[Kalimac]

Rosa, don't worry about it - I don't think Tolkien fans tend to be the sort of people who heap scorn on the idea of a perennial evil or Satan. It is the sort of thing which is worst when it perniciously hard to notice - what was it Lewis said about the road the Hell being the smooth one without signposts? Screwtape Letters, I think.

This does tie into the discussion somewhat, though, since when we're talking about resisting an evil that arose, most of us (me included) would only really feel driven to fight it if it came after us in its starkest and most obvious form, threatening us to the point where basically our only option was to fight directly or die. It's when things get slowly worse and worse but well, you can live with it that is probably the worst state to be in.