Can atheists appreciate/understand Lord of the Ring?

[demnation]

Originally Posted by IxnaY AintsaY

I'm a devout agnostic, and I'll admit that the dependence of LoTR's plot on miracles, faith, and divine inspiration bothers me somewhat. But the work has enough other themes that I understand better or more intuitively that the whole still resonates.

Whether I understand "the depth" of it as well as I would if were a person of faith, I have no idea. But I'd guess one might as well ask similar questions with regards to having "scholarly credentials in philology", or "experience fighting in World War I", or "a West Midlands English middle-class background circa the late 19th and early 20th centuries."

Jeeze, it's some kind of miracle any of us understands the book in the slightest.

I'm also agnostic, but I have to say that I find LOTR to be almost devoid of any faith or divine inspiration, at least in any obvious way. Characters certainly aren't going around praying to the Valar or anything. Miracles.....maybe, but only a few. Unless you were talking about subtext, in which case I would say it's debatable!