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The Da Vinci Deception (pg. 5)
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| Mr. Smith |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jem_hadar
I dunno... :rolleyes: when I was a kid I read about dragons in the fantasy novels I devoured and I really and truly believed those dragons must have existed too! I read about them in those books, so I thus thought OF COURSE they existed and was outraged to learn it was fiction! :eek:
Come on, people need to learn to act like the intelligent people humanity id capable of being. Books of fiction are meant to intrigue one's mind and I find this story facinating. Do I think its true? No. Would I if I was religious. Even more emphatically NOT!
We all need to learn to use our ing minds. That's why we have them! Banning/condeming a work of fiction is ridiculous (though I'm of the opinion that it's merely that, a topic/idea that Dan Brown wished to write about, and not some personal attack on Jesus Christ.) |
Dragons............
aren't..........
real?
It can't be true!
Damn you Jamie! |
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| MarkT |
| quote: | Originally posted by FunkyGroove
I still think that no book should be treated as a primary source of ANYTHING.. books are written by people, and people a. make mistakes b. tend to misinterpret things and pass that as a primary account of whatever event
the Church might as well declare the books about that Potter kid as a danger to their faith too
instead of wasting time and resouces on trying to ban the film/book, the Church should concentrate on what's happening among "the servants of God" - I'm disgusted by all those case of pedophilia that keep surfacing the news from time to time, and neverending corruption
they have much bigger problems to take care of, not some book.
that's my 2 pennies. |
oh, no argument from me on that...
I've long felt that the Church's priorities have been a little 'off' for quite some time ;) |
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| Nightscape |
| quote: | Originally posted by El Kay Dee
Apparently this came out the same day as when the Code came to theatres and sold out in the first week itself...lol |
bwahahahahahha:stongue: |
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| FunkyGroove |
| quote: | Originally posted by MarkT
oh, no argument from me on that...
I've long felt that the Church's priorities have been a little 'off' for quite some time ;) |
very true, unfortunately
they seem to take too much interest in earthly things |
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| Moral Hazard |
Oh RJ, ye be a good Catholic boy!
I think the best thing to keep in mind when examining this novel is that it is, in fact, A NOVEL. Moreover, the book it is primarally based on (Holy Blood Holy Grail) is a somewhat dubious piece of theology based on records of competing interpretations of the life of Jesus in the early church. With that in mind one must consider that this work of fiction is based on a poorly writen piece of theology based on rather limited and potentially highly self interested letters and testiments of the early church leaders. That said, one must also recognize that the Roman Catholic church is simply the most successful evolution of the hundred or so early christian churchs.
The key problem the Vatican faces with regard to questions of credibility is that it operates in relative secracy. The inner echelons of the vatican do not report on their activities. The Vatican does not release it's financial records. The Vatican does not allow open access to it's archives. The Vatican is not governed by a democratic process. All of the above are choices the Vatican made many centuries ago for reasons I am certain they will never reveal, however, until these things change the Vatican will always be viewed with suspicion and rightfully so. Hell, I recently chose to become Roman Catholic and I still view the Vatican with suspicion. A family friend of mine, a Roman Catholic priest (also a history professor at one of the religious colleges at UW) even views the Vatican with suspicion.
The way I see it is this, what the Vatican does or does not do will never be fully known or understood but one must examine the religion and the administrative body seperately. The church and the Vatican are two different entities, one is a faith, the other is a state. What the Vatican does has little bearing on my faith. |
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| zokissima |
| quote: | Originally posted by MarkT
I've long felt that the Church's priorities have been a little 'off' for quite some time ;) |
I agree. But the Catholic church has been through some thought of reform of late, in order to fit itself into more 'modern' thinking and ways of life.
Personally, I did not find the movie that great. The mystery was set up nicely, then peaked half-way though the movie. I thought it to be a little anti-climactic.
It does take advantage of the cloak & dagger atmosphere, mysticism, and other techniques, but I see no reason for all this outrage at the movie. Those devout followers will not be swayed by this, so I'm not certain what massive dammages this will bring. But I guess their argument is no different that the Islam->Muhammad images argument. |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by zokissima
I agree. But the Catholic church has been through some thought of reform of late, in order to fit itself into more 'modern' thinking and ways of life. |
Another thing to keep in mind regarding the RC Church and it's "off" priorities..... This church ministers to over 2 billion people from all over the world. Not all, in fact few, of it's members are willing to accept or adopt the "priorities" we have in the developed world. In order to maintain stability the church cannot simply make wholesale changes to make itself more palatable to the developed nations. This isn't to say it does not want to, it simply cannot. |
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| nacarter |
The Da Vinci Code itself isn't really what's causing the turmoil in the Catholic church - it's the reopening of discussion about 'official' church history, and the roots of sacrament and theological interpretation.
