I think it's probably fair to say that this guy had severe mental/emotional/boundary issues *before* Twilight.

Still, the last thing we need is an extremely popular book/movie series which celebrates those behaviors as romantic to girls reinforcing them to guys who don't have the judgement to tell fantasy from reality.

Now the real question is, did the bitten girl manage to recognize at all that the behavior she was swooning over on screen in Edward was essentially the same as the creepy guy who followed her out of the theater? That Edward is in fact a creepy, controlling jerk? Did she and her friends gain any awareness from their actual experience of this that maybe it isn't something they want to be celebrating and supporting on the movie screen?

("Twilight" is officially the new Sarah Palin: I hate everything it stands for, but since so much of the reaction to it is sexist, I keep feeling compelled to defend it. Sigh.)

You do know, don't you, that you can both not defend "Twilight," AND oppose the attacks on it which are sexist? Right?

("Twilight," for me on the other hand, is like Hillary Clinton. I couldn't stand her, I vocally opposed her candidacy, I detested what she stood for, and I also opposed attacks on her which were essentially sexist in nature and not really about the issues she stood for.)

It's called critical thinking.

Also, dinosaur bones (and other organic matter like trees) become petrified. People do find dinosaur skeletons, not simply impressions left in sediment. Stone gradually replaces the bone cells, eventually leaving a 3D copy of the bone itself.

Or maybe "what?" I've got no idea. I really don't worry about it that much. I guess I'd say that the ultimate creator needed no creator itself, that it is the purpose which gives meaning and substance to the universe, and it's only our limited human imaginations which can't conceive of an eternal "being" and always crave to know what came before. At some point, there was no "before." There just was. God just is.

It's a fun question to meditate on, but like you said, it's one of those things that Christianity doesn't really have an ultimately satisfying answer for. But again, it's not one of my big worries. It doesn't have a lot of practical impact on how most of us live our lives.

ev1960--realized I forgot the Catholic Church after I hit publish. I'm sure there are more. Yes, it says something when an institution as conservative, even reactionary, as the Catholic Church, just doesn't see the possiblity of evolution as a big deal, or in any way contrary to faith or moral purpose or creation by God.

There is a lot that is left out of the bible. There are a lot of questions Christianity does not even begin to answer.

Non-fundamentalist Christianity does not deny this.

There is a lot that is contradictory and doesn't make much sense.

Because the Bible was written by a few dozen different people, over a span of about 4,000 years, in very different times and places. Is it any mystery that they had different ideas about God?

One is supposed to have the utmost faith that this book was created by God and not men.

In fundamentalist faith systems, yes. In others, no. There are huge differences in how fundamentalist systems work and how other ones work, and what they teach, and what they demand.

Among the churches which do NOT ask for faith in the Bible as the inerrant, literal word of God are: the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, some Methodist churches, many Baptist churches, the Episcopal Church, and the Unitarian-Universalist Assembly (that one should go without saying).

I simply do not have that kind of faith in anything of this world. And the bible is of this world.

Yup.

I have yet to hear an answer for this question.

Easy one. (Though technically, you haven't asked a question.) The Bible is not a transcription of what God says. It's a story written by many people over a huge span of time about humanity's evolving understanding of and relationship with God.

Dawkins was probably hired by commercial media to divide atheists and liberal christians, natural allies. He lumps the mainstream church with fundamentalism and cherry picks history to slander all of religion.

Both Dawkins and Comfort are fundamentalistic morons. They deserve each other, actually.

What I can't figure out is whether Dawkins is *intentionally* distorting the nature of all religion (including liberal, moderate, modernist, reformist, and progressive sorts, as well as just plain old Christians who think Jesus was pretty clear about what he wants from us--to be decent to each other) because he has to for his argument to hold up, or whether he truly doesn't understand the difference between fundamentalist paternalism, and a spiritual life that's well-integrated with intellectual life and common sense.

That's all.

I don't have "contempt for mothers." I'm just tired of the contempt that a certain subset of mothers of young children have for everybody else in this city. I'm sick of getting ploughed aside by women who evidently believe that weilding a stroller exempts them from having to watch where the hell they're going, on the sidewalk, in the grocery store, on the subways. I just want strolling down to Whole Foods for a bottle of olive oil to not be a death-defying experience.

...in female-oriented films about spineless and infantilized women?

Oh yeah, sounds like a big feminist triumph....

Count me out. As usual.