Strawman Alert! Either that, or you can't possibly have read the article or post 1. As I said, Uncle Tom's Cabin was a novel, and people have known for 80 years or more that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was not true, but there are still folks who believe it and act on it. Should we just not worry about arguing against it?
Yeah, The DaVinci Load is a novel. And a lot of people think it's a novel based on real historical information, because that's how the author and his hangers-on have portrayed it.
Let's see if you really believe what you say. Let me give you this scenario: I'm a professional writer (true) and I write a novel. It describes how Charles Darwin and every other major proponent of evolution, all the way up to Stephen Jay Gould, were part of a vast conspiracy of Satanists bent on uniting all of human civilization in worship of the Devil, just so they could practice their favorite perversions unfettered. I've done a ton of research on the history of the last two centuries, and I weave an epic tale using many real historical events, places and people, but I distort them to support my "Darwin worships the Devil" premise. Along the way (just for starters!) I show how Darwin committed the Ripper murders, how Carl Sagan organized the JFK-RFK-MLK assassinations and how Stephen Jay Gould helped plan 9/11 from his death bed. Oh, and I'll be sure to put "All of this is fact" at the front of the book, and if people ask, I'll tell them it's a historical novel telling a true story using the novel form. Be afraid...
So...when the book sells millions of copies, and the first bus full of tourists shows up at Gould's apartment to see the room where he and Mohammed Atta sacrificed a Girl Scout to ask Satan to bless their plan, are you going to shrug and say it's just a novel, or are you going to raise a hand and object?
"So...when the book sells millions of copies, and the first bus full of tourists shows up at Gould's apartment to see the room where he and Mohammed Atta sacrificed a Girl Scout to ask Satan to bless their plan, are you going to shrug and say it's just a novel, or are you going to raise a hand and object?"
Doesn't sound like a novel that will sell very well, but, yes, I'd say it's just a novel.
Brown's novel is fiction. It's based on a bunch of other books, the Gnostic gospels, and other sources. It's kind of a lousy detective story, frankly, but I read it, just like a whole bunch of other people did. Then I moved on to other books.
But, you see, I think that much of the New Testament is fiction, too, so what do I know?
First, I'm with you.
Sometimes, you must feel like you are beating your head against a wall.