[Woolie Wool]

RELIGIOUS DEBATE C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!

Remember when vampires (the original Central European legends) actually killed people by drinking their blood? The original point of a vampire was a sort of cursed unlife where the vampire has to murder and consume other people to sustain its own life. The media has kind of forgotten the very foundation of vampire legend.

Stephanie Meyer and Anne Rice deserve a garlic-coated stake through the heart.

[General Battuta]

Morality is a social construct. We don't need an omnipotent father figure to tell us to be good. We're smart and responsible enough to figure it out ourselves. Time for the species to grow up.

Remember when vampires (the original Central European legends) actually killed people by drinking their blood?

You should really watch Let the Right One In. It's fantastic.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

Put quite simply, Evil is that which works at odds to the Creators design.

There are certain behaviors and actions that have been shown over and over again to be evil or at the very least negative in the long run for the participants willing or not.  But it's certainly just as evil to ignore such behaviors.

But that's the crux of the matter.  According to Christianity, God is all knowing, God is all powerful.  He knows the past present and future of everything, of everyone.  When he created his most beautiful angel he knew that satan would fall from grace and become the father of lies.  This says to me that satan was incorporated into the design.  He had to have been or he couldn't exist.  God is everywhere and in all things, that would include satan. 

So in our theoretical world where vampires exist, they must therefore also be part of the design, because nothing can exist and not be part of the design.  The problem isn't the design, but our own arrogance and presumption to know the design, without which knowledge, we cannot judge for ourselves.

Gives a deeper meaning to "Judge not lest ye be judged yourselves", and "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Man's vanity caused the Crusades, something that they believed was God's will, and yet we now question and apologize for. 

We slaughtered people thought to be witches, because the bible said "suffer not a witch to live among you",  but that was wrong too, because the bible didn't say suffer not a witch live. 

There are many more examples where man performed atrocities against his brethren, believing it to be what God wants. 

Maybe in the end, we haven't got a clue as to what God's design is, or what he wants.  Which would mean that our concept of evil is dependent merely on our point of view.

I'm a Christian, but I know that I don't know, and cannot know the design and heart of my God, because I am imperfect.  We as a whole may want to curb our arrogance before we commit the next atrocity.

[General Battuta]

So, it occurred to me today that vampires have always been about sex and sexuality. Perhaps Twilight is completely in line with vampire mythology - even if its message is not one I agree with, it's certainly about sex.

[MP-Ryan]

There's actually some sort of genetic defect (I believe) that requires people who have it to drink blood, iirc. So they aren't pure works of fiction.

There's so much vampire garbage out now that it isn't really worth critiquing any of it based on history, but rather on its own merits in establishing a mythos separate from history.  Vampirism as a disease is based on the symptoms of severe sickle-cell anemia, but you'll find virtually no reference to that in any modern film, television, or book.  Trying to look at the vampirism from history in today's context is a pointless exercise when critiquing entertainment media.

However, people with sickle-cell anemia do not have to drink blood - the problem is a combination of severe iron deficiency and lack of oxygen.  While drinking blood helps with the iron deficiency, it doesn't do anything else.

[MP-Ryan]

So, it occurred to me today that vampires have always been about sex and sexuality. Perhaps Twilight is completely in line with vampire mythology - even if its message is not one I agree with, it's certainly about sex.

I don't know if I'd characterize Twilight as being about sex, considering the pains it takes to avoid the subject entirely until, oh, book 4.

I said it before, I'll say it again - Twilight is nothing more than your average teen fiction aimed at a female audience and throwing in a mythological element to keep the reader's interest (because without that element, it would be incredibly boring).  The characters are flat, the plot is fairly predictable and contrived, and an enormous theme of repressed sexuality in human females echoes throughout (the vampires, of course, have a lot of sex, but it's still monogamous).

Putting monogamous but "wild" (and I use the quotes because I certainly don't consider what Meyer depicts to be wild by any stretch of the imagination) sex among the vampires allows Meyer to include the topic in a way that it is not seen to be available to the main character but is still discussed enough to be interest-piquing.  Once again, we come back to the culture from which the author hails and the traditional role of women and sexuality within it.  Hell, the FIRST TIME that the main character actually does have sex, we have a whole series of idealized cliches giving young women a whole series of idiotic ideas:
-Female ecstacy, blacking out, etc.
-The sensual male who knows exactly what she wants and how she wants it and is therefore PERFECT the first time.  (Yeah, because this happens).
-No need for birth/disease control, after all, he's a vampire...
-...oops, and yeah, she got pregnant on the first time.