I'll have to disagree with the early post on this thread that the New Testament is a superior manuscript. The New Testament NEVER was a manuscript, it's a compendium of several transcripts, that has been highly edited with some books removed and others added. For example, in early versions of the Bible, The Shepherd of Hermas regularly replaced Revelations.
There are also many alternative scriptures, discarded by early church fathers as 'heretical' because they didn't toe the official church line. The most famous of these are the gnostic gospels found at Nag Hammadi in 1949. These include the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. What the abundance of alternative scriptures teaches us is that there was a considerable amount of dissent as to what the nature of Christs teachings were. Christianity only became unified by political fiat under Constantine.
The Catholic church will have to deal with people questioning doctrine, as long as there are items in the Bible that don't make logical sense. The question of whether Christ was married is very problematic because of the use of the title 'Rabbi' throughout scripture. In traditional Jewish culture, rabbis were always married.
From a theological standpoint, my biggest problem with the Catholic church (and other orthodox versions of Christianity) is the focus on the personhood of Jesus Christ. Frankly, it doesn't really matter if he was married and had children, it doesn't matter whether he was the literal son of God, it doesn't matter if he was able to perform supernatural miracles. I argue that these things were added to the gospels in order to give Jesus legitimacy.
What's getting lost is the message of Jesus of Nazareth. He simplified the rules of Jewish faith from ten commandments down to two - love God, and love they neighbour. Everything else is superfluous. In my view, people who get wrapped up in miracles and the debate over whether Jesus actually existed have missed the point of Christianity entirely. |
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| basilisk |
^^ good post.
| quote: | QUESTION: But the Da Vinci Code says the bible evolved though countless additions and revisions. After all, there weren't printing presses or copy machines in the ancient world. How do we know that the New Testament we have today is an accurate representation of the original NT?
ANSWER: Let's compare the NT manuscript traditions to the second best attested work of antiquity: The Iliad, the ancient Greek epic by Homer. Homer wrote The Iliad around 800 BC, but we have no original manuscript of the work. Or modern day editions of this classical work are based on manuscripts that date from long after Homer's lifetime. Of the approximately 650 extant manuscripts of The Iliad, the oldest dates from around AD 200 to 300 - about 1000 years after Homer's lifetime! Nevertheless, most scholars recognize that these very late copies of The Iliad are reliable representations of Homer's original work, even through they date from more than a millennium after Homer himself. |
Say what? There is still significant debate over whether Homer ever even existed... it is improbably that the Iliad was anything other than a spoken poem for hundreds of years, so there is no manuscript to find. The use of dactylic hexameter might make the whole thing easier to remember and less prone to change over time, but I've never read anyone say the Iliad we know is identical to the Iliad of a hypothetical Homer's day.
I wonder what this sez about the apocrypha.
| quote: | Originally posted by King Luis
if you listen to Above and Beyond's Essential mix 06-06-2004, there is some who comes on near the beginning that say religion can be good and bad. its bad because all of the wars were from religion. but its good because it can be used for education. he also says when you grow up you need to get rid of it. its some guy who says it near the 3min 45 second mark. |
That is definatly the most amusing post in the thread. |
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| Candeeman |
| I was passing by a church the other day and on their billboard it read, Don't Believe the Devil's Davinci Code. :disbelief |
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| DJ_Elyot |
This is utterly rediculous. The church expects people to believe its message. Why can't it let people be open to all messages?
Honestly, 80% of humanity is just ing retarded. If one stupid book can change the way you view your faith, then obviously you haven't done your homework, or weren't very confident in it to begin with. I have no problem with religious people, but I can't stand people who just accept their faith as truth, without ever considering the alternatives, or the motivation of those who want their support. People are so damn ignorant.
Of course, if people weren't so ignorant, the church would have nothing to worry about, as in an ideal world, no simple work of fiction could ever change somebody's mind :rolleyes:. The problem is that because people ARE ignorant (80% of people are simply the same religion as their parents, because they've been indoctrinated since childhood). Consequently, ANYTHING that makes people question their faith is dangerous to the church, because it peels away those who support their faith without reason.
I guess we'd be asking too much if we wanted the average human to simply QUESTION HIS OR HER FAITH :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:.
If people actually developed an interest in science, philosophy, history, and mathematics, instead of just believing what they were taught in Sunday school, we wouldn't have to deal with this bull.
To me, citing religion over reason is the most blatent, prevalent form of human ignorance in existance.
I'm glad most of you guys on TA aren't like that. |
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| VERTiG0 |
PEOPLE ARE STUPID AS , NEWS AT 11
Faith in society: -12 points |
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