LOL. I have a tendency to do that where anything philosophical or (especially) theological is involved. If it’s any consolation, though, it wasn’t that I thought you personally were an Asatru devotee, or anything… I just didn’t think (and still don’t) that Asatru represents the LotR moral base better than Christianity does.

But you’re right of course, Iluvatar and his servants are wholly invisible in LotR, unless you take a couple of vague general remarks about higher purposes (I think Gandalf makes one, but I’m too lazy to look it up) that way, and there’s certainly no obvious worship of anything (unless you take Frodo’s calling on Elbereth that way — actually every time I see that bit I remember that Tolkien was Catholic and wonder if Elbereth = Mary, but that’s just me).

So when it’s all boiled down, no religion represents what motivates the characters in LotR. Tolkien has deliberately omitted mention of God for the purposes of the story (as JK Rowling is doing with the Harry Potter books — and heck, I even did it in my own fantasy novel).

I never meant to say that I thought Faramir, or any other LotR character, was a Christian even in some vague allegorical sense. I have no idea whatsoever what Faramir did or didn’t believe by way of theology, because Tolkien didn’t tell us.

I’m not subscribing to the fallacy that people can’t do right unless they know why they’re doing it. I know all manner of kind and charitable atheists and pagans, after all. Nor do I think that people who know what is right are necessarily going to do it, because I know all manner of grumpy and badly behaved Christians, as well. But I’d say that everybody is influenced by conscience and moral law whether they’re aware of that (or even believe in it) or not, and that’s the way it works in Tolkien’s universe as well.