The Valar were wise enough to avoid getting involved with social media!

Thank you for answering my question! Much appreciated! ❤

I certainly didn't expect to get a formal shoutout :-P

As far as the Black Numenoreans are concerned, I'd imagine their continued worship of Morgoth/Sauron was due to a combination of spite, sunk cost fallacy and a hunger for power.

The Black Numenoreans may have had the same grudge about the Valar that Sauron had about the Dwarves: "We almost won and they stole our assured victory", even though the victory wasn't assured at all

The only potential witnesses of the destruction of Numenor who reached Middle Earth were Elendil's men.  Black Numenoreans already established in Middle Earth would have seen them as unreliable at best, or outright liars.  All they knew was that news from the island stopped completely. It's quite possible they thought that it was a natural disaster (which the do-gooders were claiming credit for their god).

The Black Numenoreans might have even thought that Ar-Pharazon's plan actually worked, and that Numenor "sublimed" to an immortal plane.  Maybe that Sauron guy will come back and help them do the same....

Hence why the survival of Gondor (and the White Tree as the last physical link to Paradise) was so important, as they were the last humans who knew the "true religion", so to speak...the truth of the cosmology of Creation.

Outside of the Valar, we do have a statement from Tolkien in one of his letters saying that all groups of men decended from the Atanatari, including Northmen, Middle Men, Gwathuririm, ect. All practiced a form of "pure monotheism" as their religion. Basically, they believed in one supreme God (Eru), but they had no places of worship for him and didn't often offer forms of prayer. The specifics of their beliefs likely vary from culture to culture, but all of them are, but Tolkien's statement, monotheistic.

This likely means none of the groups of the middle men could have mistaken the Valar for a pantheon, or have ever venerated multiple of them to the level of worship.

The Valar had indeed abandonned the men. After Melkor fled valinor with the silmaril, they remained in valinor and urged (in fact threatened the elves to do so as well). This would have inadvertendly left both the men and dwarves to their fate as morgoths slaves. This despite the fact they clearly had the power to stop him.

One would assume that Numenorians do, Lesser men may not.

So, in a way, Sauron won.
In the First Age, the Valar were at least present. The Elves knew Orome, had some dealings with Ulmo and a lot with Osse (Ulmo's lieutenant). A lot also knew Melian, who certainly at least spread the knowledge of Valinor while she was there. That all ended.

But you had Numenor, which was still the bridge from the West to Middle Earth. The Elves traveled to Numenor, Manwe sent his eagles, and the Numenoreans traveled back to the East to Middle Earth. There was still potential to spread "the word", if they had wanted. An Elf could come to Numenor, and then sail East to meet with Gil Galad, at least in theory. Or the knowledge could be sent via the Numenoreans.

Sauron brought about the breaking of that bridge. Valinor was shifted to another plane of existence, no more constant travel from Eressea to Numenor and then Numenor  to Middle Earth. Men were estranged from the Valar, and from Elves. Aragorn could maybe teach people the truth, but there was no interaction anymore.

This would be a great victory for Morgoth, perpetrated by Sauron. Neither retained any power afterwards, but they succeeded in permanently cutting the Valar off from Men.

I gotta be honest if a God I was supposed to worship just destroyed my entire homeland and killed everyone I knew, I might be feeling a little black about him myself. And it honestly lends credence to the idea that Melkor is the real God being suppressed by the demiurgical false light in the west, as soon as they started to catch wise to that fact, this jealous God destroyed them to silence them.

The Faithful definitely represent how you, as a Christian like Tolkien, are SUPPOSED to feel about God. Earthquakes, storms, tsunamis, these destructive acts of nature (read: acts of god) are just endemic to life on earth, the same God who created everything good in your life that you love and cherish and enjoy is also doing that for some reason. You have to trust the process, because there's simply no alternative. You have to trust that all of this is happening for a reason. It helps to remember that God/Eru in ancient theology is not just another dude, he's not a man, he's reality itself embodied in a form we can understand and relate to. You have to accept his decisions, because you can't declare war against reality. You have no alternative, not because you have to submit to his authority as kiss the ring as if he's a mob boss, but for the same reason you have no choice but to pick up and move on after an earthquake destroys your house. What else are you gonna do?

