Why Da Vinci Code Scares Fundamentalists

So, NOW you say "at least to me it is."

That is the diffrence in giving your opinion and speaking for God and all believers, which is what you did in the post I cited.

THAT is adding to the word of God and blasphemous.

If you can do it literally, why can't Dan Brown do it fictionally??

And, how do you know information about Jesus' marriage wasn't present in the Bible before it was altered?

At least to me, I agree with Frank -- the Holy Bible is an oxymoron. It's moral evaluation turns back on itself with the murder of innocent babies and advocation of slavery. Anyone not put off by the Bible should examine the books more closely, just as anyone with brains should examine "The Da Vinci Code' more closely. Dan Brown is taking his own pot shots at the so-called sacred work which was written by individuals of doubtful (in most cases, indeterminable) credentials or qualifications as historians. They weren't even great fantasy writers as if presented as even fiction, the work is not incredible but incredulous.

The monster that lives in the bedroom closet (allegedly) scares the fundamentalists so why should a movie be any different.

Would that be the "gay monster" coming out of the closet?

Fundamentalists probably fear that it is.

Moses died and went to heaven. God greets him at the Pearly Gates. "Are you hungry, Moses?" says God.

"I could eat," Moses replies. So God opens a can of tuna and reaches for a chunk of rye bread and they share it. While eating this humble meal, Moses looks down into Hell and sees the inhabitants devouring huge steaks, briskets, pheasants, pastries and wines. Curious, but deeply trusting, he remains quiet.

The next day God again invites him to join Him for a meal. Again, it is tuna and rye bread. Once again, Moses can see the denizens of Hell enjoying salmon, champagne, lamb, truffles and chocolates. Still he says nothing.

The following day, mealtime arrives and another can of tuna is opened. He can't contain himself any longer. Meekly, he says: "God, I am grateful to be in heaven with You as a reward for the pious, obedient life I led. But here in heaven all I get to eat is tuna and a piece of rye bread, and in the Other Place they eat like emperors and kings! I just don't understand."

God sighs. "Let's be honest Moses," he says. "For just two people, does it pay to cook?"

A saintly pope, on the occasion of his passing from this world, presents himself to St. Peter before the Pearly Gates, and requests an audience with God. Pete says "Certainly - let me see what's available", and begins perusing the appointment calendar, flipping page after page after page. Finally, after a considerable period of time, Pete smiles and says "Ahhh ... OK ... here we go - it looks like we can pencil you in between 10:15 AM and 10:30 AM Tuesday, the 9th of March, year after next, or set a firm appointment for 3:00 AM to 3:15 AM the following January. Would you like me to proceed?"

Somewhat taken aback, the saintly cleric asks if he can see the calendar. "Of course", replies Pete, handing it over. Indeed is is full for years to come - the names of famous entertainers, journalists and authors, politicians, executives, lawyers, and scientists comprising far and away the majority of entries. Puzzled, the saintly cleric inquires why that might be.

"Oh, that's simple", replies Pete. "Your sort are a dime a dozen here, and very rarely have anything new or interesting to discuss. Those folks, on the other hand, are a constant source of wonder and amazement to us; we're very interested in trying to figure out just how they managed to get here."

Lash,

Anytime I post I am giving my opinion, my views, etc. In my opinion God and other believers find the book blasphemous.

Have I asked every believer and God if they consider it such? No, I am merely giving my opinion just as everyone else on this forum does. I guess I'll just have to make sure to put "in my opinion" on everything.

Just watched a documentary on the Da Vinci Code by Tony Robinson, the guy who played the guy who just happens to be Farmerman's Able2know avatar.

What he uncovered was very interesting.

The Priory of Sion did exist. It was a Surrealist fantasy produced by one Monsieur Plantard, one Monsieur de Séde and another person whose name I've completely forgotten. Everything relating to it was a forgery.

The candlestick that was supposedly used as a murder weapon by the Albino priest is so heavy that it takes two to three people to move just one of them.

The Church in which that murder scene took place was never the site of a Pagan Temple.

The Early Church did in fact suppress writings that gave more emphasis to Mary. Those writings are the Gnostic Gospels. Popular scholar opinion, however, states that those particular gospels were suppressed because they did not conform to the Trinitarian Doctrine which was enforced by the Church after many, many years of argument. (In fact, the argument was never quite resolved, which explains why the Gnostic Gospels weren't destroyed and were hidden in jars in Egypt).

Leonardo da Vinci did hide something in his painting, the Last Supper. The effeminate character in the painting is actually John. Da Vinci, being a person whose tastes lay in hot sexy guys rather than hot sexy women, deliberately made John effeminate to suggest a homosexual relationship between him and Jesus.

