The Da Vinci Code (Might contain spoilers)

[Shaede]

My problem with organized religons is that they were created to control people, and spent the better part of the last 2000 years doing just that.

Religion exists anywhere humans exist. Humans have been around for far longer than 2000 years and have lived in many other places than medieval Europe and have worshipped many other religions than Christianity. You generalize all the hundreds of thousands of religions based on one and consider them all designed for control. This is your faith? I hardly see any time invested in it.

I don't have a problem with people who are religious, if you want to have faith in a fairy tale, go right ahead. I can live a moral life without believing in santa claus.

Do not overlook the significance of a fairy tale.

If you told someone today the same story by mouth that was told back then, you'd get put in a straight jacket and medicated for the rest of your life. The only reason people believed it back then was due to lack of intelligence and general knowledge of the world.

They did not believe it as we often try to. Churches were not museums that logged the factual events of the past. The Bible wasn't a history book to teach of true events. Compare my post on Santa Claus to this. The factual information in the Bible was irrelivant, it was the meaning behind the words that was the religion. Later on, as the church fell to corruption, the images and metaphors became with the facts and logs we have today.

I'm not trying to bash peoples faith, you have a right to believe whatever you want. It's just interesting to me as a student of psychology how much people 'need' to have relgion.

No matter who you are, you cannot excape from religion. Even if you never hear the word in your life, its ideas sprout (on their own) in your mind to validify reality. Of course we need religion, just as much as we need food and water, air and sleep.

[Odon]

Haven't gotten around to seeing the movie yet, might just go alone but the girlfriend would kill me. The book was really good tho, and I suggest it to anyone who has yet to read it.

I plan to read Digital Fortress as soon as my friend finishes it.

This book was awesome too, was a great read.

[Surealistic]

we "need" religion (i use the word need very loosely) as an affirmation that we as humans have a higher purpose to exist, that we are not here merely to reproduce and die, having religion tells us that there is more to our existence and something will happen after we die

to have a specific religion tell you what to believe, how to believe, and who to believe in, imho is stupid, as dogma puts it "its not what you believe, as long as you believe"

[djzombie]

we "need" religion (i use the word need very loosely) as an affirmation that we as humans have a higher purpose to exist, that we are not here merely to reproduce and die, having religion tells us that there is more to our existence and something will happen after we die

to have a specific religion tell you what to believe, how to believe, and who to believe in, imho is stupid, as dogma puts it "its not what you believe, as long as you believe"

I don't need religion, in any sense of the word. I've always viewed religion as a cop out. Something to grasp onto for people that are not willing to think for themselves and come up with their own beliefs and morales.

As far as a higher purpose. I don't believe there is one. I believe we are insignificant. Just as insignificant as the mosquito you kill for being an annoyance.

And shaede and I have had this conversation before. Shaede said that most people thinking for themselves are just choosing what trend and ideas to follow. I've always felt that we're no more significant than the world surrounding us, we're no better than the trees we cut down for lumber, or the animals we butcher for food(however tasty they may be). I've just never been able to articulate it quite as well as the passage I've quoted below.

Something I enjoyed reading, that talks about our significance as humans, is a passage from the dark tower, by stephen king. I think I've posted this here once before on a thread with religious debate. But it seems to apply most times.

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger[/u] by Stephen King]
The universe (he said) is the Great All, and offers a paradox too great for the finite mind to grasp. As the living brain cannot conceive of a non-living brain - although it may think it can - the finite mind cannot grasp the infinite.

The prosaic fact of the universe's existence alone defeats both the pragmatic and the romantic. There was a time, yet a hundred generations before the world moved on, when mankind had achieved enough technical and scientific prowess to chip a few splinters from the great stone pillar of reality. Even so, the false light of science (knowledge, if you like) shone in only a few developed countries. One company (or cabal) led the way in this regard: North Central Positronics, it called itself. Yet, despite a tremendous increase in available facts, there were remarkably few insights.

"Gunslinger, our many-times-great grandfathers conquered the-disease-which-rots, which they called cancer, almost conquered aging, walked on the moon - "

"I don't believe that," the gunslinger said flatly.