When Twilight does actually cover the topic of sex, it does so in such an irresponsible, overtly repressed way that it is a worthless discussion entirely unless you want to talk about how badly presented it was.

[General Battuta]

I don't think that Twilight is about sex in a good way, but it's definitely about sex: repressed, delayed, denied sex. It's about the sensuality of frustration.

So

When Twilight does actually cover the topic of sex, it does so in such an irresponsible, overtly repressed way that it is a worthless discussion entirely unless you want to talk about how badly presented it was.

yes, I would completely agree with this, but nonetheless they're about sex, that 'enormous theme of repressed sexuality' that you mentioned.

[MP-Ryan]

I don't think that Twilight is about sex in a good way, but it's definitely about sex: repressed, delayed, denied sex. It's about the sensuality of frustration.

So

When Twilight does actually cover the topic of sex, it does so in such an irresponsible, overtly repressed way that it is a worthless discussion entirely unless you want to talk about how badly presented it was.

yes, I would completely agree with this, but nonetheless they're about sex, that 'enormous theme of repressed sexuality' that you mentioned.

Alright, I can agree with that.

[General Battuta]

Well, it's nice to see that they're officially abusive. I'd always suspected!

[Turambar]

maybe the author has something she'd like to tell us, maybe about her marriage or something.

[iamzack]

I'm kinda surprised there's been no outrage over the husband raising the kids while mom works, especially since they only have 3. Maybe that's why the only people my age I know who aren't preordering every book like they're even in the same realm of quality as Harry Potter are Mormon.

[NGTM-1R]

Remember when vampires (the original Central European legends) actually killed people by drinking their blood? The original point of a vampire was a sort of cursed unlife where the vampire has to murder and consume other people to sustain its own life. The media has kind of forgotten the very foundation of vampire legend.

They still do that, even in Twilight. It's now more or less that we have decided they may be able to control themselves a little, so they can simply leave you after a blood donation or they can drain you dry. Some versions of the vampire mythos (the old Vampire the Masquerade for example, maybe the new one too, I'm not sure) even presented such things as a struggle for self-control if that's how you wanted to play it...one that would eventually be lost.

[Stealth]

But that's the crux of the matter.  According to Christianity, God is all knowing, God is all powerful.  He knows the past present and future of everything, of everyone.  When he created his most beautiful angel he knew that satan would fall from grace and become the father of lies.  This says to me that satan was incorporated into the design.  He had to have been or he couldn't exist.  God is everywhere and in all things, that would include satan. 
God is all-knowing, but God also created us as free moral agents.  Satan made the choice to 'turn bad'...

Gives a deeper meaning to "Judge not lest ye be judged yourselves", and "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
The "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" i don't believe is agreed to have occured.  Many bible manuscripts leave those verses out, the verses where Jesus in theory said those lines.  And it doesn't make sense anyway - if Jesus said "Le he who is without sin cast the first stone", who should have been the first one to pick up a stone? ... Jesus

Man's vanity caused the Crusades, something that they believed was God's will, and yet we now question and apologize for. 

We slaughtered people thought to be witches, because the bible said "suffer not a witch to live among you",  but that was wrong too, because the bible didn't say suffer not a witch live. 

There are many more examples where man performed atrocities against his brethren, believing it to be what God wants. 
Amen.  What about the pope and priests blessing instruments of war in practically every war in the last century.  Both sides had religious leaders blessing the troops and blessing the war... both sides. the same religion.

Maybe in the end, we haven't got a clue as to what God's design is, or what he wants.  Which would mean that our concept of evil is dependent merely on our point of view.

I'm a Christian, but I know that I don't know, and cannot know the design and heart of my God, because I am imperfect.  We as a whole may want to curb our arrogance before we commit the next atrocity.
this is all foretold in the bible...

[NGTM-1R]

It's in every version of the bible used by anyone who matters a damn. I don't think a single major printing of it has not used that. The only people I can think of who don't want that passage in are Conservapedia. And there was one other person who could have thrown the first stone, prompting Jesus to yell "MOM!" Or did you forget that part?

