[davem]

Well, I just spent about an hour anwsering your point & lost the post & I can't face doing it all over, so I'll be brief here.

[QUOTE=Raynor]
And Sauron didn't just tell lies, he used his demonic power to corrupt the very beings.

This is to imply that Sauron was wholly responsible for the Numenoreans corruption. Which makes Eru's action even more unacceptable. The Numenoreans come across as victims in this scenario. One cannot assume all the Numenoreans were evil - many quite possibly went along out of fear for themselves & their families.

One cannot read the account of the Akallabeth in the same way post Hiroshima. The destruction of Numenor would have traumatised generations, & created a fear of Eru - which Eru must have realised.

Though childrens in Gondor do play as orcs in The New Shadow.

Because they were innocent & didn't realise what they were doing - which was Tolkien's point.

Well, I didn't say mythology, but myths; aslo, if we are to understand mythology as a body of myths, then he did produce it. Further I don't think your qualifier "produced over millenia" is necessary, but that is beside the point anyway.

Its still not a myth. A myth is the 'story' behind an actual religion, & reflected the worldview of an entire culture. What Tolkien produced was a pseudo-mythology. But in the end it is a work of fiction.

Delightment, excitement and moving signifies, to me, much more than entertainment (a word he didn't use)

Maybe he had a thesaurus.

Ok; what was Tolkien writing about when he made more or less specific, direct, refferences to Eru? And, if he was talking about a transcendent reality, I ask again how could that be different that what he conceived of God? How can two transcedent realities differ? Also, to presume that one's spirituality can't be reflected in a book, and increase its value, and be perceived as such, is, well, presumptuous.

Its a story. If Tolkien had wanted to 'do a Lewis' & write Christian apologetics, or 'reveal the ways of God to man' he would have done so. In any case, by writing a story he invites the reader to take it as a story, & not a sermon.

Because he stated in the letters that not even the crreator can destroy a fea.
I am curious, what more evil deeds did all of these do that "far exceeded" the numenorean actions?

He could have simply done with Sauron what was done with Melkor & removed him to the void - except that he needed Sauron for LotR, so he had to invent a reason for keeping him around in the world - a pretty unconvincing one if you ask me.

But it is very real to those who experienced Utumno or Angband, and probably Mordor too, later, as evil is manifest in this world.

I stated Hell did not exist in M-e as a metaphysical reality.

It would fit however with the legend of Lot and his family escaping from their town before they were destroyed; and it was made specifically clear that the valar intervened to get them safe to shore. I would also like to know if you have any evidence that there were more faithtfulls than those who made it to the ships.

It states the Valar intervened to get the safely to the shores of M-e after the devastation, not that they intervened to get them to the harbours of Numenor. Being that the devastation happened without warning one can only logically assume that those of the faithful who escaped were the lucky ones. And given that many 'evil' Numenoreans in the cities on M-e were not wiped out one can only assume that many faithful Numenoreans died & many unfaithful ones didn't. In which case, one has to ask, why didn't Eru wipe out all the 'sinful' Numenoreans. As far as I'm aware the ships only carried those of the House of Elros (ie of the Royal Blood), so unless we posit that only the aristocrats remained faithful we have a problem. One must question whether, given that only nine ships escaped, the totality of the faithful were so small in number (even given Sauron's depredations).