The last point, though scandalous is utterly true. Not the homosexual relationship thing, but the Leonardo da Vinci portraying it as such. The reason? He kinda took the concept of John being Jesus' most loved disciple a little bit too far. What? Give the man a break! He did a lot of stuff. Let him indulge in his fantasies.

Wasn't this Da Vinci Code thing around since the 70's or thereabouts? Wonder why it is being revived?

As with about anything nowadays there are counter arguments.

http://www.johnankerberg.org/Articles/historical-Jesus/DaVinci/HJ-Da-Vinci-Code-questions.htm

http://www.cts-online.org.uk/Da_Vinci_Code.htm

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=answering+the+Da+Vinci+Code+&btnG=Search

emphasis added

What, specifically, do you mean by "this daVinci Code thing"? The book was published three or four years ago. The movie came out a week ago.

I think revel may be refering to the concept that the DaVinci Code is based on. Or, more specifically, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the book Brown's is largely based on. It's been around since 1982. Wikipedia's link is here.
Correct me if I'm wrong, revel.

The Da Vinci Code thing, the idea that the Roman Catholic Church was founded on some shaky ideas by some even shakier men has been around since the Apostles walked out of the upper room. (Some people thought they were drunk on new wine) People have been conjuring up all sorts of variations on the theme that Jesus 1) didn't die, 2) did die but rose again, or 3)died and his followers just made up the part about him walking about thereafter (The Passover Plot 1965)

It's always this way with legends, myths and fictions. No matter how doctrinaire the believers of one version of the myth is, there will always be some group with a different, and they believe better or truer, version. For a fun time, look up Montanism.

The points being made against the Da Vinci Code, which is after all just a murder mystery, all seem to me to be missing the point. It's not about whether Brown got all of the names of the Churchs correct or precisely described the Council of Nicea, it's about his points about the role of women in Christianity. Think about it. You have the Old Testament relationship between God and man completely changed by the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Son of God. Everything is changed. The gates of heaven are opened to humanity after generations were barred from entering because of the sin of Adam and Eve, but now everything is re-newed. Right?

Nope, apparently Paul, who wasn't one of the Apostles -he just got his butt thrown from a horse on his way to kill a bunch of Christians by a godly force- Paul decided early on that Eve's sin was not forgiven. Yup, too bad ladies but you still have the mark of Eve on your ample breasts, uh, souls. So you can't be fully part of this new relationship with God like ALL the men can, but you can participate in our shadow. How's that for spiritual renewal? Everything changes except women stay in second place.

Did you look up Montanism yet? They were kind of early day Holy Rollers AND two of the main leaders were, you guessed it, women. The Church had to stamp them out as being un-natural, but think about that?

In the natural world, creatures rule by force, the bull over the cows, the stallion over the mares, the silverback male gorilla over his smaller female companions, but one would think that a God would want his most precious (we are you know)creatures to be better than all the rest of those petty animals and bugs and birds and such, but Paul says No, He, God, wants women to be no better than the subservient heifer or filly. Golly, why did God whisper that in a man's ear and not a woman's.?

Again, what fundamentalists fear most is that someone will ask "What did Jesus say about the role of women in his Church?"

Joe(uh, he made no distinction between men and women and holiness)Nation

There was also a book by Elaine Pagels called, The Gnostic Gospels, 1979. It has many of the same basic concepts as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Pagels

If women carefully read what Jesus said and compared it to what the Church decided after Paul, there would be no thinking, rational women in Christianity.

It would be akin to any black man taking an honorary membership in the KKK.

There is a Da Vinci Code Diet Book.

Some interesting things said about women in Gary Wills' new book, What Jesus Meant":

The opposite of hierarchy is equality, and Jesus was a radical egalitarian. The early church reflected this value, as we can see from the hymn that Paul quotes:

Baptized into Messiah
you are clothed in Messiah,
so that there is no more Jew or Greek,
slave or free, man and woman,
but all are one, are the same
in Jesus Messiah. (Gal 3.26-28

The equality of men and women was a thing so shocking in the patriarchal society of Jesus' time that his own male followers could not understand it. "At this point his followers arrived, and were thunderstruck that he was speaking to a woman" -- and a Samaritan woman at that (Jn.4.27).

It was a source of scandal for women to travel openly with a rabbi; but "many women" followed Jesus through Galilee (Lk 8.2-3. For a long time the story of Martha and Mary, the latter praised because she sat at Jesus' feet instead of helping Martha in the kitchen, was treated as praise of the contemplative over the active life (Lk 10.38-42). It was used for the practice of sealing women away in convents, which were not far from the kitchen in many cases but certainly were far from "the world." But Jerome Nersey, after a close study of social conditions in Jesus' time, shows that Jesus was defending the woman who could be criticized in his era for acting outside her condoned space, entering the world of the learned (signified by sitting at the feet of a teacher). So, far from closing women into a safe retreat from the world, he was beckoning them out into it, to join men in knowledge and action.

