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Posted on 05/08/2006 5:08:09 PM PDT by wagglebee
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Exactly. Most of these despicable plots are somehow connected to the hatred of the Jewish people, as well as Christianity. The media has been on a roll lately to destroy Christians and Jews while promoting the "fact" that Islam is a religion of Peace!!!!
And what most people fail to recognize is that Opus Dei was founded in the early 20th century, so it's rather ludicrous to suggest that they have been involved in murderous conspiracy for nearly two thousand years.
Fine with me -- it means there will be a showdown between the real biblical scholars and the uncredentialed phonies the media give automatic credibility.
On the one hand, they're screaming that it's anti-religious and then quote a poll that says: "poll found that 53 percent of the book’s readers said The Da Vinci Code aided their “personal spiritual growth and understanding.”
And your point is what -- that the people who love vague spiritualism that makes no real demands of them and generally tells them what they want to hear have more credibility than people who take religion seriously?
I suspect it's the old 'ox gored' thing. Added to the very real, documented facts of the cover-ups, purges, book burnings, re-writings, additions, subtractions, and 100's of thousands slaughtered in the name of.... /i>
...'communism'? (except make it millions slaughtered)
...and the more recent discoveries unearthed added to the accessibility of research and information to any and all = and there are a lot of long kept secrets and deceptions coming to light. (Some crawling out from under rocks.)
Got bad news for you. NONE of these things -- not the "Gospel of Judas", of Thomas, or any of these other "gospels" written by Gnostics two, three and four centuries after Jesus died and which are not biographies but collections of "sayings" in which to the extent Jesus talks, he sounds more like a Scientologist than a Jew -- are anything new. Time magazine et al just recycle them every year counting on the general public to be so ignorant about them that they seem new every time.
It is making some folk very nervous and they are attacking. What they don't, however, seem to yet fathom is that the old tactics that worked so well for millennia, no longer do.
BTW, does this mean you're nervous and attacking the attackers because your ox was gored?
There's another analogy to all the screaming: "Methinks they doth protest to much." - which means people will, should, look at the finger pointer to see what they don't want looked at...
So stop screaming already so we can't see what you don't want looked at.
And the leftists don't seem to understand that Islam's view of Judaism and Christianity are "favorable" compared to how they feel about atheists.
I think Brown is most interested in symbols and codes and so on. That is the part of it that does it for him more than the rest of the story.
Opus Dei was very forward looking, very engaged in planning for the future of Spain (which is why they still run a big business school and university in Northern Spain), and Franco found them threatening.
particularly after its brush with Communism under Allende. Why do you think Chile is doing relatively well now?
Opus Dei was responsible for much of the education that produced a stable, modern political class.
And the practice of wearing a chain or belt, or using a discipline, is quite ancient in Christianity. It was simply to remind yourself of your sinfulness, and to train yourself not to seek comfort but to unite your sufferings with those of Christ and learn patience and humility. Hardly something I would consider sinister.
???"Pinochet was probably a good thing to happen to Chile," ???
but to Opus Dei - an organization actively operating as a clandestine shadow gov't - and oh, yes the do use the self-torture contraptions, etc etc ---but when Brown writes about - he's lying...
hoooh - kay
wagglebee answered:
"Prior to this book, very few non-Catholics had ever even HEARD of Opus Dei."
*********
but but but - Brown is lying! there is no such thing as Opus Dei - and if there is, it's not a 'secret' organization...
Shame on Brown - /s
No you can't. But I'm really not interested, and I doubt too many other people on this thread are interested, in another silly Jews For Jesus debate. I'm not sure why you feel the need to push your product at every possible venue.
Oh, please, it's not a "shadow government" of anything. Opus Dei operates openly; it runs schools and training programs for everything from economists and bureaucrats to hotel maids. The idea is that people will learn, grow in their faith and their knowledge of both their religion and their secular skill or area of knowledge, and will use this to create a better life for themselves, their families and their society. Hardly ominous.
And yes, Pinochet (like Franco, in Spain) left his country much better prepared to join the modern world than any Communist has ever done, however dear the Communists may be to your heart.
Brown is taking legitimate things that Opus Dei does and making them sound sick and twisted, which I assume is your point of view, too. In fact, it hardly sounds as if you needed Brown to convince you. But there are other people who know nothing about Opus Dei and very little about the Church, and their first contact with this is through Brown's manipulative lies. Brown's fantasy is being promoted everywhere, in the press and on the radio, as the truth. But it's not, and those of us who know that have the obligation to speak out.
I understand that that's his schtick, but I'm skeptical. I've read a number of his writings, and his beliefs, which range from attacking evolution to arguing that Christianity is a gift from God, seem frankly indistinguishable from those held of evangelical Christians. Again -- I'm not necessarily attacking him for that, but at best Klinghoffer departs rather significantly from mainstream Judaism.
IT'S PROPAGANDA .......... IT'S PROPAGANDA......
Am I correct that it s a NOVEL - as in, a work of FICTION? I don't know - I've never read it
If so, then why are everyone's panties in a wad over it?
I mean, we've got cardinals screaming for laws abridging the First Amendment in the name of protecting religion from criticism over this! (In other words, the cardinals saw that the mullahs could get away with it, and decided to give it a try themselves.)
It's just a stupid book. Get over it, I say.
No kidding!
Three words:
You neolibs don't like Christians fighting back, do you?
The book and movie are blasphemous.
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