Stripes you don’t disappoint...the prophecy came true :). You’ve gone from “reductionism” to “well maybe it’s a Catholic story if the reader chooses”. Good for you stripes. First, if you would read carefully you’d avoid the taste of leather-—I said the book has a Catholic perspective.
In the spirit of the season stripes, I’ll cede to you the ground you so desperately wish to occupy. You now have the lonely desolate desert of whathever your argument du jour is. And here’s your silly and untenable position:
That Tolkien, a devout and orthodox Catholic for whom the Blessed Sacrament was very much at the heart of his devotional life, who practiced a deep veneration of the Blessed Mother, who fought and survived the Great War, who was a member of the Christian literary revival and of the “inklings”, and whose view of his Catholic/Christian morality is predominant in his writings, is the ground you have won and can now defend all your days as you reside in blissful ignorance. Thus, stipes (as prophesized), you have gone full circle to your original accusation of reductionism—your own reductionism. So to you Tokien’s masterpiece could have been written by a buddhist...you have now engaged in existentialist blather.
Finally, let me once again, in the spirit of the season, attempt to teach you something and to ask you to listen to something other than your own ignorance or anti-catholic slant of life-—I’ll tease you again with Tolkien’s own words as written to a priest friend of his:
“Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision...For the religious elelment is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.”
Stipes, you don’t even have a fundamental understanding of key terms in this exchange such as perspective, symbolism, allegory, etc. When you again respond, pardon my delay until after Christmas. I would cite the critical works such as “The Passion according to Tolkien” but part of your resistance to learning is your resistance to the notion of Tolkien’s Catholicism or perhaps a resistance to me personally. You are fortunate not to be graded. :) Take care and talk later.
You can give the story any perspective you want according to what you bring to the story. That is exactly what Tolkien said. He made a distinction between allogory and myth. You are confusing the two.
And here’s your silly and untenable position:
That is not a valid argument. You are once again engaging in a fallacy. You do not have a valid argument.
your own ignorance or anti-catholic slant of life
Once again, you are engaging in a fallacy. Name-calling is not a valid argument.
So to you Tokien’s masterpiece could have been written by a buddhist...you have now engaged in existentialist blather.
Once again you are engaging in a fallacy.
part of your resistance to learning is your resistance to the notion of Tolkien’s Catholicism or perhaps a resistance to me personally.
I have gone out of my way to quote Tolkien himself about the way to approach his story. All you have is the opinion of other people about Tolkien. I have asked you quote Tolkien himself about the meaning of his story. But you have not done so.
If you can respond with a valid argument, well reasoned and without fallacies, without name-calling, then please do so.