"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time." - Bertrand Russell

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I think Revenge of the Sith is the best of all 6 Star Wars movies. As a gripe I read went, they'd have done much better contracting the plot for the first 2 prequels to the guys who made KOTOR and KOTOR II, but the third one's good. The only niggling point is that Anakin's fall to the Dark Side wasn't brought out very well - he made the final decision too fast and too awkwardly.

Some people (conservatives from the National Review, naturally) were claiming that Revenge of the Sith was anti-Bush. I was previously dismissing such as the paranoid rantings of insecure right-wingers, but with the talk of democracy, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy", the putative peace and prosperity of the New Order ("I have brought peace, justice, freedom, and security to my new Empire"), the fawning obeisance of the Senate towards the Supreme Chancellor and a cut line ("There are times when we must all endure adjustments to the constitution in the name of security... I have no choice... this war must be won", it was hard not to sense allegorical elements.

Incidentally, this is the first movie I've seen that's so big that it needs *3* best boys - 2 normal ones and one for the rigging. But just what do best boys do anyway?

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USP's stepping up their marketing efforts, launching a page aimed at prospective students.

There's even an interview with staff and students (Windows Media Player required):

"Our students need to have a profound sense of being humbled by this knowledge. To know that gaining knowledge, using knowledge, err, and their talents can make them a very powerful force for good, but at the same time they can be a source of great evil, so the humbling effect of knowledge is very important in the kind of teaching that I like to do in USP"

A very powerful force for good? A source of great evil? Sounds like we've just gained superpowers!

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Others are roused against evangelism:

A: > And in withdrawing, the Source of Goodness will take all
> that is Good with Him, even the sun and the rain and the things we have come
> to take for granted as our "rights" - leaving us with, in a word, hell. By
> your own choice. But it need not be so.

This is to me one of the most alienating aspects of Christianity. I think there are many valuable elements in the Christian tradition, but the removal of all that is good to outside our particularised human existence is not one of them. I have always hated, in particular, not the notion that I could go to hell, or that others might, but that apparently it should be possible for me to find eternal bliss and perfect happiness while - for example - my family burns in everlasting torment. You can rationalise all you like about how the joy to be found in human relationships comes from God and as long as we still have God we have what really matters, or that it's not our place to feel for the sufferings of others because it's all part of God's greater plan for them. That sort of evasive sophistry completely gives the lie to xxx's claim that Christianity is a creed for here and for now. If people whom I love suffer, I'm not going to be sitting about in divine grace, I'm going to be foaming at the mouth and tearing the Pearly Gates down to get to them.

Robert Heinlein's "Job: A Comedy of Justice" deals with this very theme and is heartily recommended to anyone who enjoys... well, enjoys books.


B: > And I'll exercise my right of reply now, for perhaps the last time before
> the censors close in, to say what the Good News of Christianity really is.

Let's see. The destruction of the earth? The casting of nonbelievers into hell? If God existed, he'd be charigned to know that you so-called "believers" have turned him into a petty, attention seeking creature, seeking to be worshipped. You claim God shall throw a cosmic hissyfit, and condemn non-believers to hell because "I am so high and mighty, too bad if you believed in the wrong god in life."

> The Good News is that God watches over the world with loving care, sending
> the sun and rain on evil and good alike because of His undeserved grace, not
> willing that any should perish but desiring that all should be saved from
> their wickedness and its consequences. For He did intervene once in history
> to make that possible, by dying for us - even for a person like Gabriel.

He sends tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes and other "acts of God" as well, because of his undeserved grace. Survivors die from the fallout of diseases, such as malaria. He only died for us, if you want to be exact and quote the bible, but again, there you have it, going around in your little circular arguement.

Hope is an amazing thing when humans are in despair. How often do smiling evangelists come to people at the worst point in their lives, knowing, sooner or later, that person's life will get better?