Posted on 05/19/2006 3:52:41 PM PDT by Simi Valley Tom
Editor's note: Dr. Tom Snyder contributed to this column. Dr. Ted Baehr is founder and publisher of MOVIEGUIDE®: A Family Guide to Movies and Entertainment and founder and chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission. Dr. Tom Snyder is editor of MOVIEGUIDE®.
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
"The First Amendment provides for the separation of Church and State."
"The Founding Fathers were all deists."
"America is a racist country."
"Cuba is a worker's paradise."
"The Bible is contradictory."
"Jesus Christ didn't die on the Cross."
"The religious right in America wants to establish a totalitarian theocracy."
"Modern homo sapiens are descended from apes."
"Charles Darwin was an objective scientist."
"Jews are inherently inferior."
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We've all heard these falsehoods bandied about in the mass media, including some of our most popular movies, books and TV programs. Some of you may even still believe some of them.
In his 1925 autobiography, "Mein Kampf," Adolf Hitler described a propaganda technique called the Big Lie. The Big Lie theory proposes that people are more likely to believe a Big Lie rather than a small one because they themselves usually only tell little lies. Thus, they can't bring themselves to believe that someone has the temerity to tell a colossal untruth that is easily punctured.
Contrary to popular opinion, Hitler wasn't overtly advocating the use of this technique himself. He actually was trying to accuse the Jews of spreading Big Lies to hurt the German race. Of course, later on his career, Hitler, with help from his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, used the Big Lie to great effect, leading to the mass slaughter of millions, including 4 to 6 million Jews or more.
Dan Brown's book, "The Da Vinci Code," is a modern-day example of the powerful effect that a Big Lie can have in today's 24-hour news and entertainment cycle. Like the so-called "Jesus Seminar" before him (whose lies are still being preached by Dr. Marvin Meyer of Chapman University and other liberal scholars), Brown's book adopts the Big Lie of many atheist Christophobes. It claims that the New Testament gospels and basic Christian doctrines are unreliable sources of truth about Jesus Christ, invented by the Emperor Constantine in an effort to destroy the correct worship of the "Sacred Feminine."
Of course, modern scholarship by such people as William Lane Craig, Norman Geisler, John Warwick Montgomery, Gary Habermas, Craig Blomberg and many others has shown that we can have complete faith in the reliability of the life, death, resurrection and teachings of Jesus Christ described in the New Testament gospels, the Book of Acts, and the New Testament letters by Paul, Peter, James and John. And, since the publication of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," there have been a plethora of scholarly books, plus some shows on the History Channel, that explode the Big Lie that Dan Brown tells in his novel.
The facts prove the case.
We can rely on what the Bible says, not only because we have factual evidence to support it, but also because the Bible validates itself. The Bible validates itself by providing a reliable historical context in which to describe God's dealings with mankind throughout human history. Included within that historical context is a series of amazing prophecies about Jesus Christ, the Promised Messiah and Divine Savior of all mankind who died for our sins so that whoever believeth on Him, though we shall perish, yet we shall receive eternal life.
Don't surrender to Dan Brown's Big Lie. If you must see a movie this weekend, go see something like "Over The Hedge," "Akeelah And The Bee," "The Lost City," or even "Mission: Impossible III." Don't go see "The Da Vinci Code," much less read the book.
You probably don't want to see the movie anyway. According to Variety, in a review released on Tuesday, the movie is a dull piece of bloodless fiction that's 148 tedious minutes long. Surely, everyone has better things to do than sit through something like that! Never mind all the spurious attacks on Jesus and His apostles and the Bible contained in Dan Brown's story.
Note: For a review of the movie and the book, go to www.movieguide.org.
I', bad. "Tthe Bible" was a John Huston movie.
Visits to their place in the Vatican have skyrocketed. An opportunity to tell people about the truth...
Actually, the movie critics are SAVAGING The DaVinci Code. They laughed at it at Cannes. ROTFLMAO Ron Howard will never live this down, and Hollywood will never learn....
I meant the emergence is imperfect.
A thread where even post #2 would not be NB4HITLER
I think that's a great attitude, and probably will have more effect than the boycotters, too! :-)
Agreed and, thank you for posting the truth about the code.
I can tell by many of the post here at FR defending the DV Code are coming from people who have never read the Bible or studied it.
This movie should not come as a surprise to the Christians.
We are told of such events as this movie, and many other things against Christianity in the ladder days.
We are taught to put on the whole armor of God, seeing the events unfolding in today's society I can more understand the meaning of this passage.
Believe me, if you are a Christian prepare yourself for much worse things to come, have on the whole armor of God, it will be the only protection that will sustain you.
Can you understand what Jesus meant when he said, Will there be scarcely any faith when I return?
Wrong. Modern man and apes are descended from a common ancestor.
Most of the reviewers "Cannes-ed" it, but last night Ebert and Roper liked it, albeit with some reservations. And they said there was nothing in the movie that should shake any Christian's faith, just fun and fantasy.
But they're falling into the same "fun and fantasy" trap as others -- they completely overlook (or sweep under the rug) Brown's Neo-Gnostic agenda, based on the, uh...."FACTS" in the book.
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