Posted on 05/23/2006 2:55:11 PM PDT by The Ghost of FReepers Past
THE DA VINCI CODE - BLASPHEMY HITS THE BIG SCREEN
By Don Feder
Posted May 19, 2006
The Da Vinci Code -- which opened today -- might be subtitled "Religion for Morons" or "Gnosticism Meets The New Age."
It's fantasy posing as reality. The Sony Pictures film is blasphemous, defames the Catholic Church, and promotes neo-pagan Goddess worship.
I find it offensive, and I'm not even a Christian.
Director Ron Howard (who specializes in visual candy) assures us that Opie's opus will be true to the novel - a pretentious, overwritten piece of trash that makes Bridget Jones's Diary look like one of the 100 Greatest Books Ever Written.
The plot of Dan Brown's mega-best seller (45 million copies sold) goes like this: Jesus married Mary Magdalene, who bore his children, who became the Merovingian monarchs of France, whose descendants are running around Europe today - being chased by Opus Dei or Mormon missionaries or Martians or someone.
Again, according to The Code, The Catholic Church has for centuries concealed the truth about Jesus to maintain its power. Mary Magdalene represents the "sacred feminine" - which supposedly predates monotheism - and which wicked patriarchalists have spent millennia trying to suppress, the better to deny man's sexual nature and subjugate women.
The book (and presumably the film) even has a ritualistic orgy, where communicants dance with orbs and the grand master of the book's mysterious order gets frisky with a plump, middle-aged lady. The scene is described on page 311: "'The woman you behold is love!' The women called, raising their orbs again. The men responded, 'She has her dwelling place in eternity.'" (All I want is lovin' you, and music, music, music?)
(Excerpt) Read more at donfeder.com ...
You got to be kidding me, right?
It's pretty obvious. Look back on your life. Do you not see God trying to let you know what to do? Like most of us, you didn't listen at the time, but in retrospect, you see it now.
Look at a tree, or a flower, or a sunset, and you see God.
No book needed. It's right there in front of you, everyday.
Perhaps you need guidance from some 2000 year old book, or from self-professed expert guides (priests, etc). I don't.
I am happy to see that you see God in your life and in the simple things - that is so very true and is around us daily if we just look.
But don't let man turn you against the Bible as that is God's inspired word. If we did not have His word we would have to get instruction on what to do to follow Him and please Him by hearing the word through others.
How would you know about Jesus and why He was sent without God telling us and laying out what He expects of man.
Man can ignore or misinterpret the "feelings" of God letting us know far too easily based on what we want. An example - your comments above about you liking the idea of Jesus having children and a family, that it shows something about sex (I can't flip back to read your comments because everytime I flip out of my post to check on something, I lose my post. This is the third version I've written this time).
Suppose a man just loved molesting children. He could easily justify his actions by telling himself that Jesus loved children too, and then getting a nice comfortable feeling that yes, Jesus would feel molesting children was acceptable. So - although we do often feel we know what God expects through our relationship, out of respect for God, we should at least honor his inspired word to learn what God thinks.
And in the New Testament God made a new covenant with man. He sent His Son, Jesus, to live as a man and be tempted as we are. And Jesus was to spread God's word teaching through the land. Then Jesus was to be cruxified on the cross to die for the sins of man. Jesus paid the price for our sins.
All we have to do to receive this eternal life is to
-confess our belief that Jesus is the Son of God
-repent of our prior sins and be baptised for the remission of those prior sins and we will be saved.
We then are added to Christ's church and Christ will intercede for us with God. And we follow God through our lives.
Here is the website of John Clayton-a former atheist who set out to prove the Bible was inconsistent with science and full of flaws. He was an science teacher and avidly radical about the Bible. Yet, he could find no inconsistency with science. He became a Christian and set out to find a church that taught what the Bible taught. Very interesting - his seminar information is there on the website so that it can be read.
http://www.doesgodexist.org/
Look, I am not a punching bag for your comments on my intelligence.
I may not understand where you are coming from as the posts here do tend to run together.
Here are my points and I am not judging your views or even know them.
- Whether or not Jesus was married has absolutely nothing to do with what His life was all about. That is a deflection into areas that will lead to diminishing Jesus into not being here as the Savior but as merely a good man.
- If we were not told in the Bible, it is not needed for our understanding. We also do not know what happened to Joseph since he was not mentioned during the cruxification. Possibly he died.
- We are given the lineage of Jesus - but, a fact hardly ever mentioned is that the lineage did not actually give birth to Jesus because it lead to Joseph. We don't have the lineage of the birth mother, Mary (or I don't). So, therefore, the genes were not through the lineage of David but through Mary because this was a virgin birth and Joseph was not involved in it other than to marry Mary and raise Jesus. But, does this matter? No. Joseph was married to Mary and raised Jesus although his genes were not involved.
Now that is according to our understanding of things. God can do anything, he created His Son, so if He wished genes from the lineage of David, He would surely be able to accomplish it. The Bible mentions the lineage continually but never speaks of the lineage of Mary, the mother. So, we could even conclude that though Mary was the birth mother, her virgin birth of God's Son did carry the genes of the lineage God mentioned all through the Old Testament - otherwise, why mention it as a promise?
God is not limited to our world view of how things work - He is God. We come along and use our human reasoning to figure out what happened, how it happened and we can lead ourselves into error because we are looking at events through human eyes in our framework.
- Jesus was a Jew but His purpose here was not to be a rabbi to bring forward the Jewish law of the Old Testament. His purpose was to bring the new law - the New Testatment, to serve as the one time sacrifice for the sins of each of us. This was not just for the Jews but for gentiles and any that accept Him as the Son of God and follow him.
- If you will note, the New Testament does not teach we are required to follow any of the Jewish regulations and prior laws. Why?
- The Jews were God's chosen people, but they, chosen though they were, always failed to follow God, and as the final travesty failed to acknowledge His Son as the Savior. How do you think that makes God feel - his own chosen ones refute His own Son given to serve as the one time sacrifice for man's sins so that man can be perfect enough to be in the presence of God in eternity?
Therefore, I am always leery when a rabbi, or a Jew starts determining the validity of Jesus. The marriage issue is a prime example. They are looking at Jesus as a good man - not the Savior generally. Some will or do accept Jesus but, on the whole, they are still waiting for their Savior.
Which, to me, is such an insult to God who has chosen them as His people. Why are they always resistent to God? Who in the world could be more worthy of their adoration and their honor - yet, they deny that Jesus is the Son of God.
Right or wrong - that is where I see it.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/5/22/04716.shtml?s=et
Catholic actor Mel Gibson has slammed "The Da Vinci Code" book and movie for attacking the beliefs that he holds sacred, World Entertainment Network reported.
"The Passion of the Christ" star has been outraged about the thriller's controversial plot concerning Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.
Gibson says, "What worries me is that people will take this as fact.
"I'm not angry, per se, that it refutes everything I hold sacred, the foundations of my beliefs. The Da Vinci Code is an admitted work of fiction but it cleverly weaves fact into maverick theories in a way that will appear plausible to some."
The angry star was actually the first choice of Dr. Robert Lomas (the intellectual who inspired the Robert Langdon character) to play him. Tom Hanks plays Langdon in the film.
Lomas says, "In an ideal world I'd quite like to have been played by Mel Gibson."
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