Enraged by The DaVinci Code

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dumspirospero

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I just got watching a program on the DaVinci code it made me sick…it is full of blashemy and heresy…It actually made me so mad I wanted to curse the TV. Has anyone else seen this program or read the book? There are fallacious claims that John The Baptist was higher than Jesus, That Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had children, etc…amongst other blatant lies, heresy, and blasphemy. It paints the Catholic Church as a lying, secret society hell bent on hiding the truth from people and supposedly DaVinci is now some definitive source according to these people in matters of philosophy and encoded his paintings with the truth…what a bunch of hogwash…and I even hear this is required reading at some schools…is this true?
 
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dumspirospero:
I just got watching a program on the DaVinci code it made me sick…it is full of blashemy and heresy…It actually made me so mad I wanted to curse the TV. Has anyone else seen this program or read the book? There are fallacious claims that John The Baptist was higher than Jesus, That Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had children, etc…amongst other blatant lies, heresy, and blasphemy. It paints the Catholic Church as a lying, secret society hell bent on hiding the truth from people and supposedly DaVinci is now some definitive source according to these people in matters of philosophy and encoded his paintings with the truth…what a bunch of hogwash…and I even hear this is required reading at some schools…is this true?
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The funny thing is that when I encounter people who have read this book and comment that their lives have been changed by reading this book, I respond, “Wow. One can only wonder how your life would have been changed by reading the bible as opposed to this fictional nonsense.”
 
I read the book, but I was prepared. I’m almost finished with The DaVinci Hoax by Olson & Meisel.
I figured if I was going to refute it, I’d better read it.
Brown’s a second-rate author who copied a successful firmula.
Don’t worry. This, too, shall pass. Just be ready to refute it
 
It is awfully important for some to believe Jesus is other than who He is. It makes a deviant life more comfortable for some. Let us not get so worked up. We have had heresy in one form or another since the first century and the Barque of Peter still stays afloat.
 
I havent read the book but I was told the writer is like a third rate Humberto Eco.
 
This is a good topic. There’s actually another duo of books similar to the da Vinci code (Holy Blood, Holy Grail/The Messianic Legacy) that says almost the same thing. It’s all not just anti-Catholic, but anti-Christian as well. The main point these books are trying to stress breaks the keystone that holds Christianity together, and we as Christians can’t be affected by any way by these books.
 
First - Yes, I have read the DaVinci Code. I actually liked it a lot.

Second - Come’on Guys! This is a work of fiction, pretend, make believe

Do I necessarily agree with the people who say “Oh, Jeez…my life / faith / whatever is forever changed / shattered / whatever by this wonderful book”…No - I think they are a giant sucker. If it encourages them to get out there and learn about the Catholic church, then great! But to claim that it “shattered their faith” sounds like a great big cop-out to me and the fact that they take a book of fiction to be holy writ irritates me to no end.

Thus endeth the rant 😃

As always, YMMV!

~Jess
 
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Strider:
I read the book, but I was prepared. I’m almost finished with The DaVinci Hoax by Olson & Meisel.
I figured if I was going to refute it, I’d better read it.
Brown’s a second-rate author who copied a successful firmula.
Don’t worry. This, too, shall pass. Just be ready to refute it
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I highly recommend Carl Olsen’s book for a definitive debunking of the Da Vinci Code. In the meantime, you can read several of Carl’s articles on this subject on his website:

carl-olson.com/
 
Don’t take it so personally. It’s just a book; no one takes it seriously. It’s not written all that well, either.
 
Thanks, Jess. You saved me the trouble of my favorite response to this—“IT’S FICTION!”

John
 
I think one problem with the “Da Vinci Code” is that it is being translated into other languages and so is reaching people who really don’t know much about Christianity at all (of course such people exist in English speaking countries as well). For example, here in Korea I have seen Korean versions in several bookstores. Unfortunately this can make evangelization harder, because it can give people a really strange idea about the Church.
 
As hard as it may be to imagine… there are actually people out there who have read the book or even only just heard of it who actually do believe that everything in the book is very true.

