Imagine no religion

[blantyr]

Originally Posted by skip spence

In any case, if you say that LotR is inbued with an orthopraxy, that the right behaviour is what matters, not one's allegiance or creed - and here I would agree - I will argue that it is not the same kind of orthopraxy that these real world religious leaders have preached throughout history. In Islam or Judaism the right behaviour may be what's most important, but what constitutes the right behaviour is decided by the clerics (or, allegedly, God, through the clerics).

There might be another perspective on this. Religious scholars have recently began using computers to do language analysis of the Bible and other ancient works. One goal is to figure out who wrote what. One perspective that came out of this is that the Bible mixed together two distinct traditions.

The story telling tradition would deal with Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son, with David slaying Goliath, with water being turned to wine. The priestly tradition dealt with rules, with keeping holy the lord's day, not eating pork, and not coveting one's neighbor's wife. There was conjecture that the story telling tradition was more rural and informal, while the priestly tradition was more urban and concerned with consolidation of authority.

This might illustrate the nature of 'organized religion,' such as it is, in Tolkien's works. There is an abundance of tales which present moral decisions and show the implications of making the incorrect choice. There is no priest class deriving rules from these stories and trying to make sure the rules are followed.

Which might be another perspective on the Orthopraxy / Orthodoxy distinction.