da vinci movie

I began a post in a new DaVinci thread that popped up and by the time I was ready to preview my first draft the thread had been trashed. I lost what I had written thus far.

Now that I have vented . . .

I spent time this morning watching a couple of interviews (see link at bottom of post), one with a representative of Opus Dei, the other with an individual representing some Catholic organization, and I was reminded of why I am now an atheist.

I grew up steeped in the mysticism and misogyny of the Catholic Church. I learned that, as a woman, I am only a baby factory, my chief responsibility to the Vatican being the production of as many future tithers as possible. My responsibilities at the local level are to provide cakes for the parish bake sale and to ladle syrup at parish breakfasts.

I also learned that no matter what I did roughly 2000 years later, as a woman I would always be tainted by Eve's bad behavior in the Garden. I learned that it's okay for the priests to treat me like a dog simply because I am a woman.

I have read The DaVinci Code four times and I plan to see the film. I enjoyed the book. It gave me a great deal to think about as an ex-Catholic, provided a number of ideas for future reading and research, and gave me hope.

Yes, it gave me, an atheist, hope. Why? Revenge.

After the treatment of women and girls I witnessed in the parish of my childhood, I eagerly await the validation of anything in that book. I will dance with glee if someone can prove that the Church perverted, pun intended, the history of Christ, and undermined Christ's intentions regarding the direction He intended His church to take.

Anything that exposes the Church for what it is, a greedy, misogynistic old boy's club harboring pedophiles and sado-masochists, gives me tremendous pleasure.

I am lost to religion now. I decided at 14 that any organization that treated men so well and women so despicably did not represent my best interests and any god that endorsed such behavior was no god at all.

I am bitter, yes, but my eyes are open. I hope women in the Catholic Church today have their's open as well and that they are working to change things for their daughters. My mother turned a blind eye to the workings of the Church until she had an unpleasant experience of her own, but that is another thread entirely.

The Church as it exists today is a pathetic representative of any god. I, personally, have been better off without it. I happen to know I have a lot of company.

I am raising a glass to Dan Brown and everyone else who has published a book exposing the rotten innards of the Catholic Church. Every word they have written, substantiated or not, is retribution for the horrors the Church has visited upon the world and upon women in particular.

Two Back-to-Back Interviews (one follows the other automatically) - Scroll to mid-page

[edit on 5/19/2006 by Bibliophile]

Originally posted by deesw
I bet I can come a lot closer than you can.
Billions of people throughout history have died in the name of Jesus Christ. I don't think anyone has ever died in the name of Davinci.

Wow. And that makes the bible true how again? Just because people die for something doesn't make it true. 19 arab men died on 9/11 for the koran. Does that make the koran true?

Also, just to add. Billions of people have died because of the name of Jesus Christ also. Meaning killed by Christians for some reason or other.

there was a minimal of uproar when the book was published and it was pushed away as mere fiction. however, the da vinci code after being processed through hollywood seemed to have become more of a threat to christianity.

i can't remember what country, but catholics said they would go on hunger strike if the movie was not banned.

why no hunger strike for the book?...why just the movie...

when i see the da vinci code i will watch it no different to how i would watch indian jones - raiders of the lost ark. i don't believe the bible, i don't believe the da vinci code, and i certainly won't take the movie to be 100% truth, i think it's all playing on fictional stories, myths, 'what if this were true', conspiracy fads and so on.

now even thought many see this movie and book as fiction, i'm sure if the shoe was on the other foot and it was a movie about some eastern religion, like muslim, hindu, islam etc...that there would be a different response. as when christians complain about something the response is 'quit moaning', but if it's hindus or islams complaining about something, we're like 'we're really sorry that we offended you, we'll take down the poster, ban the movie, ban the play' etc.

i understand christian's anger towards such a series of events, but it's just fiction. there's no point kicking up a fuss, it just makes it look like your faith is very weak.

Originally posted by Griff

Originally posted by deesw
I bet I can come a lot closer than you can.
Billions of people throughout history have died in the name of Jesus Christ. I don't think anyone has ever died in the name of Davinci.

Wow. And that makes the bible true how again? Just because people die for something doesn't make it true. 19 arab men died on 9/11 for the koran. Does that make the koran true?

