prescribed prayers, fasting etc. in Islam, and you see orthopraxy all over the place.