I had a stoner friend who devoted himself to the bible whenever he was stoned because he had a passion for apologetics and scriptural debate. Doesn't mean I write off all Bible readers as brain fryers.
Stoners were Tolkien freaks, eh?
Funny, back in the 60's during the rise of the "drug culture" (read stoners), some of those people were also called "Jesus Freaks". Seems they got stoned and read the Bible then went out to preach, with their long hair, beards, and everything! Seems they wanted to take His teachings to heart. They were looked down upon.
Go figure.
Funny thing is: I started reading Tolkien in the 5th grade, where we were introduced to "The Hobbit" in class. LOTR came later in high school. IIRC, Tolkien was a devout Catholic. Also recall reading about King Aurthur, Merlin & Morgana; The Oddessy; Jason and the Argonauts, and other Greek and Roman Mythology, and many other types of fanciful literature.
It didn't make want to abandon Christianity. But I gotta tell you; a lot of Christians make me cringe sometimes.
I completely agree with everything in your post...the Tolkein freaks as Stoners comment came from an earlier poster I responded to.
Personally, like you, I’ve loved wide-ranging discoveries in reading. One can lessons of ethics and morality regardless of whether the source material was Christian or not. Gilgamesh, Njal’s Saga, The Illiad, etc spring to mind along with many others...