Boy, Rippo really does know how to push buttons, and to "stir up the hornet's nest!"
However, in deference to him, I also offer the following, even though they may seem to be contradictory:
Most of what I am doing now does seem to involve a fair quality digital camera, in part because that is what many people seem to want. Last weekend I took three photographs at about 2130 that Saturday evening. Two hours later after I was at home, they were on the way over the Internet to the main person associated with the group. Early the next morning, she contacted the son of the man for whom those photographs had been taken, and forwarded the image files on to him. That Sunday he took the files with him to get 16 by 24 large prints made. That Sunday afternoon he took those prints to the hospital where his father was dying. Later he told me that his father really did enjoy the photographs of the group of which his father had been a member, and he credits that whole process with helping his father make it through another day. His father died 48 hours almost exactly after those photographs were taken, and about 30 hours after he was shown the prints. With the transportation involved in this case, I could not have accomplished that with film.
In addition to the digital SLR cameras, there are also several film SLR cameras here, including a Minolta Maxxum 9 and a small selection of lenses for it. I am already on record as saying that anyone who has experience with a modern digital SLR camera will feel right at home with the Minolta Maxxum 9. So many of the capabilities that are found on the modern digital SLR cameras are also in the Minolta Maxxum 9. The main difference is in how the light image is recorded. I like my Minolta Maxxum 9. It is one of the finest Point and Shoot 35mm film cameras ever made, or at least I can set it up to work that way.
If I may offer an automotive analogy, the European automobiles of the 1950s and 1960s seemed to expect that the vehicle driver would be an engaged participant in the automotive driving process, while the American automobiles of that era seemed to be designed to isolate and insulate the driver as much as possible from that process, and to replace it with "a living room like experience." The "modern dSLR cameras" and many of the late film cameras seem to be of the philosophy that the tedium of being involved in the process is be eliminated, "for the benefit of the photographer." I also feel that I am much more involved, and I much more enjoy the experience of being part of the photograph taking process when I am the one deciding each facet of how the image is to be recorded. My Minolta SR-1b is a fine example of this, as is my Kiev 88C. The SINAR F and F1 I can only describe as humbling. I am still relearning photography with "a full featured view camera."
Rippo, I can only echo the points others have made; 2F/2F, SiriusGlass, agw, kiethwms, and many others. What do you want to do, and how do you want to do it? Each of the two main ways under discussion -- film SLR and dSLR -- have characteristics and qualities that may make it the better choice for one application or another. At this time, I still feel a greater sense of satisfaction with film than I do with silicon, but part of that may be that I have much more experience with film, and I am still judging the results of a digital image in comparison with film. You have posed a very difficult question which is probably being answered in many cases with our own personal history, taste, and prejudice. I am sorry. I do not think that any of us can really do better than that.
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but I understand your point. Does that make my 7 a "camera for newbies"? Or maybe even a disposable? 
The question was posed from a hypothetical newbie's perspective. Why a modern 35mm SLR specifically? That's the one type of camera/format that has always eluded me, in terms of understanding the benefits as compared with digital. I love playing with rangefinders, old folders, medium format, LF (and despise sub-mini, but understand why it might appeal to some). But somehow, an F5/F6/EOS-1 seemed like they needed a justification that I just couldn't come up with. Like the format was "almost digital" but annoyingly not so. But I've been put in my place, as it were, because of course I was neglecting the recording medium. Film, in any configuration, has a certain appeal and use for some people. The bells and whistles merely make the exposure of that film more convenient.