In answer to your two questions, it doesn't and no. What it does mean, though, is that the billions who were willing to die for Christ believed it was true. Those billion deaths demonstrate the faith people have for Christianity.

Interestingly, it is only 10 deaths that provide a massive amount of evidence that the Bible is true. Those ten people were the original disciples of Christ. They walked with Christ, they saw Christ die, and they said they saw Him come back to life. If what they were saying was a lie, would they die for it? The reason the Roman Empire killed Christians wasn't because they were Christian, per say, but instead because they would not honor Caesar as God as well. They would be asked to renounce Christ's message that He was the only way, to expose the lie of His resurrection. They, instead, chose to die. I find it very hard to believe that every one of these individuals who walked with Jesus to whom the question was posed decided to die for a lie, even amidst heinous torture. If it was a lie, why would Peter refuse to be crucified right side up because he didn't deserve the honor of dying the same way as some guy that Peter, along with the 10 other disciples, decided to fake a resurrection of.

Shaunybaby, the reason the movie is garnering so much more protest than the book is due to the culture of today. We are a visual culture, and sadly very few people bother to read books today. A movie based on a book that most of the country knows is challenging Christianity and causing some who are weak in the knowledge of their faith to fall away from faith will draw a lot of attention from those who don't bother to read, and they will watch it thinking there must be some truth to Brown's claims. That's why Christians see the movie as a greater threat than the book. Think about it, if a person isn't going to read a book, but will see a movie, what are the chances they read their Bible? What are the chances they've investigated their faith?

In my mind, this movie is a great opportunity. It is an opportunity to educate Christians as to the historical accuracy of their belief, and it is also getting people who would normally never speak of God to start asking questions.

Originally posted by shaunybaby

...i understand christian's anger towards such a series of events, but it's just fiction. there's no point kicking up a fuss, it just makes it look like your faith is very weak.

This is an excellent point. All the hysterics have completely forgotten the fact that the book is classified as fiction.

Many people do not read books, so their first exposure to the concepts in this book will be in the film based on it. Film is a very potent medium for disseminating ideas. The Church is worried because these "heretical" ideas are now going to reach the rest of the population.

Anything that threatens the income base of the Vatican must be dealt with severely. The Church has taken a beating recently. The world now knows for certain that it harbors pedophiles and sexual abusers in general. It cannot afford any further bad publicity.

Fortunately for Benedict, there are still plenty of third world countries to pollute with Catholic dogma.

Originally posted by LoneGunman73
Ok, this is my first post, but I think I like where this one is going.
I have a question. Which Bible are we trying to prove/disprove? Here is a short list:

King James -(KJV)
New King James - (NKJV)
New International Version - (NIV)
New American Standard - (NASB)
American Standard Version - (ASV)
Revised Standard Version - (RSV)
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
New English Bible - (NEB)
The Living Bible - (TLB)
Good News Bible: Today's English Version - (TEV)
The Jerusalem Bible
The New American Bible
The Contemporary English Version - (CEV)
The New Century Version - (NCV)
New English Translation (NET)
English Standard Version (ESV)
Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)
Today’s New International Version (TNIV)
The Apocrypha (Apo)
Vulgate (Vul)
The Septuagint (Sep)
Greek New Testament (GNT)
The Tanakh(Tan)
The Book of Enoch
The Book of Jubilees
The Book of Mormon
The Pearl of Great Price
The Holy Quran

And that's not including Buddhism, Hinduism, and about a 1000 others.

And you know what every single one of them has in common? They were all writen by man. Writen and edited by man.

Whole chapters and books were erased or left out because someone didn't want it in their version of the Bible. For what ever reasons.

My take on the matter is this: You believe what you want to believe. It's all up to you. I cannot disprove it, the same way you cannot prove it.

Religion is about Faith. Faith in what you beleive in. I personally do not like to be told what to believe, and do not like to be force-fed someone elses ideas and beliefs. I guess I've said my peice.

Originally posted by dbates

We must lean heavily on the ancient texts such as the Old Testament to prove the worthiness of the newer text, such as the New Testament. The Bible is in fact a sort of a hologram in that the message of the Bible and the desired knowledge is spread out over the Entire Bible. Show me the chapter that reveals the coming Messiah, or the verse that tells us of the Second Coming. These ideas are spread out over the entire Bible so that by removing portions, even entire books, we don't lose the message. We just lose some of the resolution. The image stays the same.

