I thought it was brilliant, the best episode of the season. Did what this show always does best - showed the impact of the events on the characters, not so much the events themselves. Also took those characters in unexpected directions. Was Cain really a villain after all, or just scared like the rest of her crew?

What we did see of the battle was surreally beautiful - 2001 with explosions. Televised science fiction hasn't looked this haunting, and space hasn't felt this empty and vast, since the first season of Space: 1999 over 30 years ago.

And now they appear to be dealing with another crucial issue many of their characters are gonna face – what do we have to live for? Jamie Bamber delivered an excellent performance as a shell-shocked Apollo, but the real standouts were James Callis as Baltar (finally admitting human feelings for Gina) and Tricia Helfer in an incredible turn playing Six/Gina. The closing kiss between Olmos and McDonnell was magic.

Run as far and as fast away from these toxic twits as your legs can carry you. What they did was inexcusable and unforgivable. The fact they're lamely trying to re-establish contact now that they need you is just the icing on the cake. Like most religious fundamentalists, life is still all about them.

If you were a test tube baby, would you feel guilty if you learned the sperm donor or the egg donor were growing old or infirm or had died? Hell no. So why should you feel any grief over the fate of these two miserable people, who not only disowned you, but then went to the trouble of cutting off your access to the rest of the family as well. If you want to look after some old people, go out and find some nice, loving, sane old people who deserve a little support and aren't getting any. It's not like there aren't millions of nice old folks in this country who need a little help.

As for your own personal sperm and egg donors, let their fucknut church take care of them.

Influenced by Led Zeppelin and other acts who had precious little to do with the gentle folk rock of the Byrds or the avant-garde theatricals of Zappa's posse, "The canyon in the 70s more closely resembled a Dionysian playground with no compensating worldview beyond having a really, really good time."

Um, I don't know about all of the other hard rock acts of the '70s, but Led Zeppelin were heavily influenced by the whole Laurel Canyon crowd, Joni Mitchell in particular. The song "Goin' To California" even references La Mitch. The Laurel Canyon crowd also had a huge, obvious influence on '70s hitmakers like Fleetwood Mac, essentially a depoliticized Crosby, Still, Nash & Young that featured all of the romantic tension the Mamas and the Papas had sported about a decade before.

I sorta pity Francis Collins. Anybody gullible enough to be taken in by the inane ramblings of C.S. Lewis shouldn't be allowed to buy a car on their own, let alone write a book about philosophy. I was able to blow holes in that prattle while I was still in high school.

Follow closely, kids – if the universe is so complex and wonderful it requires a creator, where'd that creator come from? If complex and wonderful things like god can spring into being without themselves being created, then the universe could have popped into existence in a similar fashion. Congratulations, you've just invalidated your own argument!

If you want to assert he "always" existed be my guest – I'll be just as happy to assert the universe has always existed. Again, this proves nothing, other than the fact that god is unnecessary to explain why we're here or how the world works.

You can't deduce god into existence. People have been trying to do it for centuries, and their arguments always end up being either circular or totally irrational. Collins is a textbook example of how knowledge <> wisdom.

Folks like Collins remind me of those sad, annoying people who take pictures of everything they see while they're on vacation. The entire trip is spent with a camera glued to one eyeball, snapping away like mad. They're so obsessed with trying to frame reality within the narrow confines of their viewfinder they never actually experience it for themselves.

>For example, in the observable world, there are

>mysteries that are unexplainable from a

>Darwinian perspective.

There may well be. That's still no evidence for a god or gods, let alone the Christian version. I don't fully understand how the CPU in the computer I'm typing on works, but that doesn't imply that "god" makes it work. It just means I haven't taken the time to learn or figure out how it works (yet).

If you confine god to the gaps in your current knowledge of the physical world, you're going to be left with a god who slowly shrivels down to nothing as those gaps are researched and answers are discovered.

I appreciate the rich irony of religious fanatics griping about science by using computers linked to the Internet. That's something like atheists showing up at a cathedral to pray for god to go away.