To this, the man in black merely smiled and answered, "You needn't. Yet it was so. They made or discovered a hundred other marvelous baubles. But this wealth of infomation produced little or no insight. There were no great odes written to the wonders of artificial insemination - having babies from frozen mansperm - or to the cars that ran on power of the sun. Few if any seemed to have grasped the truest principle of reality: new knowledge leads to yet more awesome mysteries. Greater physiological knowledge of the brain makes the existence of the soul less possible yet more probable by the nature of the search. Do you see? Of course you don't. You've reached the limits of your ability to comprehend. But nevermind - that's beside the point."

"What is the point then?"

"The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but size. Size encompasses life, and the Tower encompasses size. The child, who is most at home with wonder, says: Daddy, what is above the sky? And the father says: The darkness of space. The child: What is beyond space? The father: The galaxy. The child: Beyond the galaxy? The father: Another galaxy. The child: Beyond the other galaxies? The father: No one knows.

"You see? Size defeats us. For the fish, the lake in which he lives is the universe. What does the fish think when he is jerked up by the mouth through the silver limits of existence and into a new universe where the air drowns him and the light is blue madness? Where huge bipeds with no gills stuff it into a suffocating box abd cover it with wet weeds to die?

"Or one might take the tip of the pencil and magnify it. One reaches the point where a stunning realization strikes home: The pencil tip is not solid; it is composed of atoms which whirl and revolve like a trillion demon planets. What seems solid to us is actually only a loose net held together by gravity. Viewed at their actual size, the distances between these atoms might become league, gulfs, aeons. The atoms themselves are composed of nuclei and revolving protons and electrons. One may step down further to subatomic particles. And then to what? Tachyons? Nothing? Of course not. Everything in the universe denies nothing; to suggest an ending is the one absurdity.

"If you fell outward to the limit of the universe, would you find a board fence and signs reading DEAD END? No. You might find something hard and rounded, as the chick must see the egg from the inside. And if you should peck through the shell (or find a door), what great and torrential light might shine through your opening at the end of space? Might you look through and discover our entire universe is but part of one atom on a blade of grass? Might you be forced to think that by burning a twig you incinerate an eternity of eternities? That existence rises not to one infinite but to an infinity of them?

"Perhaps you saw what place our universe plays in the scheme of things - as no more than an atom in a blade of grass. Could it be that everything we can perceive, from the microscopic virus to the distant Horsehead Nebula, is contained in one blade of grass that may have existed for only a single season in an alien time-flow? What if that blade should be cut off by a scythe? When it begins to die, would the rot seep into our universe and our own lives, turning everthing yellow and brown and desiccated? Perhaps it's already begun to happen. We say the world has moved on; maybe we really mean that it has begun to dry up.

"Think how small such a concept of things make us, gunslinger! If a God watches over it all, does He actually mete out justice for such a race of gnats among an infinitude of races of gnats? Does His eye see the sparrow fall when the sparrow is less than a speck of hydrogen floating disconnected in the depth of space? And if He does see... what must the nature of such a God be? Where does He live? How is it possible to live beyond infinity?

"Imagine the sand of the Mohaine Desert, which you crossed to find me, and imagine a trillion universes - not worlds by universes - encapsulated in each grain of that desert; and within each universe an infinity of others. We tower over these universes from our pitiful grass vantage point; with one swing of your boot you may knock a billion billion worlds flying off into darkness, a chain never to be completed.

"Size, gunslinger... size.

"Yet suppose further. Suppose that all worlds, all universes, met at a single nexus, a single pylon, a Tower. And within it, a stairway, perhaps rising to the Godhead itself. Would you dare climb to the top, gunslinger? Could it be that somewhere above all of endless reality, there exists a room?...

"You dare not."

And in the gunslinger's mind, those words echoed: You dare not.

[Demetrick]

i think you missed the point, he made it clear at the end how 'need' was termed loosely.

Everyone believes in something, thats what is important. Even if you think you believe in nothing, that is still believe in something.

[Eaglestrike]

The one thing that really irked me though about the books story is that....I don't see how jesus having married mary and had a child would exactly unravel Christianity. The whole idea that if Christ was just a man that somehow the authority of the Church would vanish didn't really make sense to me.

