Parallels with Christianity, and their effect on his work

[Gwaihir the Windlord]

I'm not going to join this discussion overly much, just until my debate with Mans has conluded itself (probably with neither himself nor -- certainly not [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] -- myself having changed our opinions, but all the same).

there could only be one God or god or god-like creature...

Exactly what I said, and this is Illuvatar. I may as well copy and paste the sections of my post that said this, actually (sorry about this but I think it summed it up ok)

Illuvatar, clearly, is the One God of Ea, with the Valar and Maiar a lower order of spirits and proceeding from this One God. They are not gods in [anything like =)] the same sense that Illuvatar is... however, they are not by any means Eru's or true Gods (with, as you'll notice, a capital 'G').

There really should be a different word for the two 'types' of 'god' we are talking about. One, the One, is Eru, the real God; the other is an Earth-deity, similar to the 'gods' of Olympus. There can indeed be no more than one Illuvatar or Illuvatar-like 'creature' (funny way to put it though [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]) in Tolkien's work.

(What you say about the difference between Ancient Greek gods and Valar is true. They are not the same thing -- the point of my post was that neither are they the same as angels.[/i])

Since time is short for me here, if I may, I'll just give one more quote of yours which I didn't quite understand:

And Gwaihir, I am opposed to you calling htem god, not calling eagles angels, and I would appreciate some change in attitude.

I am no more 'calling' the Ainur gods as I am 'calling' the eagles angels. A simple comparison is all I see between them, and neither of these analogies directly represents the other. I am not accusing either of being either, as I in turn would say that you are doing with the Valar-angels paralell.
If you aren't opposed to my likening of eagles to angels, you must have changed your mind about it... you certainly were, at any rate. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] But that's fine, of course, and if you like I will try not to include eagles in this thread.

Ok, that's it from me for now.