Lord Melkor Rightful Master of the Fates of Arda

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Originally Posted by Neithan Tol Turambar

And Hookbill, I know why you call yourself that.

Ah! You're a fan of the Super Mario games are you?

[The Might]

By the by, when I first saw your name I looked it up on Wikipedia since it sounded strange, and yet familiar.

"Neithan, I'm unsure at this point whether you are a troll, a madman, or a thinker (of sorts)"...I seem to feel the same

Can duplicate accounts actually be started without anyone noticing here, because, if yes, there is a more likely possibility...

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by Lalwende

If so, that's quite fabulous, as Men were created to respond to and to resist Melkor's themes.

Both races were created in the third theme:

Originally Posted by Ainulindale, Silmarillion

For the Children of Iluvatar were conceived by him alone; and they came with the third theme, and were not in the theme which Iluvatar propounded at the beginning, and none of the Ainur had part in their making.

That no Ainu had a part in their making is reinforced in the letters too (such as #200). I would have problems with picturing the Eruhini as a generated response by Melkor; Tolkien holds that their intrusion is the chief one; moreover:

Originally Posted by idem

And they saw with amazement the coming of the Children of Iluvatar, and the habitation that was prepared for them; and they perceived that they themselves in the labour of their music had been busy with the preparation of this dwelling, and yet knew not that it had any purpose beyond its own beauty.

which implies that the Children existed in design before the themes.

Originally Posted by Lalwende

But this is Eru, and we cannot possibly hope to know Tolkien's own relationship with God and if he saw God as the source of all in the Real World, including Darkness, but if Eru is his representation of his own God then he may well have done.

I presume he does; the closest he comes to confessing this, that I know:

=Letter #153]I have represented at least the Orcs as pre-existing real beings on whom the Dark Lord has exerted the fullness of his power in remodelling and corrupting them, not making them. That God would 'tolerate' that, seems no worse theology than the toleration of the calculated dehumanizing of Men by tyrants that goes on today.

this theme of respect of Free Will by the Creator is also mentioned previously, in regards to the literary works:

Originally Posted by idem

Free Will is derivative, and is.'. only operative within provided circumstances; but in order that it may exist, it is necessary that the Author should guarantee it, whatever betides : sc. when it is 'against His Will', as we say, at any rate as it appears on a finite view.

Morality implies free will, which implies possibility of evil - even at grand scales, such as that of angels, with all their terrible effects.

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by The 1000th Reader

Yeah, they did.

Hmmm... care to elaborate? I agree with Lal here: nothing existed so no one could be aware of being happy. Though we could speculate if Ilúvatar and Ainur were happy or aware of it...

Originally Posted by The Might

Can duplicate accounts actually be started without anyone noticing here, because, if yes, there is a more likely possibility...

I think they can be made - why couldn't they? If this is some regular downer's joke, I think it's a very bad one.

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by The 1,000 Reader

You do realize that everyone was happy and good even before Morgoth did his crap, right?

Originally Posted by davem

But did they realise they were good & happy? Did they realise anything at all?

The ainur used their free will to compose their music, so they must have had conscioussness. That they were good before Melkor's discording music is an fundamental idea in the Legendarium. I don't know of any 'evidence' concerning the level of their happiness, but even in this 50/50 situation, I believe it is safe to speculate they were doing quite alright. Ainulindale speaks of them experiencing amazement, harmony, communion, awe, even if only in relation to the music.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Raynor

The ainur used their free will to compose their music, so they must have had conscioussness. That they were good before Melkor's discording music is an fundamental idea in the Legendarium. I don't know of any 'evidence' concerning the level of their happiness, but even in this 50/50 situation, I believe it is safe to speculate they were doing quite alright. Ainulindale speaks of them experiencing amazement, harmony, communion, awe, even if only in relation to the music.

No. They were innocent befoe Melkor's discord - which is not the same thing at all. They could not have been 'good' because a) to be good is a moral choice, not a default position & b) they couldn't have known what 'good' actually was, since no alternative position existed. they didn't know they were happy because they had no experience of unhappiness. They didn't know what harmony amazement or communion was either, never having known disharmony, bordom or isolation. In short they didn't actually know much of anything till Melkor intervened & made them aware of other options.

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by davem

They were innocent befoe Melkor's discord - which is not the same thing at all.

I am not sure what notion of good and evil you apply here. If being good means using free will in accordance with the stated and perceived intent of Eru, then they were good; and if they had reason, then they were able to differentiate this from its opposite, which would constitute evil.

Originally Posted by davem

they didn't know they were happy because they had no experience of unhappiness. They didn't know what harmony amazement or communion was either, never having known disharmony, bordom or isolation.

These would be true if we assume that they cannot experience different degrees of these feelings, and thus unable to discerne, from relative difference between such degrees, their scale. The phrasing of the Ainulindale indicates otherwise. Although this announces to be an interesting speculation, I am not sure that we can apply human psychology to them. We are bound by our own human limitations; plus, I believe it is safe to assume that they experienced communion with Eru on various levels, and that they learned much through empathy from Him - not just from His music, or, later, from their actions.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Raynor

I am not sure what notion of good and evil you apply here. If being good means using free will in accordance with the stated and perceived intent of Eru, then they were good; and if they had reason, then they were able to differentiate this from its opposite, which would constitute evil.
.