I've always considered Jesus to be mortal, just a man who did something absolutely amazing with his life and changed the course of history. Was he the son of God? Its a matter of faith. The idea of him having a child doesn't really affect my belief in the religion, one way or another. I dunno, the entire movie I was kinda just going, "doesn't seem like that big of a deal" as far as the plot was concerned. Still liked the movie though.

Should've listened a tad better. The Holy Grail was not the source of Gods power, it was the source of the Churches power. The secret getting out would ruin the Church, not Christianity.

As a Christian, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I thought it was great. I'm against organized religion in that I can't stand these big churches that try to give you all the answers. That's not how Jesus did things, so I don't think that's how Churches should.

I also believe a number of things in the movie could actually be true, in parts here and there. I don't buy in that Mary was a prostitute like so many stories tell. I don't see it written anywhere that a) Jesus' mom Mary was a virgin forever and b) that Jesus himself was a virgin and unmarried. So the options are there for such things to be true. Too many people in Christianity, and I'm sure many other religions, have closed minds and do not think for themselves, and that is a big problem.

[Xavier]

Should've listened a tad better. The Holy Grail was not the source of Gods power, it was the source of the Churches power. The secret getting out would ruin the Church, not Christianity.

No shit, I didn't miss that bit of information. My comment was that Jesus having a child wouldn't at all affect my belief in Christianity, or the Church's right to dictate doctrine to me. Please don't tell me to listen better to obvious plot devices when I'm just talking in generalities.

The Chruch just represents the teachings of Christ and his followers in an institutionalized form. To me, I thought it was a bit unbelieveable that the idea that if you could prove Jesus married Mary, that the Church would have no authority anymore. I.E., nobody would really care 2,000 years later, the core concepts are already in place.

They just made it sound so damn dramatic...that as soon as the secret was revealed, the Church would fall apart. It wasn't really that big of a deal to me, the secret they were guarding.

And, really, as long as you believe in the petrine primacy and apostolic succession (I think thats the spelling), the Church is pretty much infalible.

[Surealistic]

as for mary being a prostitute, the vatican came out and apologized because it was a error on their part, she wasnt, they misinterpreted some text or something

and jesus's mother did have other children

[Xavier]

st. thomas

[Takeno]

I really hate the way moms take religion, at least most. They say you have to follow everything the church says and pray all the time, I dont know about anyone else but to me, praying is useless... Just sitting there repeating the same old words over and over again arent gonna do shit for your life. Even in doubt of the existance of a God I'd say kinda expressing your feelings to God would be better, however you want to express it: by talking, just thinking about it.

People just need to be so monotonous and say the same thing over and over again that isnt really gonna do anything for them.

[Xavier]

internal > external worship imo

external worship has evolved into too much of a show, doing things because they're expected of you, or to impress other people with our "religious" you are.

[Eaglestrike]

You're talking Catholicism, and I don't know much about them other than I don't care to ever join one

Church is Christianity in an institutionalized form, yes, but many Churches attempt to give you answers that they assume is from God, it's not proven. This is why there are so many denominations, it's NOT said 100% in the Bible but some people think it says this and others think it says that. I'm against most Churches that claim one way or the other in gray situations like that. You can believe in one way, but still be wrong. In the end you cannot fully understand God so you can't be sure if you're right. Of course, that goes for everyone

Edit: And about prayer, I honestly think it's a form of meditation. A reason why I still believe this Christianity stuff is that a lot of what you're told to do is what a psychologist would tell you today, a guide to live a good and happy life. Prayer is simply a form of meditation, also a form of unwritten journal of your actions, it'll help you settle down and calm yourself. Is it actually talking to God? I'd tend to believe so, but at the least it should help you mentally.

[Andarvi]

There was a study i read a while back that dissected the top 100 conflicts in recorded history, and something like 97 were in some way motivated or influenced by religion. Whereas religion maybe good in its roots, the fact is that there are so many out there that clash with one another as long as it exists there will be people fighting over it, ie. forever.

Ive studied many of the main religions, and each of them have their good and their bad, like everything in life. Unfortunately through the actions or decisions of a few individuals entire movements are often awarded negative connotations.

