Failure and Punishment

[Macalaure]

Originally Posted by Raynor

Ok, so what do you think are the referrences to Eru/God in LotR which Tolkien mentioned in his interview? Tolkien was a religious person, he intended his work to reflect his principles and convictions - I don't see how he can achieve that by portraying an atheist world with atheist heroes. He did say that various interpretations that downplay the existence of God/religion in LotR "annoy" him and given who he was and what he believed in, I think it is understandable.

I don't know what these references could be because I honestly haven't looked for them so far and probably don't intend to. But if those are the ones, then god in the LotR is really nothing more than that: mentioned, in the sense that the name appears. In the three instances you give the name is used in ways that, as SpM said it already, in no way indicate a deeper knowledge or understanding of what was behind it. It was used in everyday sayings, colloquial expressions that don't carry a specific meaning and even seem replaceable to me, though I'm sure Tolkien would tell me otherwise. The hobbits, of course, aren't atheists in the sense of denying the existance of a god but, to me, they appear to just never have thought about it. Whether intended or not, they seem atheist in this respect, that they simply don't have a particular religion and don't see any need for one. To me they seem like children in this regard, who might say Lor or Lawks as well, but who just as well don't connect a lot with those words.

I think, though I can't give quotes or anything to back it up, that to Tolkien, God and Christianity were so natural that he made them peek out everywhere in the book, but nothing more. It was evident enough for him, and he didn't see the need to put it in there with a heavier hammer. Unfortunately, this results in the possibility for even an attentive reader to completely miss the existance of it, because though it is underlying most of the time, it is of no pivotal importance to the tale itself. I think it's an interesting question whether Tolkien would have made it more clear if he had foreseen this, or if he still would have shyed away from it for fear of allegory and "parody", as he put it.