Raf

I think he would have been MORE successful, as it would have shown that he was separating the baby from the bathwater, as it were.

I think part of the point of portraying gay relationships in such a matter of fact way is to "normalize" them, to show that they are just a part of the fabric of life. This couple is a couple. So is that couple. And that one. And only one of the three is a heterosexual couple. Got a problem with that? Watch a different show! In a different context, we used to refer to it as "mainstreaming." For example, the family featured in a newspaper article about small business growth or tax credits for private school education just happens to be black or Hispanic or Asian. The article is not ABOUT the fact that they're b/h/a. They're affected by the issue. The article is about the issue. Did you see the last Rocky movie, Creed? It's a black movie. Well, not really. It's a movie. It just happens to be about black people. And Rocky. No one thinks of it as a black movie, but it is. (My prediction, by the way, is that in the Creed sequel, Rocky dies). Where was I? Oh, mainstreaming. The idea behind mainstreaming is, for example, that not every movie about a black man's struggle has to be about The Black Man's Struggle. Not every article about Latinos running small businesses and navigating the system has to be about Latinos Running Small Businesses. Not every storyline featuring gay people is about their homosexuality. It's about the story. The characters in it just happen to be gay. Or not.

Why not have a Monel-X? Why not Barry? Why not Wells? Why not just make them close friends? I get that it served the plot, but the plot would have proceeded just fine with them as close friends and allies. Would Barry do less for Killer Frost?

I will have a more complete answer later, but allow me to ask you a question. Why did you have no qualms at all about alt-Oliver and alt-Supergirl being in a romantic relationship, but you wonder whether Captain Cold being gay was necessary to the plot (you know, aside from the fact that it's the reason he and his boyfriend were on the wrong side of the Nazis)? One relationship gets away without a mention. The other is questioned. I found Sara and Alex hilarious. Sara is a conquer-her, Alex is vulnerable and on the rebound. What, you thought nothing would happen? CAMMAN!!! (say it out loud).

For what it's worth, I saw nothing snarky in Rocky's reply to the original post. Socrates, one thing is for certain from where I sit: The way you responded to Rocky makes me extremely unlikely to reply to anything you post here. Now I'm going to brace myself for a nasty comeback, but boy would I be pleasantly surprised if you prove me wrong.

Outstanding

Gaston was from Ladyhawke

Yes.

Minutes from finishing.

Incorrect. Anyone else have a guess? Anyone? Anyone?

Regarding Doctrinal:

Regarding "Questioning Faith"

Roles played by _____ Eugene Morris Jerome Michael McPhee Gaston (not THAT Gaston) Clark Kellogg Niko Tatopoulos

Tony Shaloub

Does he know how to get to the airport? Does he even understand colors?

I'm looking through my Vudu account for some more favorites. I'm not going to include blockbusters. Those are like R,S,T,L,N and E on Wheel of Fortune. Just get them out of the way. Here are some others you may or may not have even seen: Benny and Joon Creed (the best Rocky movie since Rocky) Good Will Hunting The Edge (Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin and Bart the Bear) Shattered Glass Quick Change Manhunter (aka, the first Hannibal Lecter movie, which starred Brian Cox, not Anthony Hopkins). Finding Forrester Heat (Pacino and DeNiro's first on-screen meeting) Groundhog Day Dead Poets Society The Dead Zone Halloween

I didn't think about it that way, JJ, but you're right. This article is nearly as political in nature as it is doctrinal. Considering that it didn't spark a fight or anything, I'll leave it be. But thanks for pointing it out. We'll be careful to monitor that line between faith and politics to make sure Greasespot's rules are followed. I don't think they were broken here, but the potential was far more obvious than I recognized when it was originally posted.

TLC, Simply put, you'e picking a fight with DWBH. Stop. Now. Your premises regarding the thread and forum are wrong. They have been corrected in this thread. Deal with it.

He's qualified, he's qualified, he's qualified. Will he leave us alone now?

Ok, caught up on Arrow. It's getting a little long in the tooth, no? But glad they picked Vigilante back up (this is LAST week's episode, by the way). Would have been strange if they just let that drop.

behind on all but Flash, but Flash was SO MUCH FUN this week!

