On The Da Vinci Code

Note to Catholics: The Da Vinci Code is a novel.  If Ray Flynn can comprehend that subtle point, so can you.  By the way, I know several Catholics who loved the book.  The movie looks to be a dud.

Note to Don Imus: putting on the President of the Catholic League, the execrable William Donahue with the introduction, "I love this guy," is beneath even you and your sycophantic amorphousness.  I'd rather listen to Bo Dietl, and he ought to be in prison.

Note to Ron Howard: thanks for handing the nutjobs a victory, Opie.

Comments

[Erik]

The catholics are upset but it's the fundies who have really thrown a rod.

SARCASM I'm surprised the book didn't upset the fundies too /SARCASM

I found the book offensive, but only because of the butchering of the English language found within it.

[TheAutoProphet]

DaVinci Code is and should be offensive to anyone who takes Christianity seriously.

Suppose that you are a believing Jew, and some pulp writer writes a conspiracy theory soaked novel that claims that a secret cabal of Jews were protecting the secret that the Temple never really existed, and that most of Judaism was a hoax.

Or, if you like, suppose that you are a secular Jew, and someone writes a conspiracy theory soaked novel that claims that the Holocaust never happened.

"But it's just entertainment", people would tell you.

The DaVinci code promulgates ideas that undermine Christianity. Anyone who takes their relition seriously should stand up for it.

[carpundit]

I don't agree, AP.

Ideas that undermine religion tend to be good ideas, I find.
That is different, of course, from ideas about pogroms. Da Vinci Code does not put forward standard bigoted ideas in the same way books about Holocaust denial or "Jewish cabals" do. It makes a mystery out of an imaginary detail of the life of an important historical figure.

Much closer are the Mohammed cartoons.

[Erik]

How exactly is the idea that Jesus was married and had children in any way demeaning to the religion?

It would seems that it would make his sacrifice even more great.

Unless of course, this is all about sex. You know, like the anti-abortion people who are also against birth control and sex education...

[Joe BigFordFan]

I was born and raised Catholic, I've read the book and plan on seeing the movie. I don't know what all the bullshit is about. Nothing in the book is really new, there have been stories for years that Jesus and Mary Magdalane had been married and had children. Dan Brown takes a lot of far flung theories and pastes them together as the back drop for a fair mystery novel. It's Fiction and it's no worst than a lot of mystery novels I've read. I've read books that put the Catholic church in far worse light than this. And Opus Dei is just the latest in a series of Catholic splinter groups that has been portrayed in less than flattering light. But if any of these people had actually read the book, it's really just one bishop and his albino servant that are the bad guys, not all of Opus Dei. And as a Catholic, ok a "fallen" Catholic, I don't see any harm in the theory that Jesus had a family. It wouldn't make him any less devine. It would be one more human aspect of the man that was Jesus. He didn't start preaching until he was at least 30 years old and died at the age of 33. Why would anyone believe that he wouldn't have married and fathered children? Jesus was a practicing Jew, and the Jewish faith/tradition doesn't forbid Rabbis from fathering children.

So many people get their panties in a twist without really thinking these things out. If Jesus married and fathered children, it wouldn't make him any less divine. It would actually make some sense from for his times. It's my understanding, that at that time in history, it would not be unusual for a devout Jew to leave his family to further his spiritual life, many of Jesus' desciples left their homes and families. Or maybe they didn't, maybe their wives and families traveled with them?

It's just a book, a decent book, and a movie, one that I haven't seen. But what's so earth shattering?

There can be no idea that is so scary that it can't be discussed. I remember that fuss when The Last Temptation of Christ came out too. And that was a good movie.

If you have faith, no book or movie will destroy it. It's much ado about nothing. I'd be more insulted by the fact that Brown throws out a lot of historically incorect nonsense about the Knights Templar and DaVinci himself. But I'm not, cause it's fiction.