I think this is also the central folly of Melkor. He and his followers delusionally think he is an alternative, but he IS just another guy. Just like Christianity, the Valar are not themselves creators, they are created beings, there's only one creator. Tolkien was obviously aware of Arianism, it's the source of all the chaos and evil in middle earth, Morgoth thinking he can be God too and offering a false alternative to those who can't bring themselves to accept and understand God's plan.  Which again, is just nature and causality, because God isn't a guy. It's not about bending the knee, it's more like Buddhist enlightenment.

I always love how Turin compared Manwe to Morgoth at the Council in Nargothrond.

Great video! I'd love a follow-up about what Men knew of the Maiar. Since there are many more Maiar, and they seem to have always been more active in Arda, I'd think that Men would know of (and possibly interact with) particular Maiar long after any knowledge of the Valar had been lost. I can imagine them being treated as local godlings or nature spirits by peoples with no idea how they fit into a larger hierarchy.

An interesting example from the Silmarillion is that Ulmo's Maiar Ossë and Uinen were well known to and interacted with by Númenórean sailors. Concerning Uinen, we are told

"...to her mariners cry, for she can lay calm upon the waves, restraining the wildness of Ossë. The Númenóreans lived long in her protection, and held her in reverence equal to the Valar."

It's easy to imagine that a thousand years after Númenór fell, this might have degenerated into a sailors' superstition or cult.

In the Sil, between the founding of Doriath and the return of the Noldor: "In Beleriand still at times rode Oromë the Great, passing like a wind over the mountains..."  So  Elves may have had contact with a Vala then.  It's interesting to speculate that "the mountains" might actually be the Ered Luin with Oromë passing to or from regions to the east .    Although earlier in the Sil it says that "[Oromë] came last to Valinor; and often of old he passed back east over the mountains and returned with his host to the hills and the plains."  which  suggests the Pelori.  I'd note as well that it's not clear what is meant  there by "of old".   Potentially the chronicler could be speaking of times after the awakening of Men, so perhaps there was direct contact between Men and the Vala.  

I'm also not sure that personal presence in Middle-earth by individual Vala  is definitively ruled out in the Second Age,  and perhaps even later.   Perhaps in JRRT's letters?  Though it seems obvious that, if these occasions existed, they'd be rare and extraordinary.

The men of Numenor sure did

There is a cultural point that I want to add. The Elves and Dunedain and all those that associated with them had some cultural references that spoke to an understanding of a mythos.
In the Silmarillion we learn about the individual Maiar who became the Sun and Moon, though I forget their names atm.
Among Hobbits and various groups of Men in the West we do see a fairly uniform idea that the Sun is female and the Moon is male, which matches the story of those Maiar. It seems that even if Men didn't know the details of those Maiar's history some sort of cultural recognition of them did come. It's possible that some other recognitions were made, such as with Wind or Water being associated with a Vala's name even if there was no understanding of why that name was relevant.

I love that Unfinished Tales' cover. I remember seeing it in a bookseller in a bus terminal when I was little.

Hi Darth!

This is one of the times where I just can't relate to the Professor's religious beliefs. To him, the existence and validity of Eru Illuvatar as a god is so obvious as to be subconscious. There is no reason to doubt his good and worth. So when he tells a story where Eru does a lot of bad things through action and inaction, but never explains why we should trust and love Eru regardless, it comes off as almost... alien.

Sauron was so brazen because he believed, not without reason, that the Valar had abandoned Middle-earth, which meant that he could conquer it and even demand worship with impunity. The Valar instead sent Eldar emissaries to represent them in Numenor, which didn't help much. The Valar had avoided Men so studiously that Sauron could even start his religion of Melkor worship without fear of challenge.

I've been binge watching your videos even more lately I was going to just start a new one for me but I saw this one that was uploaded 34 minutes ago.