Posted on 05/14/2006 7:20:09 PM PDT by joeclarke
If "Its Only Fiction," Why Do So Many Want To Believe It Is The Truth?
There have been so many expose's of the Da Vinci Code on cable TV, religious programs, and talk radio broadcasts that if there are any true believers left, they should be hiding in the Priori of Sion.
From the beginning, Dan Brown always confessed that the novel is fiction. However, he has contradictorily claimed that the fiction was based on facts in his book and on his website.
I skimmed hundreds of Da Vinci Code reader comments on Amazon.Com which has archived thousands of reader reviews of the book since it was published in 2003. The first several hundred buyers of the book gave it highly credible ratings - buying, in effect, Dan Brown's truthiness hook, line, and stinker.
As more of Brown's fictitious facts or factual fictions were investigated and subsequently revealed to the public, more recent Da Vinci readers are reporting that they think he is as good a hoodwinker as Oprah's James Frey.
The lib media loved and hyped the book because it challenged the veracity of the early disciples who 'did their best to keep women from expressing their feminism and potential for church leadership.' Oh, and Mary married Jesus. Oh, and they had a child, and the child was actually the elusive Holy Grail that the Templars sought. Oh, and the Merovingians were in this holy bloodline - the real holy grail. Oh, and the Merovingians intertwined with the French royalty which ended with a man who made it all up, named Plantard. Jesus's heirs cannot be French!
Dan Brown stated that it was fiction, but he did not mind that so many believed it to be true, and he has not discouraged any of those fantastic imaginations - with the truth.. Oh, and Leonardo Da Vinci was not only "in" on the holy bloodline, he actually knew what Mary Magdalene looked like - 1400 years earlier - from, maybe, a picture made from some kind of shroudographic camera in use, circa 30 AD.
Oh, and those trustworthy Gnostic gospels of Philip, Mary Magdalene and even Judas the traitor gave added weight to the incredible story because there are a lot of folks who are hungering for even bigger lies than those which the day-to-day, drive by media currently spews. Throw in distorted myths about Opus Dei and Knights Templar and you gain even more fictions to prove the truth of Dan Brown's fiction.
PS The French priest, Berenger Sauniere, who dedicated his church to Mary Magdalene did not find a buried treasure, and he was not secretly bequeathed any money from anybody. 60 Minutes reported that the priest actually was convicted by a Catholic court in the ealry 1900's of "Trafficking Masses," IOW he sold a great many more Masses than he actually said.Ergo, Martin Luther.
So many people, well educated, buying a heap of impossible, improbable flak, swallowed crap and paid Dan Brown 250 Million Dollars.
2 Thessalonians 2, "God shall send them STRONG DELUSION, that they should believe a LIE." Not just "delusion" but "STRONG delusion".
As soon as I heard about Brown's story (and while I got bored reading the book, up to the point when I tossed it), I kept wondering about how the meaning of Christ's life had to be twisted to make the points in the book.
A few years ago someone wrote a book called The Hidden Christ. It was written to check the veracity of certain facts about Christ, and you'd be surprised that in this case the writer was pretty fair--he disputed some things, seemed to accept some of the stories out of Holy Blood, Holy Grail (Mary being married), yet he could find no evidence that the Resurrection was made up--he discounted SOME of the accepted beliefs, but believed some of the more incredible ones.
I bring this up because it was gratifying to see in that book that the author pushed the fact (NEVER acknowledged these days by secularists) that Christ was the first religious figure to accept women as equals to men, having them as friends and trusted associates, to the point where we know their names to this day. Does that sound like a faith that's trying to erase the contributions of women? Dan Brown has to invent all kinds of stories to claim it is.
that's some word.
FYI, as Brown declares his book to be fiction, I don't particular get the part about morons believing the veracity of the story, or of Christians denouncing it.
The iron age Celts also accepted women as equals.
The Cattle Raid of Cooley begins with an argument between a husband and wife over their property, that would be unthinkable if she did not think of herself as his equal, if not his superior.
Queen Medb was not to be meddled with....by anyone....:)
bookmark
Neither do I, really. It is fiction, just leave it at that.
I sometimes wonder if the Chruch will mount a debunking campaign on the Harry Potter series next.
(sigh) Based on, not to a very large amount of fabrication. Goodnight.
No one with any seariousness claims the same for Brown and the Da Vinci Code either. It is a silly book of fiction. Let it go.
There are far bigger threats to Christendom such as the ever-advancing homosexual agenda that resources should be spent on. Don't spend it trying to prove that a fictional book is, golly gee, fictional.
Straw man arguemnt.
Your entire argument is weak, I didn't single out one weak part of an overall argument. (That is the definition of "straw man", if you didn't know.)
It is a waste of time to try to prove that a fictional book is fiction. Period.
WRONG.
Your response was condescending, therefor this may have a similar tone.
A Straw Man is the fallacy of attacking a position that is not the opponents position, while you claim it is his position. Your argument does not address my position. Perhaps I shall attempt to make my position more obvious in the future.
A straw Man is NOT a weak point in an argument as you claim. You are wrong, period.
Your claim in post 9 is flawed because of obviously false premises, a fact you seem unable to grasp.
Since you claim my argument is weak, I would like to point out that your response in post 14 is fallacious and self defeating. Go for it, defend your position on where one ought to spend resources. I dare you. Be warned, the "fiction" cliche will not suffice to justify your incoherent apologetic.
A straw man argument is nitpicking one minor, or weaker, portion of one's overall argument, ignoring the rest. If you need further educationing, be sure to let me know.
I just finished reading the Da Vinci Code last night, by the way. You and your ilk are wasting an extraordinary amounmt of time and energy over a rather pulpy piece of tripe. It is obvious and plain fiction, which is quite evident by centering the whole thing around the completely debunked Priory of Scion nonsense.
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