Frozen,

If I did not believe that I am obliged to tell Jews and Hindus and Moslems  that Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth, & The Light, and that they are lost and dead without Him, I would be a piss-poor Christian.

And if I did not believe that my Faith is in fact the True Faith, and better than all the others, and the other faiths are Incomplete at best and wholly inadequate when they are not downright Idolatrous,  I could not say that I have any Faith at all.

Be a Lukewarm Mormon.  Join the Lukewarm Catholics and the Reformed Jews (I knew a reformed Jewish Rabbi who presided over services on Friday evening, partying for the coming of the Messiah, and joined with Methodists on Sunday to kinda-sorta celebrate His coming 2000 years ago on Sunday) in basically being NEITHER FISH NOR FOWL NOR GOOD ENGLISH BEEF.

You may be a decent an Enlightened person but you lack any understanding of what it means to be a Christian

Taking on Union Thugs was not hard enough for Steven Crowder?

Wow!

If he doesn't watch out this guy is going to beat him to death with his acoustic guitar:

Christianity preaches submission to God's will.  But it does not force it.  Being apart from God and dead with Sin is held as reason enough to want to submit to God's will.  There' s no need for some dude with a scimitar ready to chop your head off to reinforce the message.

Christians who brought Coercion to Religion betrayed Christ.  Moslems who did so honored the Prophet and Allah.

I hope you go, and I hope the food is good enough to eat at their expense so you don't have to stop at a restaurant on the way home.

It's a wedding.  Go, raise your glass when someone toasts and say "Mazel Tov" or "L'Chaim" just like everyone else, then duck out.

You are a busy person, after all.  Too busy to do much more than show up at the wedding ... and so on.

Trying not to laugh was not the issue for me.  Trying not to find Mr. O'Hare and feeding him his own eyeballs was.

Devereaux,

I share your sense of alarm with what followers of Islam can get up to.  And how they do not have to stray that far from the Koran to get up to some very nasty things.

But if I held every religion to that standard, I would be frightened every time I met a Jew, because there is some very nasty stuff in the Old Testament.

The New Testament is less nasty, but as CS Lewis notes, Jesus does say and do some crazy things.

But just as I have met Gays and Lesbians who simply wanted to do their jobs and get on with their lives, I have met Moslems (Muslims?  Beijing, Peking? - enough of the technicalities!) who have much the same goals.

And I do hear tell that the police departments of various cities do hear from such Moslems when someone of their faith goes off the rails.  The father of the Shoe Bomber warned the authorities about his son, I think.

I meet enough people worth trusting to not have lost all my faith in them.  It helps keep me sane.

No.

Christianity is built around a Saviour who allowed Himself to be executed in one of the most hideously painful manners possible to redeem all of humanity from the shame and burden of Sin, so that we may, with His aid lead lives that are better aligned with what God has always wanted for us.

On the night He was betrayed by one of His own disciples, He not only ordered the Apostle who He had chosen to lead His Church to put down the sword he had used to chop off the ear of one of the men sent to arrest his Saviour, He healed that man's ear.

He did not preach the use of Duplicity in the pursuit of Worldly Power & Domination, and he did not need to state that "in Christianity there is no compulsion" because He lived that life, letting those who were not interested in the Kingdom of Heaven free to pursue their empty and futile lives unhindered.

Islam has in the Mecca half of Mohammed's life the seed of a reasonable simulacrum of Christianity, and can hope to be a reasonably faithful and useful copy of it.

From a Military Biography Encyclopedia my brother has:

Colorful, aggressive and energetic, Halsey [who led not one but two fleets into not one but two typhoons, losing ships and men, but was allowed to retain command by commissions of inquiry] was the antithesis of of his quiet colleague Spruance; a believer in  calculated risks, he used his carriers to "hit hard, hit fast, and hit often"; although critics have taken him to task for his actions in the Phillipines campaign, those who served under Halsey were devoted to him, and commonly believed that he was skilled at getting the most from his subordinates.  Americans have always admired dash.

I like dash as much as the next man.  But the fellow who can sweet-talk you into lowering your neck so he can wrap the piano wire around it is a much more fascinating villain to me than someone with magnificent pectorals.

This song may be the best expression of the kind of reaction Cumberpatch elicits as a villain.

Sorry about the images.  I picked the video for the audio quality, and am not responsible for what some jamook uploaded to accompany the song.

BTW, I like that this Khan does not swagger around.  Look at the original, Robert Mitchum Cape Fear.  Then look at the DeNiro remake.  Is not the quiet, charming menace - so quiet and so charming that he has his hands around your neck, at first caressing then choking you, one hand strategically placed behind your neck so as to snap it in one swift move before you notice how dangerous he really is - that we see in Robert Mitchum that is more terrifying?

You don't need big muscles to be strong and dangerous.  Is that cat which has just stalked, played with, and killed a vole bulked up and defined?

Colin B:

Considering the fact that Joan of Arc has had a film made based on her story by the director Luc Besson and been played by Mila Jovovich as recently at 1999, I would not give Obama too much credit for knowing who she was.

As right as Admiral Marcus is about the Klingon threat, he nevertheless is wrong in how he responds.  He essentially is willing the sacrifice what is best about the Federation to ensure its survival, in the same way the Klingons have at this time in their history been too willing to sacrifice what is best about their culture (honor, and striving to be at your best whether you are in battle or merely serving up fresh gakh to your guests - I imagine a Klingon, challenged to win a ballroom dancing contest and told that he is being paired up with a Romulan lady he PERSONALLY DESPISES, still doing the BEST & MOST EXCITING DAMNED TANGO that anyone has ever seen) for glory and conquest.

Rodenberry may have been a peacenik, and Abrams naive, but Abrams does nail down the danger of building up the machinery of war at the cost of everything else.

We should fight.  But not for the sake of it.  But because there is something worth fighting for.

This Kirk was born on a starship, in its last moments as it goes down defiantly and heroically in battle.  That helps deine his strengths and his weaknesses.

I agree about the admiral being the villain.  Khan is the scorpion who cannot help but sting.

Just finished seeing it.

Cumberpatch does not have a tan, but he does nail the coldness and brutality of Khan better.  His Khan does not swagger, and I find that refreshing.

That's my specific comment.

My general comment on the film is this

Yowza!  Boo Yah!

As you can see, I clearly had reservations walking out out of the theater.

I prefer to spend $30 up front on the tie chain.  It works.

MaggiMc:

I was at the Meet & Greet portion of an awards dinner (if we'd stayed for the dinner instead of hitting the LIE we would have had dinner instead of spending an extra hour or more in stop & go traffic!), where i met what I suspect is a very successful real estate agent.

I could tell by the cut of his suit, and by the fact that he was wearing a properly tied bow tie.

And if this is about your budget, buy them one of these ... it will lengthen the life of all of their ties by keeping them out of the soup or coffee: