And, what - no Replicants?

Runner-up to the Svedka vodkabot - the dancing Heineken kegbot that appears to dispense beer from her womb.

Third runner-up - the sexy showerbot that shaves that guy in that commercial.

I'm all for Molly Millions and Cameron the Terminatrix, but it really kind of disgusts me where those memes get twisted to in less thoughtful pop culture.

They are vocal, connected, organized and well-funded.

We (avowed believers in demonstrable science) have no churches. No regular, appointed time to get together and affirm our beliefs. No one has ever offered to come over to my house and help me fix my fence because we share a belief in natural selection.

It's interesting that this discussion is happening here, now. This week, The Onion's AV Club is running an interview with the Mythbusters guys, both of whom recently went on record with their interest in lending their celebrity to the cause of evolution/natural selection.

Asimov/Silverburg's "Nightfall" deals with this; there's an idea in the story that the church is the only establishment old enough to remember the last apocalypse, even though it's been thoroughly mythologized in the last 2000 years.

"Childhood's End" puts forth the idea that our Lucifer is based on these demonic-looking aliens that periodically come to Earth to push us to the next evolution.

"Stranger in a Strange Land" deals with an intersection of religion and science.

I don't think it's completely impossible for religion and science to coexist. For instance, many of us who were raised Catholic in the last 30 years were taught in Sunday school that Genesis articulates the poetic truth of The Big Bang as it would have been understood a couple thousand years ago.

I'm just saying that there is value in picking easier entrypoints to complex literary systems. If watching Star Wars gets you a foothold in Mayan mythology, great.

That totally reminds me of the panel in Dark Knight Returns where Joker is at the county fair, and he sees Batman coming for him and whispers to himself, "Oh, darling."

Yeah! And none of this "I'm actually a symbiote without a gender identity of my own" copout crapola.

I'd also like to say that I agree with the others who feel that the tongue-in-cheek articles here really don't work; they're not insightful enough to be satire, not funny enough to be comedy.

The hero's journey is, at a certain level, the process by which many of us become adults. Responsibility is thrust upon us, we reject it, we're kicked out of the nest, we look for guidance, etc etc, our parents/mentors die, we have children (master of both worlds). I bet most of us could chart our own lives along this list.

Reason #2: Nothing can spoil my love for the book. The audio book is actually pretty great - Gibson reads, and there's some incidental music by U2.