The author of the Bible knew that it would come under attack, so like a general sending an important message to his troops, the message is delivered through different messangers, and at different times making it nearly impossible to stamp out the main ideas of the Bible. Is it possible that some books are missing? Yes, but that doesn't mean that what we have left isn't an accurate picture of what we are supposed to see.

Originally posted by obiwan15

Originally posted by Cicada

It's an observable fact that the Christ mythos contain many elements found in numerous earlier mystery religions, some of which date to thousands of years before the supposed birth of Christ
.

Good point take the Ancient greek myth of Heracles
A child is born to a mortal mother conceived by a god, he has considerable power and faces tests and trials throughout his life he dies and joins his father in Mount Olympus

that ancient greek myth is just another lie given by baal himself to replicate the birth of christ...sun matrix has a very interesting thread about these things and this is one of his posts on this very subject...the lie that was born thousands of years ago just for the purpose of leading mankind away from the real reason we are on this planet. the bible is a book whose author is not from this world and its power is known only by those who seek its message.


Sun Matrix

member

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Satan chose the mark of the sun because he knew God's plan. He knew God was going to send his own Son to pay the price for the sins of men.

Therefore Satan became the sun (Baal), as the deceiver to keep men from seeing Gods Son. Satan has blinded the world to the story of the sun. It's everywhere, all over the world in different forms. An example would be false god Zeus having a human son, Hercules. Son of god, just a different form of the lie that blinds the world. Nimrod is Zeus, by the way.

In Babylon, Nimrod was killed by Shem because he killed his father and slept with his mother, Semiramis. Semiramis then created the false religion that blinds the world. Semiramis claimed that Nimrod became Baal, the sun, when he was killed. She further claimed that she became pregnant from the sun and was having a virgin birth of her son Tammuz. Tammuz was Nimrod rising from the dead. So you get the sun god, the virgin birth and the resurrection. The lie that blinds the world is born.

The truth is, Jesus the Christ, the prophesied Messiah rose from the dead after paying the price for the sins of men. Those that seek this truth will find the truth. That is a guarantee from God. Those that believe that the Messiah died for their sins will be saved. Obedience to Gods word is the proof that you have faith in the Messiah.

Or, you can choose the mark of the sun.


a few more tibits

When Tammuz was 40 years old, he was killed by a wild boar while hunting. Nimrod, Tammuz and Semiramis were real people by the way. Osiris, Horus and Isis are the Egyptian version of the same story.

After Tammuz was killed his death was morned for 40 days prior to the spring festival. This 40 days of mourning is where Lent comes from. The fact that Tammuz was killed by a wild boar, is why it is tradition to eat a ham on Easter. A little revenge you see.

It is claimed that an evergreen tree sprung up overnight from blood on the ground from Tammuz. This evergreen tree is where the Christmas tree comes from. It is in Jeremiah 10 of the Bible. That is why on Dec 25th, the birthday of the "sun god" the Christmas tree is present. It is a symbol of resurrection. In Egypt, the Palm tree is used. Masons also use this evergreen tree in their ceremonies.

Don't let the lies of the deceiver keep you from seeing the truth of God's Son, the Messiah. Seek Him and you will find him. Seek the truth

[edit on 19-5-2006 by Funkydung]

Funkydung -

Your earlier post raised a question that I have been asking people for years - which is the most accurate translation of the Bible?

as you speak of the numbers of people willing to die for their faith, I humbly refer you to the Albigensian Crusades

Perhaps it was the Cathars that had it right, then.

Originally posted by Funkydung
that ancient greek myth is just another lie given by baal himself to replicate the birth of christ...

Hello funkydung,

The mythos of a Messiah born through a virgin birth is not the exclusive domain of any one religion or world ideology. Is it coincidence that for 5000 years, virtually every religious and mythological belief structrure, some of which had never come into contact with each other, has in one way or another incorporated the mysterious virgin birth?

It becomes even more astounding when we realize that society, in the main, has been patriarchal and often chauvinistic throughout known human history. It wouldn't seem possible that the makers of religious myths/teachings, which we know must have surely been men, since men have always been the storytellers/shaman/chiefs/priests, would invent some sort of divine providence which excluded human male participation as its main course of operation.

