Raf

I just noticed the recent posts and will delve into them piecemeal as the opportunity arises. Thanks for the feedback.

I keep seeing Cameron Diaz and Ben Stiller in my head, so I'm gonna guess There's Something About Mary

The theme song referred to several life circumstances that seemed to belie the title of the program. Irony, maybe? Among the circumstances: losing your job for a short time and falling victim to predatory lending (though the song used different words).

Here was a strange spinoff. The main character was played by the same actress as in the parent series. She had the same name. Her husband was played by the same actor, though his name was changed. The couple now lived, with no explanation, in a different city (incompatible with the parent series). In fact, if you watched every single episode of the spinoff, you would have no idea it was a spinoff. Only by watching the parent series would you look at the character and say, hey! isn't that the actress from [the spinoff] playing the same character?

I'm awake!

Not Tommy, but the two m's are close...

Holy cow is this not a Woody Allen movie. Think about it Think about it Think about it

The first clue was enough for me. I'll post Monday, if no one minds. If you mind, free post!

Let's see: The lead actor, who recently died, did not play the title character. The movie is technically a sequel, but it's a sequel to a well known story, not to any particular adaptation of it. There is no lead actress, but a prominent actress in the movie had an assistant whose entire job was making sure the bottom of the actress' feet stayed clean. And that was reasonable. The hero and the villain were both played by Oscar winning actors. One won his Oscar before, the other after.

Welcome Back Kotter

Now if only I could taste my damn coffee.

Thank you

Yes

"Rollin. Rollin. Rollin on the river."

Hungry Eyes

"I'll kill your friends, your family, and the b*tch you took to the prom!" "Betty Jo Bialowski? I can get you an address on that, if you want." *** "How am I driving? 1-800-I'm-gonna-f-in'-die!"

Well, actually, we did gloss over the talking snake earlier, and in retrospect, I see no reason to expand on it beyond what I already wrote. With that in mind, I'll just quote the earlier post here:

Does Genesis 2 contradict Genesis 1 about the order of creation? Lots of critics say yes, but personally, I find the chapter just too baffling to come to a fixed opinion. Verses 5-7 seem to clearly state that man was created before there were any plants, which blatantly contradicts the previous chapter. But then v. 8 says God had planted the Garden of Eden, with no indication of when. The problem with v. 8 is that if it was sooner than v. 7, then what are we to make of v. 5, which says that there were no shrubs or plants yet? Either God planted a garden before He made man, as v. 8 implies, or after he made man, as v. 5 explicitly states. In the middle of this garden, God places two literal trees. There is nothing in the text to indicate that there's anything metaphorical about these trees. They are trees. Remarkable, remarkable trees. And what happens in v. 17? God forbids man from eating from one of those two remarkable trees. Let's state the obvious: there's no such thing as a tree whose fruit imparts knowledge of good and evil, nor is there a tree whose fruit grants eternal life. These characteristics are the stuff of mythology, not horticulture. In plant biology, fruit is part of the tree's reproductive process. So were these two remarkable trees intended to reproduce? And why, out of all the places on earth, did God put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the ONE PLACE where it could have done the MOST damage to His creation? He could have put that tree at the North Pole. Heck, he could have put it in Argentina ;)/> and man would not have encountered it for many, many, many generations. No, He puts it right there where it can be an utterly unnecessary temptation and actually cause ALL the suffering we see in the world from the time of Adam until this very day. Why? [because it didn't. This is a myth, and myths rely on these kinds of juxtapositions]. Any explanation of Adam and Eve as a literally true story has to account for the fact that God could have out that tree ANYWHERE, yet chose to put it right where Adam and Eve would be tempted by it. Now, before you say that Adam and Eve had to choose to obey God, or their obedience would be meaningless, bear in mind that in the future, all believers will dwell with God forever and ever without temptation, sin or suffering. So why is that possible in the future when it was not possible in Eden? And what about the other tree? Would it not have been utterly catastrophic if Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree of life first, THEN eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Remember, the fruit of the tree of life was NOT forbidden! Seems God was really playing with fire there, wasn't He? Of course, God KNEW they wouldn't eat of the tree of life, so there's no real threat. He also knew they would eat of the tree of knowledge, which AGAIN raises the question: Why put the tree there, where it could do the most damage? Read as a myth, the answer is obvious. The tree is there because it has to be there. Otherwise, there's no story of how things came to be the way they are. Stop asking such pesky questions. If you insist on this as history, you are forced to defend an act of utter divine incompetence. Seriously, what other word for it is there? If I built a crib for my baby and, in the middle of the crib, but a gigantic poisonous thumbtack sticking out from the middle of it, and told the baby "stay away from that thumbtack and you'll be okay," am I being a responsible parent? NO! You'd have me charged with child abuse, and rightly so! But, you may argue, Adam and Eve were not babies (though they were evidently no older than babies. Then again, who knows. We don't have any sense of how much time passes in chapter 2, do we?). In any event, here's something we DO know: They were given a clear instruction to not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. So they knew better than to eat from that tree. It's not like they didn't know right from wrong, after all. Except, they didn't know right from wrong, did they? I mean, isn't that the whole darned point of the tree? They don't know right from wrong until they eat from the fruit. So what exactly was the original sin again? Disobedience? But they didn't know disobedience was evil! Talk about the punishment not fitting the crime! To punish someone for treason who did not know what treason is? Harsh. So anyway, God tells them, "Don't do that! It's WRONG!" And Adam and Eve say, "What does 'wrong' mean?" And God says "You'll find out if you eat that completely dangerous tree that will totally kill you, cause all animal life to turn against each other in a gigantic food chain of death, the tree that I put right there, right over here, with that totally tempting fruit, right there where you can reach it, without so much as a fence around it or a guard, right there. Don't. eat. that!" I'm sorry, WHAT?!?!? So guess what happens in chapter 3? Yup, they eat from the fruit of the tree of knowledge. And then, and then and THEN! AFTER the damage is done, what does God do? Genesis 3:24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. Let me see if I've got this straight: The tree with the forbidden fruit gets no barrier, no guard, no nothing to keep man from walking right up to it, plucking the fruit off of it, and chowing down, thereby ruining EVERYTHING for EVERYONE (although it's never quite clear why Adam's sin results in animal death. Shhh. Too many questions). But, once the damage was done, God puts barriers in the way to keep them from eating the fruit from the tree He did NOT forbid. Why, oh why, oh why did he not put a flaming sword and a couple of Secret Service Cherubim up to guard the forbidden tree when such protection would have LITERALLY done a world of good? Because it didn't flipping happen. The whole story is absurd, and we haven't even gotten to the talking snake yet.

