Star Trek: The Next Generation - "Who Watches The Watchers"

Through a series of accidents Picard ends up being worshipped as a god to some primitive proto-Vulcans. I'm not sure, though, why the observation team couldn't be made up of all Vulcans just in case they ever got caught by the locals but oh well!

RATING: 61%

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

I kinda think the budget problems and sloppy direction make this movie  feel most like a TOS episode of all the movies. Anyway, some religious fanatics take over the Enterprise in order to find... Eden... hmm.

RATING: 81%

Star Trek - "Who Mourns for Adonais?"

One of my first memories is being two or three and being petrified when the giant hand comes out of space.

RATING: 72%

Daredevil Vol. 12: Decalogue

This storyline starts with a support group meeting in a church basement to help people whose lives have been affected by Daredevil in some way. Eventually, it turns out one of them has a demon baby living inside of him, and thJESUS I'VE NEVER EVEN READ THE ILIAD WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE???

RATING: 59%

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Everybody thinks this movie is bad, but it's actually a pretty good movie, although there's no shooting and explosions, though, heads up. The plot is basically all about how Gene Roddenberry is a giant atheist, as a weird space machine named V'Ger is heading towards Earth to talk to "The Creator." You can probably figure out where that one is going.

RATING: 76%

God Of War III

A sprawling, gorgeous feat in the arena of the action platform game, this story sets you, a Spartan warrior widowed by the Gods, in the middle of an epic battle between the Greek Titans and the rest of the Pantheon. If you traveled back in time and showed somebody in the 80s that this is what computers would be able to do in 30 years, they would probably get on their knees and cry. Also, you can feel on some chick's titties while two other girls caress each other and watch AOOOOGA!

RATING: 71%

Christianity

Christianity is a religion in which you believe that there is a supreme being named God or something, and also he sacrificed his son Jesus for your sins so you better be good for goodness' sake. In theory this religion is pretty good, because it basically says don't hate. In America this religion is actually terrible because everybody interprets "don't hate" to mean "hate all the time as much as you can." A lot of people here use Christianity as an excuse to do any sort of mean thing or vote any sort of mean way (Prop. 8) because the same people who complain about how hard it is to read Shakespeare in my class are all of the sudden experts on the meaning of vague Elizabethan translations of ancient Greek text. Anyway, I could totally be on board with the don't judge, don't hate, be nice part of Christianity (except for the God and Jesus and Hell parts), but that ain't in Texas, Flordia, Illinois, or I bet any other state in the union.

RATING: A Real Nice Story%

(PS - this review can basically be applied to any monotheistic religion, so just replace key words like Jesus, God, Elizabethan, Greek, America, etc)

Mercury

Some bloggers think Mercury is the worst planet, but he's definitely one of the coolest gods. He's the god of communication, but also of exchange and profit--two jobs that might look unrelated until you consider that a free market is basically a big price computer, and that the "invisible hand" of the market described by Adam Smith is actually an invisible brain (I guess this isn't so counterintuitive in the age of the Internet). English words like market, merchant, commerce (and thus the m in "dot com"), mercenary and mercy are all cognate with Mercury.

In Greek mythology, Hermes (Mercury's Greek incarnation) stole Apollo's cattle, and only agreed to give them back on the condition that Apollo would exchange his caduceus (the winged staff entwined with snakes that you see on hospitals, ambulances, etc.) for Hermes' lyre (the symbol of poetry). So even though Apollo is the god of poetry and poets (*ahem*), he actually has Hermes/Mercury to thank for it.

It's human nature to hate our creditors.

RATING: 100%

(Image from www.antinopolis.org. Read Frederick Turner's book Shakespeare's 21st Century Economics for a deeper discussion of markets, myth, meaning and morality.)