Problems with The Da Vinci Code

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tyler_Smedley
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

Tyler_Smedley

Guest
Is anyone else freaked out about how widely read The Da Vinci Code is? I attend College at Western Washington University and people come up to me (they know I am Catholic) and ask me about the alleged cover-ups, while I am thinking to myself I didn’t even know you thought about God. Now we have the author saying that he left the biggest… well I will just quote him…

“Dan Brown said that when he wrote the best seller that dissects the origins of Jesus Christ and disputes long-held beliefs about Catholicism, he considered including material alleging that Jesus Christ survived the crucifixion.”

That sounds like old heresies with a new voice, but this is the part that really gets me fired up…

““The Da Vinci Code” has sold 7.5 million copies worldwide and is expected to be made into a movie.”

…7.5 million people have read this trash and billions will have the opportunity to see it if there is a movie made. What are we going to do about this?

PS I took those quotes from CNN.com just so there’s no mistake.
 
Catholic Answers have written a review of the Da Vinci Code as has Amy Welborn and Sandra Meisel. If you type those names into Google you will probably be able to access the reviews. Just print them off the hand them to the people who ask you about the “Catholic coverup”. Having said that though, you probably will have a hard time convincing people that the Church has done nothing wrong because people just love to believe bad things about the Catholic Church. Do try to get the truth out there because if a lie is told often enough it becomes the truth.

Good luck.
 
My favorite response to The Davinci Code is this quote from Dan Brown’s prior novel featuring Robert Langdon, Angels & Demons (p 40 of the paperback edition):
“Conspiracy buffs,” Langdon replied. He had always been annoyed by the plethora of conspiracy theories that circulated in modern pop culture. The media craved apocalyptic headlines, and self-proclaimed “cult specialists” were still cashing in on millennium hype with fabricated stories that the illuminati were alive and well and organizing their New World Order. Recently the New York Times had reported the eerie Masonic ties of countless famous men – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Duke of Kent, Peter Sellers, Irving Berlin, Prince Philip, Louis Armstrong, as well as a pantheon of well-known modern-day industrialists and banking magnates.
Click to expand...
Yeah. That’s how I feel about Dan Brown and his “code” 😃

PS.
Can you imagine the consequences if Peter Sellers had ever seized on World Domination™? :eek: 😛
 
I taped a show on EWTN which had Amy as a guest, and basically debunked that inane book. What’s disheartening, is that one of the Reps’ in my Parish Council I belong to, keeps trying to make this piece of junk something more than it is… I have NO TOLERANCE for liberal Catholic mentality… I tried once to explain the gnostic bunk on which the book is based, and he looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language… I immediatly got the feeling, that he didnt even know what the term “gnostic gospels” meant… I had to let it go, cause I aint interested in prostlyzing anymore… its too draining… I just recommend something more solid, say a prayer and go on my way… life is too short for me to always be frazzled with these people. 😦
 
Faithful 2 Rome:
I taped a show on EWTN which had Amy as a guest, and basically debunked that inane book. What’s disheartening, is that one of the Reps’ in my Parish Council I belong to, keeps trying to make this piece of junk something more than it is… I have NO TOLERANCE for liberal Catholic mentality… I tried once to explain the gnostic bunk on which the book is based, and he looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language… I immediatly got the feeling, that he didnt even know what the term “gnostic gospels” meant… I had to let it go, cause I aint interested in prostlyzing anymore… its too draining… I just recommend something more solid, say a prayer and go on my way… life is too short for me to always be frazzled with these people. 😦
Click to expand...
Boy, do I understand your feeling. My brother sent me a copy of this book. I think it was his Unitarian-Universalist (pray for him) way of getting in my Catholic face. I slogged my way through all the dreary pages of this third-rate pretentious “thriller” and sent him a nine-page typed reply. I’ve yet to hear back from him, but all this got me thinking about the dismaying lack of discernment among Catholics who think that either this is adding a new dimension to their faith or else they are shaken by it and have no way to effectively reply to it.

