Good and evil

There can be no doubt that Morgoth and Sauron are "evil". Their actions have no better goals than destruction and darkness, and many other characters become evil by their domination, in particular the majority of mankind.

The point I want to make is that I do not see a corresponding priciple of "good" in the stories. Iluvatar is a "cold" god. He stays outside the world after its creation, and his only active action - the catastrophe of Numenor with the drowning of thousands (millions?) of innocent women an children - cannot be regarded as positive in my opinion, although the sin of Ar-Pharazon and his fellows was great of course. The valar appear helpful to Elves and Men at some points, but in general their job only is executing fate or predestination. There is no point in the story where a "higher power" introduces law or ethics. Given all this, to me the question is not why there are so many evil characters in Middle Earth, but how such a world can produce good persons at all. Among many examples, I would mention Aragorn, Faramir and Hurin as people who really show humanity - in its best meaning - and altruism at decisive points.

I also wonder about the kind of philosophy that is behind all this. The attitude of Elves, Dwarves, Dunedain - and even more of the Hobbits - appears to me as a kind of "innocent atheism", where ethics and moral do not need a religious justification and death can be accepted as natural by the mortal races. I do not regard this as negative, but it is known that J.R.R. Tolkien was a quite faithful Christian, and so the origin of these ideals is difficult to understand for me. Let me know what you think.