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Originally Posted by obloquy

Victory over Goliath belonged to God, not to David personally. David's success was miraculous, achieved only because David was the agent performing God's will. If the Witch-King came to Gandalf in the name of Eru then sure, I'd put my money on him. The idea is ludicrous, though.

Crazy, as you say, but the point being made is that sometimes, when Eru is on your side or you just get lucky and roll that '20,' the unlikely happens.

There is no analogy here. The lesson we learn from the story of David and Goliath is exactly the opposite of the one you attribute to it: you assign credit to David, when the whole point is that David was God's agent and God defeated Goliath. Furthermore, even if we accept your argument as having any significant relation to Middle-earth, Eru God is expressly on Gandalf's side, so unless you think it was possible for Goliath to defeat David against God's will, your "succent" (??) argument is revealed to be in full support of my opinion and in direct contradiction to yours.

Interesting point. But even David had his bad days and suffered losses, though surely God was 'on his side.' Eru obviously lets the dark side win now and again; why not this day? The ways of Him who shaped Arda are not our ways, and there's that mysterious way of working thing too.

Edit: Wait, did you seriously imply that the Pope is infallible? That makes me wonder if posting in response to someone so oblivious to facts and reason is really a good idea.

I think we are to read between the lines a bit, as we all seem capable of doing, when we read Essex's words. Again I assume that he was just using words to convey an idea in a way many (but not all) may understand. And note that, after having posted all of my serious and heated posts on this issue beforehand, most likely I will only be able to 'unsay' whatever I'd said before, not having the need to post as vehemently as I did when RotK:EE first came out.