Besides, are you saying that wasn't the point? That the whole "he without sin won't stone the sinner, wtf are you doing you hypocrites?" was not the whole message? Or do you just have serious problems interpreting subtext?

[ShadowWolf_IH]

But here's the thing, there really is no choice, if it is known what we will choose, then there is a destiny, and a destiny robs us of choice, which means all was preordained, and planned.  So the logical extension of this is that everything we will say or do is going to happen.  Now apply it to the topic of this thread, and in our theoretical world of Vampires, they would also have to be part of the plan.  We can't have it both ways, either God knows what we will choose or we have a free will to choose, the two cannot coincide.  So for us to say that ANYTHING goes against God is a true fallacy.  That's why it irritates me when Liberator and his ilk decide to run from a decidedly narrow and ill thought point of view.  Sorry Lib but 4 years ago when I left for my break from HLP you were spouting the same arguments, they are growing cobwebs.

The "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" i don't believe is agreed to have occured.  Many bible manuscripts leave those verses out, the verses where Jesus in theory said those lines.  And it doesn't make sense anyway - if Jesus said "Le he who is without sin cast the first stone", who should have been the first one to pick up a stone? ... Jesus

I'm not even going to address this.

Amen.  What about the pope and priests blessing instruments of war in practically every war in the last century.  Both sides had religious leaders blessing the troops and blessing the war... both sides. the same religion.

Not just in the last century, but throughout Europe in the dark and middle ages, since the dawn of  Judaism people have asked God's blessing.  If it didn't have the blessing it wouldn't be part of the plan.

this is all foretold in the bible...
This serves only to further my argument. 

If you think about it, i mean really think about it all, if we do have a free choice, then nine times out of ten "God's will" is simply an excuse to let us do what we want.  We call the attack of September 11 2001 an act of war, an act of terror.  They call it God's will. 

This entire exercise has been to show that we know nothing.  We know nothing of God's plan, so for us to call anything an abomination against God is simply an excuse to destroy something that preys on us, something that we consider to be evil.  I'm going to leave you with this thought, Hebrews 5:12.  We are perpetually there, and our own arrogance refuses to let us move beyond this point.

Liberator since I've gone ahead and called you by name I'll tell you why.  You have the innate ability of attacking a person's beliefs, which then forces them to defend it.  As much as you have to defend yours, you should have realized long ago that you never have a firmer conviction than when you are forced to defend.  If you want to make  a difference with people not of your faith, stop attacking theirs.  My problem with you is that you force your opponent to be even more convicted than he was otherwise, and this is counter productive to what you try to achieve.  Try talking to them, not at them.  Sorry if I offend, but at least it's honest.

[QuantumDelta]

I thought this debate was about what some braindead author dribbled on a page half a decade ago, not 2000 years ago.
Fiction is fiction.
Both debated topics were terrible, and Meyer's cannot write.

As for good alternatives, I don't think I've actually seen a post 2000 decent piece of vampire fiction.
The closest, perhaps would be 'Being Human', but that's not really specifically about vampires, and it's a British (local, even) short-series, so I might be a bit biased.

Either way, She's writing in a genre that's difficult to do well, and she's making a teenybopper book about sex.
I don't see how it could get worse.

[General Battuta]

Although it's not on-a-page fiction, again, Let the Right One In was post-2000 and it was fantastic. I strongly recommend it.

[Rian]

Scott Westerfeld’s Peeps was a decently original take on vampires, and written for teens no less. (In his rendition, vampirism is transmitted via a parasite, and the book is sprinkled with a lot of wonderfully revolting parasite biology.)

[Mongoose]

As for good alternatives, I don't think I've actually seen a post 2000 decent piece of vampire fiction.

Go watch Hellsing Ultimate, and I'd wager you'll change your tune.

[Nuclear1]

Alright, back on Twilight for a second...

Against what I thought was my better judgment, I went and saw New Moon today.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  Stupid teen angst aside and Kristen Stewart's BAWW BAWW moments, the actual plot of vampires vs werewolves was pretty well done.  Besides, the Volturi actually were the sort of vampires you have to be afraid of...turns out the Robert Pattinson clan of vampires are the only ones that are pussified to any extent.