Trolling, George. My guess was correct.

Ok, so, to sum up where I'm at now: I obviously don't believe there is such a thing as "god-breathed." Clearly these writings are not history. To the extent that they are sincere, they are an attempt by flawed men to understand the will of a God whose attributes evolved over time. In doing so, they fell all over each other. "I am the Lord! I change not! Except for that thing. I changed on that thing. Oh, and the other thing. It was a different time. But I didn't change! You know, just, times changed." Some of their musings turned out to be wonderful and stood the test of time. "Love your neighbor as yourself" is, understood properly, better than any other law man could come up with. "Here's the correct way to handle a runaway slave" is less worthy of admiration. There's also an extent to which this book is an effort by some people to control other people. There's nothing to admire there. I would never say there's nothing good in the Bible, just as I would never say there was nothing Biblical in TWI. I would say that whatever is good in the Bible is good because good men put it there. And what is bad is God's fault. Just kidding. Wanted to see if you were still reading. What is bad in the Bible is bad because the men who put it there were bad, or wrong, or mistaken, or evil, or... human.

I'm just kind of trying to soak this thread in. It casts a rather wide net (either that, or I don't get the point). So here's my journey, in a nutshell: I thought TWI had it right. I thought Wierwille had it right. Not because some voice in his office made him a promise or sent him a snowstorm in early October. I actually didn't know that story. I thought he had it right because of the stream of logic (including the many flaws therein that I failed to recognize at the time). But a lot of what happened here at GSC forced me to let go of the framework I had built up to stave off criticisms of the Bible. I think most of us have that framework in common, at least at some point in our lives. What we chose to do with it is individual, but we're here on this site because we accepted TWI's assertions at one point. You know what I'm talking about: there are no errors or contradictions. The first century church had it right, got corrupted, and we've been dealing with the repercussions ever since. The apostles all fit in a Honda. (They were of one accord. Get it?) Then came the great James debate, and my holier-than-thou effort to reconcile Galatians and James against certain people's determination to yank James from the canon. I gave it my best, but in retrospect I feel I fell short. My premise was wrong. Galatians and James do contradict each other. A lot. They don't even agree on fundamental terminology. They use the same words to mean different things. Reconciling them is exhausting work precisely because James and Paul are not just discussing different topics, but they are doing so in a way that establishes neither of them truly grasps the other's point. I finally realized that there are... contradictions? No, I preferred to call them paradoxes: two ideas that coexisted even while seeming to contradict each other. We are saved by grace. We are saved by works. It depends on what you mean by saved, grace and works. And then came the Actual Errors thread: the notion that Wierwille's writings were God-breathed was contradicted by a simple application of Wierwille's definition of God-breathed to his works. Wierwille's books could not be God-breathed if they did not meet the criteria his books set for what God-breathed means! Blah blah blah. And then someone pointed out, hey Raf, using that logic, you can't establish that the Bible is God-breathed! And that turns out to be true, using the same logic. The only way out was to use a different logic: The Bible could still be God-breathed if Wierwille was wrong about what God-breathed means, what characteristics a God-breathed document would exhibit. So now I'm looking at the Bible as a collection of writings by people who did not always agree with each other. Some other things became clear later on: Paul all but calls the author of Luke a flat-out liar. Whoever wrote Mark was barely familiar with the geography of Palestine. Job... JOB! This story could not be literally true unless God was unspeakably capricious and cruel. Who among you would compensate a man who lost his dog by giving him a new dog? Yet God compensates Job with a new wife and children. What-what-WHAT? Does God know everything? Did He know from before the dawn of time that I would scratch my left forearm as I typed this post on Nov. 9, 2017? And not only does he know everything that will happen, he knows everything that WOULD have happened had we all made different choices about everything? Do you have any idea how many contingencies (parallel universes) each person would trigger on an average day by choosing one thing over another? God knows ALL those contingencies? [Yes, I posted before I finished my thought. You didn't really want me to drone on and on, did you? We all know where this story ends...]