site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  5d ago (text post)   3919 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for April 2026

This is the Quality Contributions Roundup. It showcases interesting and well-written comments and posts from the period covered. If you want to get an idea of what this community is about or how we want you to participate, look no further (except the rules maybe--those might be important too).

As a reminder, you can nominate Quality Contributions by hitting the report button and selecting the "Actually A Quality Contribution!" option. Additionally, links to all of the roundups can be found in the wiki of /r/theThread which can be found here. For a list of other great community content, see here.

These are mostly chronologically ordered, but I have in some cases tried to cluster comments by topic so if there is something you are looking for (or trying to avoid), this might be helpful.

Quality Contributions to the Main Motte

@naraburns:

@TitaniumButterfly:

@orthoxerox:

@charlesf:

@solowingpixy:

@OliveTapenade:

Contributions for the week of March 30, 2026

@Amadan:

@thejdizzler:

Contributions for the week of April 6, 2026

@birb_cromble:

@Rov_Scam:

@RandomRanger:

@BigObjectPermanenceShill:

@EverythingIsFine:

@OliveTapenade:

@ControlsFreak:

@IdiocyInAction:

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

@SpringFish:

@Shakes:

Contributions for the week of April 13, 2026

@cjet79:

@faceh:

@RandomRanger:

Contributions for the week of April 20, 2026

@self_made_human:

@Rov_Scam:

@Bombadil:

@Amadan:

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

@urquan:

Contributions for the week of April 27, 2026

@RandomRanger:

@MonkeyWithAMachinegun:

@AmrikeeAkbar:

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It's easy for a Protestant, especially an evangelical or someone descended from the Radical Reformation, to read this and say, "Aha! Idolatry! Rome!" For that matter one might be tempted to link it to the Temple in Jerusalem, perhaps echoing Jesus' criticisms of the Temple hierarchy. (Or one might take it in a more anti-semitic direction, but I see no need to encourage people like that.)

The interpretation that seems obvious to me is that Tolkien wrote his fantasy as though it were the ancient history of our world, and being a Christian, he wrote it to be spiritually compatible with the Christian understanding of the spiritual history of our world. The Numenoreans don't build temples because in the early chronology of the Bible, God very explicitly doesn't want a temple, and they don't have churches or hierarchical religion because there's no Christian (or Jewish, or Islamic) basis for it at that point in the chronology. Sure, you can make something up, but then if you're actually describing it to the reader, you're implicitly saying "this form of worship/church/Temple/institution that I made up out of whole cloth is totally theologically valid." Tolkien can't roll his own temple or church because he doesn't perceive himself to have the authority to describe such an institution and say, by authorial fiat, that this is a proper form of worship that God finds pleasing; doing that sort of thing is generally perceived to be deeply unchristian by Christians. None of this applies to paganism; it's fine to describe all sorts of fantastical methods of being wrong about God, because from a Christian perspective there's an infinity of false theologies but only one true one.

But in the midst of the land was a mountain tall and steep, and it was named the Meneltarma, the Pillar of Heaven, and upon it was a high place that was hallowed to Eru Ilúvatar, and it was open and unroofed, and no other temple or fane was there in the land of the Númenóreans.

Here, he's directly copying biblical descriptions of religious practice in era that ends with Abraham and the Patriarchs, which is roughly where these stories would presumably happen. Simple altars in a high place are an apparently-acceptable method of communion with God prior to the Abrahamic Covenant, so it's what he uses as well. The obvious corollaries for the temples of Morgoth and Sauron are Dagon and Baal.

Yes, and that's consistent where, though I see the anti-semitic or at least anti-Judaic reading of an evil deity who demands people make a 'House of the Lord', acknowledge him sole god of the world, and worship only him, I think in context Tolkien is plainly criticising idolatry in a manner consistent with biblical convictions. Morgoth, and later Sauron, set themselves up as false gods, appropriating and perverting the imagery associated with the true god.

I don't think Tolkien's refusal to depict any religion, even primitive religion, was wholly because of his setting being framed as prehistoric Earth. He says directly, in Letter #131, that he thinks that containing 'the Christian religion' is 'fatal' to a fairy-story. This was the reason for his dislike of Arthurian legend.

That said I do also think he has a paradox in his First Age writings that he never quite resolved, which is that, quite apart from being Christian or even Catholic works, Tolkien was also heavily inspired by what he called 'Northern' myth. Turin is a Germanic hero, and his story occurs in the atmosphere of Germanic or Anglo-Saxon (or to a lesser extent Scandinavian) mythology. That means, for instance, things like Fate or Doom as powerful forces in the text. These are, for lack of a better term, 'religious' concepts. Tolkien's chronology does not allow for Christian or Jewish characters - the closest he comes is a sort of ethical monotheism. However, it would allow for pagans, but he does not allow himself to have pagan protagonists, even when the whole story he's writing is derivative of a fatalistic pagan spirituality.

To an extent Lewis has a similar issue, except that Lewis is more of a classicist and his great pagan loves are Greek. Even so Lewis allows himself to speak about Christianity and our world's religions more explicitly, so he does a bit more explicit work in trying to find points of harmony.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats