Posted on 09/28/2009 7:51:40 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Author Dan Brown is a friendly, normal guy--not the type you'd expect to have created the dark world of The Da Vinci Code. The book, published in 2003, has sold more than 80 million copies worldwide, and the 2006 movie starring Tom Hanks grossed over $758 million. It also generated enormous controversy: Catholic Church leaders denounced its heretical slant and negative portrayal of Opus Dei, a conservative Roman Catholic group. Now, after six-and-a-half years, Brown's newest novel, The Lost Symbol, comes out on Tuesday.
Brown, 45, still seems surprised that his book started such a frenzy. He grew up on the campus of a New England boarding school, where his father taught math; his mother was a musician. After failing to make it as a singer-songwriter, he decided to write fiction and had only modest success until The Da Vinci Code, his fourth novel. The Lost Symbol brings back Harvard University symbology professor Robert Langdon, this time prowling the corridors of power in Washington, D.C.
How did the success of The Da Vinci Code affect your next book?
A: I was already writing The Lost Symbol when I started to realize The Da Vinci Code would be big. The thing that happened to me and must happen to any writer who's had success is that I temporarily became very self-aware. Instead of writing and saying, "This is what the character does," you say, "Wait, millions of people are going to read this." It's sort of like a tennis player who thinks too hard about a stroke--you're temporarily crippled.
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Are you religious?
A: I was raised Episcopalian, and I was very religious as a kid. Then, in eighth or ninth grade, I studied astronomy, cosmology, and the origins of the universe. I remember saying to a minister, “I don’t get it. I read a book that said there was an explosion known as the Big Bang, but here it says God created heaven and Earth and the animals in seven days. Which is right?” Unfortunately, the response I got was, “Nice boys don’t ask that question.” A light went off, and I said, “The Bible doesn’t make sense. Science makes much more sense to me.” And I just gravitated away from religion.
was raised Episcopalian, and I was very religious as a kid. Then, in eighth or ninth grade, I studied astronomy, cosmology, and the origins of the universe. I remember saying to a minister, “I don’t get it. I read a book that said there was an explosion known as the Big Bang, but here it says God created heaven and Earth and the animals in seven days. Which is right?” Unfortunately, the response I got was, “Nice boys don’t ask that question.”
All hat and no cattle.
“Everything has two explanations; One scientific, one divine, and its up to each of us to choose the one we believe.”
When you have a question do you just take the word of one person or do you ask many people and do research and think and pray about it. He supposedly thought science had better answers but what is science if it isn’t asking the same question over and over until you can find the answer.
Da Vinci Code was a great book and a good read, but as in all things you have to remember it is ‘fiction’. A product of one man’s imagination.
I find his attitude to religion rather shallow. I too studied almost every religion imaginable but in NONE of them is a better creed for living life on this earth than God’s worth in the Holy Bible. And if he’d looked deeper instead of being a shallow kid he’d question the spark of life.
Investigative mythologist and author William Henry talked about the significance of the art and symbols in the U.S. Capitol. The Capitol was thought of as a recreation of Solomon's Temple by its builders, Freemasons, who conceived of the building as a "beehive" buzzing with energy, he said. Higher wisdom flows through the Capitol's spiritual imagery, particularly in the painting, The Apotheosis of Washington (see images below), which is featured in the dome of the Rotunda, he shared, adding that the dome of the Capitol is a mirror image of the one in the Vatican. The painting depicts the first President as a deified being along with five pagan gods who are symbols for alchemy. He noted that a scene in Dan Brown's new bestseller, The Lost Symbol, features a character staring up into the Capitol dome and seeing the painting transform into a gateway. This imagery shares similarities to Henry's work into stargates or portals, which he believes humans can ascend to higher consciousness. The bell-shaped Capitol Dome could be thought of as a kind of stupa that creates a vortex or field of energy, he continued. Interestingly, Henry detailed that the Capitol contains a "crypt", one story beneath the Rotunda. It has 40 columns and was modeled after the ancient Temple of Poseidon-- this was a way for the United States to pay homage to Atlantis, he commented.
so God created life with a big bang?
For a Deist like myself I would say no they are not mutually exclusive, but no days it seems that I am one of a few that see the logic you must choose “eihter or”.
Well, first off, it's six days.
But there is a lot of irony in Brown's statement. The paradigm for the secularists was once that of an eternal universe without beginning or end.
It was a Catholic priest and WWI vet named Georges Lemaître who conceived of the "Big Bang" and his theory was strongly opposed by the secularists -- "In the beginning" and all that. In fact, the phrase "Big Bang" was coined by Sir Fred Hoyle, an atheist, at least at the time, and was meant to be derisive
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See "Beyond the Da Vinci Code" the next time it's on the History Channel. Brown's "book" is a load.
The “Big Bang” fails simply on logic. Explosions cause chaos, not order.
The Da Vinci Code was an interesting and entertaining read. It was factually AWOL, but held my attention.
I am having an incredibly hard time getting into the Lost Symbol. It is boring and seems forced.
As Neal Boortz said, give me Michael Connelly.
The ordered world God made is the only reason "science" makes any sense to begin with. There are things we'll never know simply because God doesn't want us to. I'm greatful to God for atheist scientists who have unwittingly served Him by using the gifts He gave them. They will find out--too late?--that they were gifts, not self-supporting traits, but in the meantime they have helped us by their discoveries of the truths God had previously hidden in creation.
Connelly is my favorite cop novelist, Turow the best with courtroom books. Sorry to hear that Lost Symbol may not be up to par.
Seriously, this is an irrefutable scholarly thesis by then Cardinal Ratzinger if only one cares to read through.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFUNICI.HTM
Well, it did take a while for things to settle down.
"At the end of recombination, most of the atoms in the universe are neutral, therefore the photons can now travel freely: the universe has become transparent." - Wikipedia
"And God said, Let there be light : and there was light." - Genesis 1:3
"Everything is cool, everything is very cool all the way around." - Stage announcement at Woodstock
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