Fantastic Four

The Rapture David Duchovny Evolution

To cover up a presidential sex scandal shortly before an election, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to fabricate a bank robbery to pay for the president's lover's sex change operation.

At one of the earlier stages of its development, this movie was going to be a stage musical. That idea was scrapped, but one song survived and is sung by a significant supporting character. The actor who plays the title character has another small role in the movie: He's the unseen pilot of the airplane that carries the hero from one continent to another. While most of the title actor's lines are not audible, you can hear him clearly say, "This is your captain speaking..." over the plane's loudspeaker.

Ah! From Russia With Love, Actually

Ok, if this can wait til Monday, great. Otherwise, free post.

Actual errors in Genesis: Genesis 1:3 God creates light and darkness. There's evening and morning, the first day. So what's the problem? Well, on its face, nothing, except that many Christians (TWI included) now cling to "gap theory" to insert billions of years of history between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. Genesis 1:3 takes place AFTER Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. So we are to conclude, by combining gap theory with the clear teaching of scripture, that the heavens and the earth existed for billions of years without light. Gap theory makes no sense in that light. Question: are the days of Genesis literal 24-hour periods? Biblically, there is nothing to suggest otherwise. We only begin suggesting otherwise in history when it becomes more and more clear from the evidence that the earth is much older than a Biblical calculation would lead us to suspect. The book says evening and morning were the first day. That suggests a literal 24-hour period. Allowing Genesis to speak for itself, I don't see how we can come to any other conclusion. Genesis 1: 14-19 On day four (Wednesday) God makes/creates/whatever the sun moon and stars. Huh? How did you get three days and three nights without the sun? Where was the light coming from before the sun? (Again, I'm not going to quibble about the Bible calling the moon a "light," which it is not. I think that's nitpicking). Now, let's look at what happens BEFORE the sun is made. Genesis 1: 9-13 God separates the land from the sea, plants, trees, fruit, etc. BEFORE THE SUN! This didn't happen. So here's the order of creation in Genesis: Heaven, earth, light, plant life, the sun. Um, no. That's an actual error. In reality, it was heaven/light, sun, earth, with plant life not showing up for a couple of BILLION years. Genesis 1:6-8 describes how God created a firmament, a literal, invisible or transparent dome, to create a bubble inside which we live. We discussed the literal nature of the firmament on another thread. I'll be happy to dig that up for you if you'd like. Modern translations like to avoid this cosmological blunder by rendering the word "firmament" as "expanse," but in honesty, it's a poor translation. The Bible clearly says that this firmament holds back water. "Daddy, why is the sky blue?" "Well, son, just like there's a blue ocean out there, there's a big blue ocean above us, too. But it's held back by a gigantic dome!" This is the explicit teaching of Genesis. The language is not in the least bit figurative. It matches the mythology of other religions that developed in the region. Allowing Genesis to speak for itself, it's an actual, integrity-crushing error. Genesis 1:20-23 God creates all water life and birds on earth in one day. This is not, as described on another thread, a progression from water to air over a period of hundreds of millions of years. One day, and simultaneous. Nothing in the text suggests otherwise. Plenty of actual EVIDENCE suggests otherwise, but the evidence is extrinsic to the text. It contradicts the text. It demonstrates the text to actually be in error. Genesis 1:24-25 God creates the land animals. After birds. That's an actual error. Incidentally, whales evolved from land mammals. Did you know that? It's pretty awesome. So does Genesis 1:20-23 include whales, or not? Well, it can't. Because the ancestors of those whales would not have been created until vv. 24-25! Isn't that something? Last of all, God creates man in vv. 26-30. Despite what the King James Bible tells you, God does not tell man to "replenish" the earth. The word there is just plain "fill." Wierwille took advantage of a mistranslation to get Genesis to teach the repopulation of the earth rather than what it clearly teaches -- the first of two populations of the earth (the second coming after Noah and his multi-hundred-year-old sons and their childbearing wives. There are so many actual errors in Genesis 1 that entire books have to be written to explain why you can still believe it as long as you believe it says something other than what it obviously says. But enough about Hugh Ross. ;)