Posted on 05/16/2006 10:01:02 AM PDT by NYer
“The Da Vinci Code” has undermined faith in the Roman Catholic Church and badly damaged its credibility, a survey of British readers revealed Tuesday as tensions over — and hype for — the forthcoming film reached a fever pitch.
As its stars off headed to walk the red carpet at Cannes, where the film was set to debut Wednesday before a worldwide release Friday, at least two countries limited the film's release.
The British survey, released by a group of prominent Catholics, revealed that readers of Dan Brown's blockbuster novel are twice as likely to believe Jesus Christ fathered children and four times as likely to think the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei is a murderous sect.
“An alarming number of people take its spurious claims very seriously indeed,” said Austin Ivereigh, press secretary to Britain’s top Catholic prelate Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor. “Our poll shows that for many, many people “The Da Vinci Code” is not just entertainment.”
He heads a prominent collection of English Roman Catholic monks, theologians, nuns and members of Opus Dei, who commissioned the survey from pollster Opinion Research Business (ORB) and have sought to promote Catholic beliefs amid the film’s release.
ORB interviewed more than 1,000 adults last weekend, finding that 60 percent believed Jesus had children by Mary Magdalene — a possibility raised by the book — compared with just 30 percent of those who had not read the book.
The group, which stopped short of following the Vatican line of calling on Catholics to boycott the film, accused Brown of dishonest marketing based on peddling fiction as fact.
Ivereigh complained that Brown and film studio Sony Pictures “have encouraged people to take it seriously while hiding behind the claim that it is fiction.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I also do not believe you can "bring" someone to faith. In fact, I'm told that it isn't our responsibility to do so. That is the job of the Holy Spirit. We are told to spread the gospel.
That's what I have been taught, in anycase.
I was being honest.
One makes him superman and a god...
I have no relationship with that...
No matter how benevolent....
the other makes him human, like me.
Again,
it's not about sex,
it's about being totally human.
Understand, I can't remember a day when I was a child that I didn't hear a bible verse....and I spent 9 years married to a priest....I have on my bookselves 3 bibles, the Suma theologica, and all of the writings of CS Lewis, St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.
Yet it always seemed that the definition of being totally human left out big chunks of humanity. That while Jesus could spend days, weeks, months, years being a 'human' man and hanging out with men, engaging in all kinds of normal 'male' activities...carpentry, fishing, weddings etc.
Even something as simple as dancing is ommited. Or being betrothed or courting someone. Or even having sisters he talked about.
Him having a relationship with a woman, even on a simple level was omitted.
The Bible was written by men, for men....there is no doubt in my mind about that. While the 'great' men of the bible could all be varied characters...from mumbling Moses to pissed off Paul...
Gods 'chosen' women were all perfect-- Esther, Mary, Elizabeth etc. I don't know what that says to you, but it says a great deal to me. Ishtar I've always liked because she told her drunk hubby who wanted her to dance nekkid to go jump. Yet, it was the submissive Esther that he saw as the perfect wife (thank goodness she showed spine by the end of her story or I would have had to change my name!)
Oh yeah, you have poor old Mary M. gets a bit of time, but talk about trying to minimize her. Yet, even as a kid, I saw with her a 'real' woman. Not perfect, not bland, not a doormat, but real.
So yeah, it's not about sex, but simply having a god who would give a woman like Mary M. as strong a role as he gave Paul. THEN I would believe....or at least find it easier to believe. Then I could read it as a real book instead of the book of angry voices....a male book, about a male god and his male son, constructed by men for men.
I don't mean to anger or demean you in any way. I wish I had an answer for you. It just seems odd to look for an empowered woman thousands of years before the sexual revolution.
SD
I'm not asking for you to do anything. The best thing I ever did for myself is look at the root of my fear and then fight it....being afraid to say "I don't believe, I don't like this God, I don't see the point" for fear of damnation was killing me.
I may be going to hell, but I won't go a liar.
As for looking for empowered women.....they've been there since the dawn of time, and recorded even. As examples and teachers. They just aren't in the Bible.
There you go then. You need to be free to act.
SD
In the mid 90's I watched a thing on Discovery or A& E, can't remember, on this very subject. Scud Stud was the narrator, but it was focused on the Freemasons as the source of this fiction.
Exactly!
Freedom is the key.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1633988/posts
Reviews are awful...
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