How do you suppose that Baal tricked so many cultures into incorporating a virgin birth into their belief system?

Inverencial Peace,
Akashic

Originally posted by Bibliophile
Funkydung -
Your earlier post raised a question that I have been asking people for years - which is the most accurate translation of the Bible?

Out of Funkydung's list, I have only read the KJAV, NIV, the Good News Bible, the Holy Qu'ran, the Apocrypha, & parts of the Book of Mormon. I have also read some of the Nag Hammadi scrolls, the I Ching, the Dhammapada, and the Bhagavad-Gita.
Out of the 'bibles', I like the KJAV because of its intriguing wording, which is often at odds with the others, and which I find quite thought provoking. I like the Good News version best when it comes to compassionate, socially responsible translation, such as its wording of the Song of Solomon.
That said, I have found profound wisdom within all of these scriptural works. They have each taught me valuable lessons about ethics, morals, and life in general. Nothing beats experience, though, and my experiences have taught me even more.
Which translation is most accurate? To me, that is an impossible question to answer, in my view they all have their good and bad points, and none of them is 'the' book.
Funkydung, have you read all of the books in your list, and if not, may I ask how many? Just curious.
As for the new 'Celestine Prophecy', 'The Da Vinci Code', I have not read it, nor will I. I have spent 25 years reading the books that author Brown used as source material for most of hjs fictional story, and although I do not know a lot about his story, I know enough of his main points to know that he has envisioned a vastly different reality based on those books. His conclusions and mine are very different. I know a great deal about the NT accounts of Jesus, Mary, the crucifixion, etc., and about the Merovingians, Dagobert II, Rennes Les Chateaux, Berenger Sauniere, the horrors of the Crusades, the Knights Templar, Rosslyn Chapel, Prince Henry Sinclair, Oak Island, the Grail, King Arthur, the Gothic Cathedrals, Freemasonry, the RCC, the new world order, the Ark of the covenant,
and contemporary secret societies. But.... I have read little about Opus Dei, which is a group Brown has apparently featured in his novel.
It reminds of the way people spoke of the Celestine Prophecies when it was a best seller, they referred to it as though it was a legitimate source to quote as fact, which, being fiction, it is not. Same goes for Mr. Browns book. He has another book, 'Angels and Demons', which expounds at length about 'the Illuminati'. I have read many books about this 'Illuminati', and also watched two tv programs about them. Yet in the ten plus years since I started reading Illuminati allegations, I am afraid I have yet to see a single solid piece of proof that they even exist. Sure, Weishaupt founded such a group in 1776, but as far as I can tell, they have been extinct for a very long time.
When I tried to search for 'Illuminati proof' on this site, I found a number of threads about it, but unfortunately they were all started by fellow members asking the same question as me. Where is the proof? After reading all the replies to all the threads, I am still waiting for that one piece of proof. Symbols won't do it for me, they can mean anything.
It is too bad that people will assume information that is in a self admitted work of fiction is hard fact. My favorite experience in that respect was asking 'Blair Witch Project' believers, if it was a real documentary then who was it that they thought was filming the teen filmmakers?
I applaud Dan Brown on his writing ability, and his excellent choice of topics for his fabricated tales, but I am unable to read them myself. If I did, I fear that years from now I may accidentally quote some point about the subject, only to find that Mr. Brown had made it up. I make enough mistakes on my own without tempting fate that way.

Interestingly, it is only 10 deaths that provide a massive amount of evidence that the Bible is true. Those ten people were the original disciples of Christ.

the evidence of their lives, journeys, and deaths are told in collections of myths and faery tales which IMO hold as much truth as the Sagas, Vedas, and other collections
of stories Including the lives of Zeus,Hercules, Apollo,Hera, Venus, Odin , Thorr, Freya,
Hecate, Diana and many many others that predate pauls xianity.

Originally posted by shaunybaby


why no hunger strike for the book?...why just the movie...

when i see the da vinci code i will watch it no different to how i would watch indian jones - raiders of the lost ark. i don't believe the bible, i don't believe the da vinci code, and i certainly won't take the movie to be 100% truth, i think it's all playing on fictional stories, myths, 'what if this were true', conspiracy fads and so on.

