Redefining Good & Evil

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

You Form surely know that christianity became a world-power with a few Roman caesars who just forced it to the people (closing all scientific academies and philosophical schools as heretical and thus turning the time backwards for a thousand years) and with it's two millenias of tradition all these different views have been considered. And that was not to the credit of the "going-to-be" mainstream christianity, as fex. the question of theodikea remains, thanks to the decision of one synod in the first centuries of our common era, into which fex. manicheanism has much more believable answers...

While I might question the veracity of the slant you're putting on the historical facts... I'm really not sure at all what your point would be. Whether or not Catholicism as such got where it was today--or, pertinently, in Tolkien's lifetime--by the hand of Divine Providence, as I would say, or by the cut-throat tactics of decadent emperors and backwards barbarians (ignoring, completely, the historical fact of civilisation being SAVED in the West--never mind the East for now--by said cut-throat religion) is hardly to the point. My point had nothing to do with why the Manichees are not more popular today, and everything to with the fact that Tolkien's philosophy, as it comes through in the Silmarillion and the LotR is NOT Manichean, but much more reminiscent of orthodox Catholicism. And no wonder, given which of the two Tolkien belonged to. Regardless of WHY he was Catholic, you're surely not going to tell me that he was not, in fact, actually Catholic?

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Looking back at Babylonian or Scandinavian myths one sees a host of open possibilities. Or looking at the Asian religions / philosophies, one gets a totally different answer where there is no winning or losing at all.

So we're dealing with western philosophy here; the philosophy of the winners of history who can write their own truths as universal ones? Even if there's tension between the orthodox-catholicism and say Lutheran doctrine on the matters... (not to talk of the African churches or the fundamentalist "new-borns" in America).

But how should we settle this kind of argument? People X say "There is evil in itself!" and others say "No, it's just the lack of good", and the third party says "It's just the balance between the forces" while the side Y says "It's just perspectives"...


But what strikes me in this comparison is the role of democracy as a backbone of European (North-American) thinking. And that bygone argument of Adam Smith about the invisible hand which will just settle all things for the common good. (He might have been right in a small industry perspective, in a small marketing area with knowledgeable consumers and no "branding", but... )

Now why the evil would be disarrayed and the good ones united? Wasn't it Martin Luther King's famous speech which approached us normal people saying that the evil is not what some evil people do but the fault of us good ones not doing anything about it? So making just the contrary point: we good are disarrayed and that's the problem.

And this sure raises the question of understanding the bad vs. punishing them...

And should we actually do something about bad things ourselves to make the world better? And how to do it?

Perhaps I'm a touch vindictive here--and insofar as I'm capable of pulling myself back from that, I apologise--REALLY!--but what, exactly, does this have to do with either Tolkien or Eddings? To an extent, you seem to be agreeing with Hakon, who said that "good and evil are perspective"--a statement that, unqualified, I do not incline to agree with--you could perhaps be arguing that Tolkien, in fact, DOES have an Eddingseseque side, if you leave Eru out of the picture as pious legend of the Valinorean Elves (thus meaning that the REAL battle in Middle-earth is only between Melkor's and Manwë's parties, who really are comparable in power)--but you don't actually seem to be coming back to either Tolkien or Eddings at all.

Really... unless you're offering another analysis of Good/Evil that is not offered by either Eddings or, I guess, my admittedly Catholic-centric self, then I'm not entirely sure what you're doing.