Then 'good' is simply what Eru decides it is, not some objective standard. In which case all the Ainur could know is what corresponds to the intent of Eru & what does not. How they can make a moral choice on the basis of such limited knowledge is beyond me. They could not even know that Eru was 'good' until they had Melkor to compare him to.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by davem

No. They were innocent befoe Melkor's discord - which is not the same thing at all. They could not have been 'good' because a) to be good is a moral choice, not a default position & b) they couldn't have known what 'good' actually was, since no alternative position existed. they didn't know they were happy because they had no experience of unhappiness. They didn't know what harmony amazement or communion was either, never having known disharmony, bordom or isolation. In short they didn't actually know much of anything till Melkor intervened & made them aware of other options.

Well, this is actually what I think is the root of the problem people have with opinions on good. The dualistic view, like you are presenting in the above, counts with that good cannot be known without its opposite in evil. However, there is the other point of view, where good can stand for itself. And here it is, I think, mainly about what we do imagine under the term "good". The first problem is, that a thing like "THE good" (unless you agree with Plato) does not exist. This is the trouble that has risen from the Greek philosophy, which was (in difference to its priors) able to - due to Greek language - make a noun out of an adjective simply by putting an article before it. Ask a philosopher, he could probably tell you more about it. But for our purposes, let's just say for example that I can have a good meal, see a good film, have a good time. Adjectives, we know what it is if a meal is good for me. But "the" good probably no one of us can imagine.
This I wanted to make clear in order for what I want to say now to be understandable. So: there is nothing such as "the good" or "the evil" (using the articles to make it understandable that I am speaking of nouns, of some principles), and when in the following text I am using the terms "good" or "evil" as stand-alones, it means "sum of all good things" and "sum of all bad things".
So, let's move on with the example used. I can have a good meal, and now the question is, can I say I had a good meal without knowing what a bad meal is? Davem presented here the point that I cannot. Let's now make clear if we are talking about words or real things now. If "good" for me defines merely the opposite of "evil" (rather "bad" in the case of a meal), then davem's right. However, if I take "good" not as a word, but as a state (i.e. "good=something healthy, useful etc. for me"), then I would say it can exist without opposite. I can eat only good food for all my life, realize it tastes well (I don't have to have anything to compare with it - anything "better" or "worse" - it is just good, it is good for my taste buds), is healthy for me, helps my growth, provides vitamines or whatever... and I don't necessarily need to compare it. So, if you want to say that "good" is better than "evil" (or that it is "the best alternative"), you have to have evil (or at least something worse than that good thing) to compare with it. But the sole existence of good things, even their attributes of being good (not in the meaning as "better" but in the meaning as "good"=healthy and so on, as shown in the example above) does not necessarily need the existence of evil or bad things as well.
Now to the possibility of choices. There might be an opinion, and with very good reason, that when I have only the "good" things, I don't have any choice. Well, that's not the whole truth. If I return to my example with food, then I can eat healthy food all my life (it's an example, so we are not assuming any negative parts in any of the food, so let's assume we have some really "ideal food" - old Plato would've been pleased) and still I can choose whether to eat X or Y for breakfast. It's both good, but I have the choice.

So, the Ainur could have been good - for example in the sense that they were good for the world. You could choose whether here would be a nice sea or here would be a beautiful forest, and nothing of that was bad in any sense of the word. This is a model situation, mind you, but I think it shows what I had in mind.

Originally Posted by Raynor

The ainur used their free will to compose their music, so they must have had conscioussness. That they were good before Melkor's discording music is an fundamental idea in the Legendarium. I don't know of any 'evidence' concerning the level of their happiness, but even in this 50/50 situation, I believe it is safe to speculate they were doing quite alright. Ainulindale speaks of them experiencing amazement, harmony, communion, awe, even if only in relation to the music.

For nothing is evil in the beginning, even Sauron was not so.

Star Trek fans will remember when Data got his emotions chip and went to the bar and tried a drink and says, ' uhhgh! oohhhggg! that's terrible! ohhgh! yuk. Wow! I hate this! I really hate this!
Bartender asks, "would you like another?"
Data responds eagerly, "yes, please!"

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Neithan Tol Turambar

Star Trek fans will remember when Data got his emotions chip and went to the bar and tried a drink and says, ' uhhgh! oohhhggg! that's terrible! ohhgh! yuk. Wow! I hate this! I really hate this!
Bartender asks, "would you like another?"
Data responds eagerly, "yes, please!"

That actually makes sense - I track you.

Originally Posted by The Christian Bible, Book of Mark, 7:13-23

"...Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.' "

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. "Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.")

He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' "

It's not 'evil' - a thing, a being, a force, the Darkness - it's the action, what comes out, given the choices.

[The Saucepan Man]

Hmm, the subject matter of this debate would seem to present rather a good opportunity for parody.

Of course, having twisted the words of the Professor, I am sure that I will earn Senor Turambar's eternal disapprobation.

(Bovvered? )

Originally Posted by The Might

By the by, when I first saw your name I looked it up on Wikipedia since it sounded strange, and yet familiar.

"Neithan, I'm unsure at this point whether you are a troll, a madman, or a thinker (of sorts)"...I seem to feel the same

Can duplicate accounts actually be started without anyone noticing here, because, if yes, there is a more likely possibility...

Yes, go on, what are you saying?

Originally Posted by Hookbill the Goomba

Ah! You're a fan of the Super Mario games are you?

Doo doot do doot, do do doot do doot........