No hunger strike for the book? There was quite a stir of controversy over the book, but there are couple points that make the movie something that many are worried about.

Far too few people read, so maybe the book wasn't viewed as a huge threat. Even the NYT Bestseller's list is a small fraction of the total population.

The second - and the more likely cause of concern - is that there are millions and millions of people who don't or can't read who will see the movie. A lot of people who can't read are - naturally - uneducated and ignorant when it comes to divining fiction and reality. I DO wonder how many people will think that there is more to this movie than a movie....

As to the Indiana Jones reference, from the reviews, I think it's safe to say that one major difference was that Raiders of the Lost Ark was a GOOD movie...

Finally, your charge that it makes people of faith look weak. I have found that if you stand silent, you are perceived by many as being afraid to defend your beliefs. No other group is ridiculed for defending their beliefs - why should Christians be targeted? If you all want a REAL conspiracy, we should take a look at the secular humanist's secret crusade to undermine Christianity. And in the case of Roman Catholicism in America, the crusade has hardly been secret. Which is yet another reason why Catholics are sensitive to attacks on the faith. A US Catholic who has a basic foundation in history knows that history.

Originally posted by shantyman
No hunger strike for the book? There was quite a stir of controversy over the book, but there are couple points that make the movie something that many are worried about.

yeah but i didn't say there was no controversy over the book. i was saying there was no huge outcry to go on hunger strike if the book was not banned, but there has been for the movie.

I DO wonder how many people will think that there is more to this movie than a movie....

sort of like how some people see the bible, and see it for something 'more' than just a book... yeah, who would be crazy enough to do that.

As to the Indiana Jones reference, from the reviews, I think it's safe to say that one major difference was that Raiders of the Lost Ark was a GOOD movie...

it's got nothing to do with how good the movie is, it's the general plot and theme. and never trust reviews, go see the movie for yourself. just because your friend doesn't like pizza, doesn't mean you don't ever have pizza just becuase he says it's rubbish.

Finally, your charge that it makes people of faith look weak. I have found that if you stand silent, you are perceived by many as being afraid to defend your beliefs.

but hunger strikes? that's a little far. it's almost like begging people to ban the movie. it's pathetic, it shows their faith to be pathetic. what christian and catholic leaders need to do is speak out, they need to say 'you find the book in the thriller/fiction section of your library, the movie is a hollywood interpretation of a fictional book, hence it's not meant to be percieved as truth'.

and leaders of those faiths should not ridicule the book and movie, but they should say people are free to believe in what they want to believe. if they want to believe in a fictional book then do so, and the same goes for the movie... they can't repress people and try and make it so there is no other choice apart from 'the word of god'.

i mean if you don't like the book or movie, then don't read it or see it. but don't merely ridicule it because you've heard some reviews, or it doesn't agree with your opinions.

Just got back from seeing the movie and I did not read the book.

I think I would have preferred a clearer background of how the church as we know it
came to be and a bit more about what was left on the cutting room floor as the bible and other
holy scriptures were being put together.

I think it's also important to respect people's personal beliefs, but do hope that they will
keep an open mind to possibilities.

We all know that women had little place in any leadership role, so it's understandable that
the holy scriptures (collectively) were written with that point of view.

Is it possible that at one time, Jesus lead a somewhat normal life? I can't see why not.
After all, he was a carpenter and a teacher, so why not a husband and a father?

A story like The DaVinci Code is not meant to make anyone question their faith in God, but
I think it's good that it might inspire them to search deeper for truth about organized religion.

It saddens me that so many have died without knowing the whole story.

Originally posted by FallenFromTheTree
I think I would have preferred a clearer background of how the church as we know it
came to be and a bit more about what was left on the cutting room floor as the bible and other
holy scriptures were being put together.
...
It saddens me that so many have died without knowing the whole story.

If that's what you're really interested in, knowing the full story, what happened on the cutting room floor, you can start by reading this post.

That's a very cursory look at how the books of the Bible were chosen. If you want to go deeper, and know the whole story, U2U me.

The problem with looking deeper, is that so much has been left out, lost or destroyed or is yet to be discovered.

While these ancient texts serve as a remarkable guidebook to humanity, we can not ignore
the divisiveness of the clergy or their attitude towards women as equals in society.

IF Jesus and Mary were in fact more than close companions, does that really lessen the good
of what he was trying to teach us?

