I'm a devout scientific materialist and have been essentially my whole life. But I'm with you on preferring the flat earth cosmology that was published for Middle-Earth, with the Two Trees and Varda kindling the stars and Earendil's ship becoming the morning and the evening star—and then the vast convulsion that overthrew Numenor, "the breaking of the world." It's an essentially poetic conception that isn't improved by trying to make it consistent with scientific astronomy. I'm willing to accept as part of the conception that when Eru remade the world, he not only made the Earth round but vastly multiplied the distance to the stars and galaxies.
Years ago, when I ran a campaign set in Middle-Earth, I specified that the Elves had not merely telescopic vision, but the ability to see over the horizon—because they could travel on the Straight Road, and their vision was still adapted to it; for them the earth and the seas didn't curve away. Eventually I came to think of it as an elegant metaphor for their immortality within the world: A man's life has a horizon, but an elf's doesn't. I've always wondered if Tolkien had consciously thought any of that through.
I'm a devout scientific materialist and have been essentially my whole life. But I'm with you on preferring the flat earth cosmology that was published for Middle-Earth, with the Two Trees and Varda kindling the stars and Earendil's ship becoming the morning and the evening star—and then the vast convulsion that overthrew Numenor, "the breaking of the world." It's an essentially poetic conception that isn't improved by trying to make it consistent with scientific astronomy. I'm willing to accept as part of the conception that when Eru remade the world, he not only made the Earth round but vastly multiplied the distance to the stars and galaxies.
Years ago, when I ran a campaign set in Middle-Earth, I specified that the Elves had not merely telescopic vision, but the ability to see over the horizon—because they could travel on the Straight Road, and their vision was still adapted to it; for them the earth and the seas didn't curve away. Eventually I came to think of it as an elegant metaphor for their immortality within the world: A man's life has a horizon, but an elf's doesn't. I've always wondered if Tolkien had consciously thought any of that through.