[GOP Jedi]

Hear! Hear! I certainly hope I am mature enough to enjoy a good work of fiction and know that it is fiction. Why. I even read the funny papers and don't feel that taints my view of reality.

What's it like, knowing that anything that doesn't offend you can't possibly offend anyone else unless, you know, they are somehow deficient? If only all of us were mature!

I greatly enjoyed Brown's previous novel, "Angels and Demons" long before this book came out, but I haven't gotten around to reading Da Vinci Code yet.

[HEY4QDEMS]

What's it like, knowing that anything that doesn't offend you can't possibly offend anyone else unless, you know, they are somehow deficient?

I certainly don't feel that way. I fully understand that rational and inteligent people of faith can have contempt for the content.

But the only problem I have is that some, not all, of the people angered act as if Dan Brown was the inventor of the books premise.

The Sangreal Documents, The Knights Templar, Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus, Da Vinci's secret messages all have been the subject of legend and lore for centuries with literally thousands of works of literature and art chronicling them.

Even the modern Priory of Sion has been around since the 1950's.

Dan Brown simply employed this legend and lore into the plot of his novel.

What I find most crazy about all the hysteria is that when Leigh and Baigent filed a plagiarism suit against Brown, the The Da Vinci Code's detractors routed for them. Think about that for a moment, the writers of a book sold as nonfiction which accuses the Catholic church of perpetrating a 2000 year old hoax, that ridicules Rome and it's followers, and that Christianity and the divinity of Jesus is a complete and utter fraud were being heralded as the good guys. How screwed up is that? Unbelievable!