A question for Tolkenistas...

[Pat Mustard]

Gandalf is real!

Tom Bombadil, on the other hand...

Tom Bombadil is not God, or his avatar.  Tolkien explicitly states this in an interview somewhere.
He's supposed to be an enigma, old as time. Tolkein outright refused to say what he was, only a few things that he wasn't.  I figure he maybe represents nature?  But as a kid when I first read LOTR and also The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, I too assumed he was God (or his avatar, though I didn't know that word at the time).

No he's more like Janeway in that episode where she and Tom Paris get zapped about a year back in time, and she forbids him from stopping the natives inadvertently promoting themselves to glory (Pratchett reference FTW!). "I could stop the madness, but blind obedience to the rules is the only way" (yes, yes I know it's more "meh, I'm too lazy" with Bombadil).

I suppose it could have been worse, hecl could have pulled the Phlox Evolutionary Clause instead.