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Originally Posted by Lalwendë
I have to disagree with this.
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Feel free to.
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Originally Posted by Lalwendë
IThere are many natural disasters in the world today and we could describe none of them as 'dull'.
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In a historical sense, such things are VERY dull. A brief interlude of blind nature interfering in the vastly more interesting sphere of human affairs. Not even worthy of notice, really.
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Originally Posted by Lalwendë
IOf course some people ascribe them to God but I do not (the only tragedies I ascribe to 'God' are wars and acts of terror and hatred driven by religious fervour - and even these are driven by people in extreme mental states rather than any 'God' I know).
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Again, I would have to disagree, both with the assertion that such events are essentially tragic in nature and that "extreme mental states" are inevitably the cause.
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Originally Posted by Lalwendë
IThe Boxing Day Tsunami for example was no less tragic than 9/11 or 7/7 - the former caused by the plates of the Earth moving, the latter by an over-abundance of duty to God.
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Not an especially good comparison, I must say. On the one hand, you have a random and pointless act of nature. On the other, the latest major salvo in a very old war.
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Originally Posted by Lalwendë
IInterestingly the impetus behind the Killer Wave came from Tolkien's dreams of an all-engulfing wave, something which seems to loom large in the collective conscience of a lot of people today. Is this due to the rising sea levels that are threatening our very existence?
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Since such evidence seems yet to have surfaced, I'd have to assume that the answer is a fairly defintive no.
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Originally Posted by Lalwendë
ISo if Tolkien had merely written of a Killer Flood and not explicitly said Eru was behind it then it would have been just as effective, just as tragic.
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Again, it would not have. Such as it is, the destruction of Numenor recalls the Biblical flood in its parallel tale of over-weening human pride and abandonment of God, and thus derives its power. As a "killer flood" it would merely have been just another freak act of nature such as tend to occur every now and then, devoid of any emotional power save in the glorification of victimhood as seems to be the fashion these days.
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Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne
These where both replies to Davem's post and I would like to ask the simple question: Why?
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Because they were wrong, simply enough. Because they violated the divinely-established conditions that had been set upon the men of Numenor.
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Originally Posted by davem
But we are not talking (at least I'm not) about God, but about the character Eru. I can't think of any point at which Eru displays compassion, mercy, tolerance. He rarely displays wisdom ('Of course you can enter into Arda, Melkor!').
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And how is it that you know beyond doubt that this was not wisdom?