I’ve been challenged by others who’ve read the DaVinci Code and who actually are very sure that everything in the book is very true.

They’e not “stupid” people… or necessarily overly gullible. They just tell me that they’re sure it has to be all true because in the book it says where the facts came from.

I haven’t read it… all I know about it is from Catholic Answers and by seeing the authors of The DaVinci Hoax interviewed on EWTN.

Here’s only part of the page at Catholic Answers Web site that tells what this book covers.

catholic.com/library/cracking_da_vinci_code.asp

Why should a Catholic be concerned about the novel?

Although a work of fiction, the book claims to be meticulously researched, and it goes to great lengths to convey the impression that it is based on fact. It even has a “fact” page at the front of the book underscoring the claim of factuality for particular ideas within the book. As a result, many readers-both Catholic and non-Catholic-are taking the book’s ideas seriously.

The problem is that many of the ideas that the book promotes are anything but fact, and they go directly to the heart of the Catholic faith. For example, the book promotes these ideas:

== Jesus is not God; he was only a man.

== Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene.

== She is to be worshiped as a goddess.

== Jesus got her pregnant, and the two had a daughter.

== That daughter gave rise to a prominent family line that is still present in Europe today.

== The Bible was put together by a pagan Roman emperor.
Jesus was viewed as a man and not as God until the fourth century, when he was deified by the emperor Constantine.

== The Gospels have been edited to support the claims of later Christians.

== In the original Gospels, Mary Magdalene rather than Peter was directed to establish the Church.

== There is a secret society known as the Priory of Sion that still worships Mary Magdalene as a goddess and is trying to keep the truth alive.

== The Catholic Church is aware of all this and has been fighting for centuries to keep it suppressed. It often has committed murder to do so.

== The Catholic Church is willing to and often has assassinated the descendents of Christ to keep his bloodline from growing.

Catholics should be concerned about the book because it not only misrepresents their Church as a murderous institution but also implies that the Christian faith itself is utterly false.​

I don’t need to read The DaVinci Code…nor do I ever want to. I do, however, want to read The DaVinci Hoax.

shop.catholic.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.exe/online-store/scstore/p-B0516.html?L+scstore+hlvf2981ff185d18+1116952762

**
The Da Vinci Hoax
Carl Olson and Sandra Meisel **

Almost everything most Christians and non-Christians think they know about Jesus, according to Dan Brown, is completely wrong, the result of Catholic propaganda designed to hide the truth from the world. But are The Da Vinci Code’s claims fact or just plain fiction? Is the novel well-researched as claimed? What about the anti-Catholic, anti-Christian agenda behind the novel?

In their new book, The Da Vinci Hoax, best selling author Carl Olson and journalist Sandra Miesel answer these and other important questions. Their painstaking research into The Da Vinci Code and its sources reveals some surprising truths. No one who has read or heard about The Da Vinci Code should miss this provocative and illuminating new book.

shop.catholic.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.exe/cgi-local/wwwwais.exe?U+scstore+hlvf2981ff185d18+configure=/u/web/shop96/merchant/swish/scstore.wcf
 
Wow, “The Davinci Code” seems to be a really goofy work of fiction. It is sad that some people are taking it seriously and believe that type of conspiracy would exist in the Church. There is so much anti-Christianty and Anti Catholocism out there.

It’s a shame that people aren’t as interested real theological history it is so much more engaging intellectually and spiritually.
 
We Catholics have to ask ourselves why people flock to read new and intriguing accounts of Christ [e.g., the “lost gospels”] when the actual account is so compelling.

The answer, unfortunately, is that we have done a poor job telling the actual account of Christ. This, in turn, comes from our own ignorance of the beauty and profundity of salvation history.

How many of us could explain, in our own words, the breadth and depth of symbolism of the life of Christ, and how that symbolism holds the key to the rich content of the Hebrew scriptures? Most of us can’t do it. If we could, we would have a story to tell that would make Dan Brown’s little book look like a dime store comic.

My suggestion? Instead of using the pulpit to preach pop-psych, perhaps priests could use it to teach us what the readings mean, and how the old and new testaments are woven together in ways that, if we understood them, would send a chill up your spine!

Anyone who has read St. Augustine’s homilies on the psalms, or the scriptural exegesis of any of the Church doctors knows what I’m talking about.

To the priests out there, you know so much about the meaning and symbolism of scripture and salvation history. Please share it with us!
 
I haven’t read this book, but I’ve seen it on many a coffee table, oftentimes right alongside books like “The Purpose Driven Life.” The DaVinci Code is being widely mistaken for some sort of scholarly work. This is disturbing to me, and I share in the concerns of those who have posted in outrage in this thread. I also haven’t read The Purpose Driven Life and I don’t plan to, and I don’t think it is scholarly, either, but you see what I’m saying, yes? There is some unconscious inclination in the current relativistic clime to lump such things together in a sort of fuzzy pseudo-spirituality, and many people are being led astray because of it.
 
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adnauseum:
We Catholics have to ask ourselves why people flock to read new and intriguing accounts of Christ [e.g., the “lost gospels”] when the actual account is so compelling.

The answer, unfortunately, is that we have done a poor job telling the actual account of Christ. This, in turn, comes from our own ignorance of the beauty and profundity of salvation history.
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How many of us could explain, in our own words, the breadth and depth of symbolism of the life of Christ, and how that symbolism holds the key to the rich content of the Hebrew scriptures? Most of us can’t do it. If we could, we would have a story to tell that would make Dan Brown’s little book look like a dime store comic.

My suggestion? Instead of using the pulpit to preach pop-psych, perhaps priests could use it to teach us what the readings mean, and how the old and new testaments are woven together in ways that, if we understood them, would send a chill up your spine!

Anyone who has read St. Augustine’s homilies on the psalms, or the scriptural exegesis of any of the Church doctors knows what I’m talking about.

To the priests out there, you know so much about the meaning and symbolism of scripture and salvation history. Please share it with us!
Click to expand...

An excellent suggestion. A Catholic apologetics that treats the Bible as something it was never intended to be - an armoury of disconnected texts for use in controversy - will get nowhere fast.​

IMO, junk like that sells, because Christianity is no longer “news”, “good” or otherwise. It’s stale, boring, played-out, and Christians are no better than anyone else.

So people who want something fresh, even life-giving, don’t bother with Churches; they go elsewhere, read something else, even patch together a spirituality that does answer their needs. Or, they join a cult. They have an appetite for God - and it’s not being met by the negations, mutual antagonisms, political manouevring, immorality, superstition, power-hunger, and general unimpressiveness of the Churches.

If the Churches were doing their job, these foolish fictions would exert far less attraction. That they do so, is in great part an indictment of Christianity and its failure to be a leaven in society. And a Christianity that has no transforming power, is no longer the salt of the earth, will be thrown out of doors, and trampled underfoot. ##
 
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Sweetcakes:
Don’t take it so personally. It’s just a book; no one takes it seriously. It’s not written all that well, either.
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That’s the problem. I agree that it’s not written all that well. Apparently it doesn’t matter.
What DOES matter is that real Catholics believe this dross and are losing their faith because of it.
I’m still waiting, without much hope, to hrear real teaching from the pulpit.
Catholics must be catechized! If not by the clergy, then by the laity. Start a Bible study or book club (good, Catholic stuff) in your home.
I’m sorry, Sweetcakes, but people do take it seriously. That’s why all the hyperventilation is going on in this thread. It’s real and we have to face it. The Movie will probably be worse. After, all, Forrest Gump wouldn’t lie.
 
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Sweetcakes:
Don’t take it so personally. It’s just a book; no one takes it seriously. It’s not written all that well, either.
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I take it personally because it is taking my faith and (although the book it fiction) passing some of the lies as fact… I have got into many a debate about it. You know how many people have a negative opinion of Opus Dei because of this book, which didn’t even portray them close to being right… The truth will prevail, but, the misinterpretations many have of my faith does not need any help.

Cherub, I have seen it on a few coffee tables too… My response was I went out and bought Amy Welborn’s book “De-coding Davinci” and now keep it on my coffee table…😃
 
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