Personally I am not religious at all. I feel that after all the education ive had in both sacred and secular fields its safe to say that humans definately are not that special and are not the only intelligent life in the universe. I also know that if you believe in creationalism or in any way shape or form refute the existence of evolution you are a huge, huge fucking idiot.

That all being said, seeing as there are hundreds, probably thousands of faiths in this world, its safe to say if one was right the majority of mankind is fucked. With that, we should all just live by the golden rule and treat each other the way we wish to be treated. If there was a god and this didnt get me to any supposed heaven then fuck him.

[Xavier]

Church is Christianity in an institutionalized form, yes, but many Churches attempt to give you answers that they assume is from God, it's not proven.

Technically, it is. If you want to go back to Jesus appointing Peter as his voice on earth, and then each successor to Peter (the Popes) as the continuation of that claim, then yes, the Churches explanation of things is proven by definition, since anything they say is infallible by definition, since its the word of God.

It all pretty much hinges on how much faith you put in the bible. Dogma (the movie) talked about it a lot, it was the whole reason the two fallen angels could get back into heaven. The Church declared that anyone who passes through the doorwars on a set day would have their sins forgiven, and since the Church is infallible, God had to recognize it.

I'm not saying that I buy into all of that, I still like internal worship more than external, but literally, looking at the generally accepted account of history and the bible, anything the Church says is by default proven as true.

I also know that if you believe in creationalism or in any way shape or form refute the existence of evolution you are a huge, huge fucking idiot.

With science came the rise over the idea of intelligent design, i.e., God created the universe and set it up to evolve over time. Its the new way to keep religion involved in the face of scientific fact.

[Andarvi]

I also know that if you believe in creationalism or in any way shape or form refute the existence of evolution you are a huge, huge fucking idiot.

With science came the rise over the idea of intelligent design, i.e., God created the universe and set it up to evolve over time. Its the new way to keep religion involved in the face of scientific fact.

Crafty hoes arent they? Regardless of whatever evidence anyone ever discovers to conflict with popular religious beliefs they will just use a cop out like that. For example, when i went to catholic school and asked hard questions i would get "Its just faith Matt, its all what you believe." good, im glad that we have got that out there, and i dont fuckin believe it.

[Andarvi]

and the da vinci code was pretty good, tom hanks hair was scarier than the albino.

[Akoa]

I really hate the way moms take religion, at least most. They say you have to follow everything the church says and pray all the time, I dont know about anyone else but to me, praying is useless... Just sitting there repeating the same old words over and over again arent gonna do shit for your life. Even in doubt of the existance of a God I'd say kinda expressing your feelings to God would be better, however you want to express it: by talking, just thinking about it.

People just need to be so monotonous and say the same thing over and over again that isnt really gonna do anything for them.

Agree'd. But as a Christian, I believe that praying is a way of forming and working on your relationship with God. Thusly, say what you want to say. Say what's on your mind and what is in your heart. He will hear it all and will understand what you mean.

And about internal/external worship, it's really up to your preference. I think some where in the Bible it mentions to visit (i couldn't think of the right word) every now and again with people of your faith. It helps a person grow and makes things a little easier I think. Being able to be around someone that believes the same as you. Some times it gets a little rough out there in the real world as a Christian (or any religous/non-religous belief).

This is just my two cents though. I know others feel differently. ^^;

P.S.- Awesome posts so far on the thread. Flaming is being kept to a minimum^^ Defiantly a good read.

[Ksandra]

I hated the book. The storyline itself was interesting, but his writing...ughhhh he sounded like a kid in a fort out back trying to come up with the cheesiest movie lines ever. I don't think I've ever disliked a book because of how the author writes, until I read this one, so I'll probably pass on the movie.

[Cloud]

The movie could have been better, and I didn't like how they changed a lot of the storyline with the movie.

Book is better.

[Lizardfeatures]

The movie was a steaming pile of dirty poo. Terrible.

Tom Hanks looked like a complete idiot and the changes they made to the story really fucked things up.

Tom should go back to making movies like Big... and the 'Burbs. He did good in Saving Private Ryan but that was a one shot deal.