There was a crowd of women followers at the cross, when all but one of the male company had fled or stood far off (Mk 16.40-41). Three of these women who were at the cross were also the first to discover the empty tomb and to announce their finding to the male followers, becoming the first evangels of the Resurrection (Lk.24.I-II). One of these women was the first person to converse with the risen Jesus (Jn 20.15-17).

Women continued to play a prominent role in the early gatherings. They were prophets (1 Cor. 11.5). Paul addresses them as leaders in the various gatherings he formed -- Chloe in Corinth, where she speaks for "her establishment" (1 Cor 1.11); Apphia at (probably) Colossae (Phlm 2), where Nympha was also a leader (Col. 4-15). At Philippi, Eunoe and Syntyche "struggled by my side for the gospel" (Phil 4-3). Lydia, the dealer in fabrics, led a whole group of women instructed by Paul (Ac 16.13) Other women are mentioned as partners in missionary activity. Junia is called an emissary, Paul's own title for himself. She and her husband shared Paul's imprisonment (Rom 16.7). Prisca and her husband are "my fellow workers, who risked their own necks to save my life," so that the whole assembly owes the two of them its gratitude (Rom 16.3-5) Paul refers to four women -- Mary, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, Persis -- as having "toiled with effort" (Rom 16.6,12) for the Christians, the very same he uses of his own activities (Gal 4.11, 1Cor 15-10).

It is clear that women played a much more active role in Christian gatherings than in Jewish synagogues of the time. Though prominent men and women are saluted in the body of Paul's letters, no woman is addressed in the honorifics and titles for a leader of synagogues or of pagan gatherings. The letters are sent to the whole community, where functions are specified by the gifts of the Spriit, not appointment to an office. Some women are hailed as heads of households, which means that they were the hosts of the christian meal (agape), a role that would later be restricted to male priests (there are no priests in the Pauline communities). A first-century fresco in the catacomb of Saint Priscella in Rome shows a woman breaking the eucharistic bread for six other women at the agape table. (Guess this paragraph addresses the communal living style of Jesus' followers):

The original gatherings of Jesus, still reflecting his teaching, made up the most egalitarian earthly society then in existence. This egalitarianism, combined with Jesus' injunctions against acquiring personal wealth, led the first Christian community to a form of primitive comunism, reflecting the common purse maintained among the followers of Jesus (Jn 12.6, 13.29). This was, of course, a voluntary community activity, not state socialism of any kind (Jesus had no political program):

"In the company of believers there was a single heart and spirit. Not one of them claimed sole ownership of property. It was all shared -- such was the force of the emissaries" witness to the resurrection of Lord Jesus, and the divine favor was over them all. No one was poor with them. Owners of farms or houses sold them and brought the proceeds to lay them at the feet of emissaries, to be distributed to others according to their need. A Levite from Cyprus, Joseph by name, was the lord of an estate; but he sold it and brought the profit to lay at the feet of the emissaries (Ac 4.32-37).

This has often been called an impossible dream of society, though communities reading the gospels have, over the years, lived up to the dream--Eastern monks, the first Franciscans, the Shakers, Catholic Workers, worker priests, base communities, and Christian communes like Jonah House.

Such people are called dreamers or idealists. Practical matters require prudence. Jesus does not deny that. Politics, calculation, compromises--all those things are "matters of Caesar." Let Caesar take care of them. But that is not the concern of Jesus. His work and demands are of a different order.

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Any thinking person would, I think, know that religion as we know it, heck, is just confusing and a little dumb.

Man, you are re-e-e-ally stretchin here...

Not really, Snood. Would you join an organization, even one which promised you a place in heaven, but which told you from the outset that you would always be second best because you wore glasses and had a screen name containing five, and not six, letters? That's essentially the message of the Christian Church to half of humanity.

Yes, a man didn't have anything to do with bringing Jesus into the world, but they, according to them, are the ones who must be superior. In the Roman Church, the subject of Brown's book, women cannot say Mass or hear confessions or administrate any of the sacraments, the actual connections of worship to God. Why?

Although there have been some changes in the post-modern world, most Protestant sects do not accord women the same positions of authority as they do to men. Did anything that Christ said dictate that?

No. And that's the point of Brown's book. Women got screwed out of an equal position to men in worshipping the Almighty.

Joe(Suppose A2K said that it was okay for you to post here but you were never allowed to use capital letters.)Nation