Who are we to deny him intimacy and love or a family.

i like fallenfromthetree's explanation 'jesus was a carpenter and teacher, why not a husband to a wife'...

pretty simple really. he had a childhood, grew up, worked, was just a regular person...yet christians seem to want to deny him of any sort of ability to love a female and showing that love by marrying her and having a child...

even if that did happen it would be so carefully covered up...that sort of thing could never be widely accepted.

i'm not a christian and personally if jesus was married and had a child, i would be more happy as it shows he was more human, showed he was more like us (even though i believe he was all human etc). but from a christian perspective, i'd think that jesus being married was a good thing... i mean there's love, but there's no love like a marriage, that's the strongest, more so than love for your fellow human being or friend or family, as people won't always be there, friends are friends, and family you're merely related by blood... yet christians seem happy to deny jesus of the most important love of all... how odd. i don't get it.

The DVC is not the only thing christian's need to worry about. The are plenty of other things that discredit christianity, like: If you believe aliens exist.

Most christians do in fact believe in aliens, so how can that correlate with what the bible says.

People have been killing people by the thousands since the beginning, all while wearing a cross on their back, killing in the name of God.

I personally do believe in some form of higher deity, but not in the book of tales written by man.

And in regards to wether the DVC is fact or fiction. WAKE UP CHRISTIANS!
No non-christians are saying it is fact! All we are saying is that it is definatley POSSIBLE that Jesus had a wife and kid. NOT that he DID have a wife and kid. Its also very possible that the church is covering something up. Look at all the other things they have manipulated and covered up throughout history.

In my view, Jesus was a frickin man, like you and me. JUST a MAN! I think we can compare Jesus to the likes of someone like David Blaine, just a street magician, WOW-ing spectators in the streets. Look at how people look at Blaine. (devil, antichrist, or whatever) Back then I think people would have been a lot more surprised to see a man make another man levitate right. So David Blaine must be the OTHER son of God. What about Chris Angel? Is he a devine one to?

Get real!

Originally posted by Termite197
The DVC is not the only thing christian's need to worry about. The are plenty of other things that discredit christianity, like: If you believe aliens exist.

Most christians do in fact believe in aliens, so how can that correlate with what the bible says.

i do belive that the spirit that was in jesus christ came from the cosmos and when the man jesus christ's flesh was killed, the spirit returned from where it came to prepare a place for us.... how can that correlate with what the bible says??? thats what the bible is all about. its author is not from this world my friend. and its power is more than you will ever realize.

www.bibleufo.com...

People have been killing people by the thousands since the beginning, all while wearing a cross on their back, killing in the name of God.

yep people have been killing people by the thousands while wearing a cross on thier back and are still doing it today. killing in the name of god. wow if you dont recongnize this as the spirit of the antichrist you are in need of some serious information. i thought that was pretty basic stuff. killing in the name of god or christ?? hahaha you mean you dont know who is behind that??

And in regards to wether the DVC is fact or fiction. WAKE UP CHRISTIANS!
No non-christians are saying it is fact! All we are saying is that it is definatley POSSIBLE that Jesus had a wife and kid. NOT that he DID have a wife and kid. Its also very possible that the church is covering something up. Look at all the other things they have manipulated and covered up throughout history.

any christian who says that anything that jesus did or didnt do is impossible does not know who the real christ is either that or they do know who he is and REALLY dont want anyone to know. with him all things are possible.

In my view, Jesus was a frickin man, like you and me. JUST a MAN! I think we can compare Jesus to the likes of someone like David Blaine, just a street magician, WOW-ing spectators in the streets. Look at how people look at Blaine. (devil, antichrist, or whatever) Back then I think people would have been a lot more surprised to see a man make another man levitate right. So David Blaine must be the OTHER son of God. What about Chris Angel? Is he a devine one to?

Get real!

again you are right jesus was just a frickin man like you and me. that was the whole reason for him coming into existance. so he could die. if he wasnt a human like you and me, he couldnt have died. but what was on the inside didnt die. you cant compare jesus christ to any person on this planet. david blain? haha your kidding. i would like to see david blain raise himself from the dead. maybe he is the other son of god. which god? the god of this world. lucifer.







[edit on 25-5-2006 by Funkydung]