You may not have the desire to get involved in this controversy. But those who have chosen to make this battleground theirs will certainly covet your prayers. Prayer, after all, is the most essential feature of this warfare.

Thanks for your prayers. God bless.
 
Greetings.

There was a great article posted, as well, on Steve Ray’s board. Here’s the URL. It’s short, and the writer provides a real impartial impression of the media’s scathing response to the Passion and the media-fest over the Da Vinci Code. It has several arguments, and relative facts that I think you will find helpful, as well as the other recommendations on this thread.

nationalreview.com/comment/braceras200403020838.asp

JMJ, pray for us
dust
 
Did you expect Satan to simply sit idle while the Passion converted people to God?
 
_Christopher_:
Did you expect Satan to simply sit idle while the Passion converted people to God?
Click to expand...
Heavens no. It’s still nice to see it laid out so nicely in the article, though isn’t it? As a matter of fact, once again, I think Satan over-played his hand. He over did it the defamation, and it backfired on him. You’d think he’d learn after all these years…

And of course, as I have said frequently to the people I teach, take a look at the Bible…what is one of the characteristics of the true Church (aside from THE characteristics, i.e., one, holy, catholic and apostolic)? It is the one that is relentlessly persecuted. Need I say more?

dust
 
Has anyone thought of explaining to these people that the book is FICTION? Try explaining that James Bond really doesn’t exist, all those neat toys are just fiction, get a glass of milk and some cookies and read the Scripture if fiction is too upsetting.
 
undefined

I am praying that our Bishops, then our Priests address the DaVinci Code in a homily soon, and suggest reasons WHY
it’s heretical. So many people are naive!!! Many many college students are reading and believing. God bless us all. VeronicaS
 
That’s my other favorite response to the code. (Just as it is my favorite response to folks who get all bunched up because they think H@rry P*tt&r is the devil himself)
[name disguised to prevent a sub-thread spawning]
40.png
Tom:
Has anyone thought of explaining to these people that the book is FICTION? Try explaining that James Bond really doesn’t exist, all those neat toys are just fiction, get a glass of milk and some cookies and read the Scripture if fiction is too upsetting.
Click to expand...
 
40.png
Tom:
Has anyone thought of explaining to these people that the book is FICTION? Try explaining that James Bond really doesn’t exist, all those neat toys are just fiction, get a glass of milk and some cookies and read the Scripture if fiction is too upsetting.
Click to expand...
The problem is not explaining the book is fiction, most people understand that, its explaining his sources are fiction as well.
 
It’s fiction! As are all of his other books, which I read and enjoyed as fiction. What are people looking for? A fairy tale world? If they want to read a book that has it all incuding our reason for being pick up “The Bible” It will answer all your questions in a consistent and true fashion. Stay true to the truth and the light.
 
jim w:
It’s fiction! …
Click to expand...
*The DaVinci Code * is far more than fiction. It is dangerous and insidious. Unlike the Potter books, it passes itself off as thinly veiled truth (Potter is obvious fantasy).

I read it and easily saw through the garbage. (The book is, in my opinion, poorly written and even more poorly researched.)

My sister-in-law and another woman (fellow choir member) believe much of what is in the book – one’s comment to me was, “Where there’s smoke there’s fire.” These women both had Catholic grade school and high school educations and should know better.

This sort of drivel is the camel’s nose under the tent flap – it puts seeds of doubt into the minds of people who are not properly catechized, and I venture to say that the majority of today’s Catholics are not properly catechized.

Dangerous and insidious.

'thann
 
I don’t like the Da Vinchi KKKode. It is a bad book, full of trash.
 
I think people who believe what the Da Vinci Code says are just looking for a reason NOT to believe in Christ or His Church. The Gospels are just too demanding; too much cross carrying, cheek turning, loving and praying for our enemies kind of stuff. So when trash like this comes along, people eat it up. And it soothes their conscience…for a while.
 
After reading Carl Olson’s exhaustive refutation of Dispensationalism in Will Catholics Be Left Behind I have no doubt The Da Vinci Hoax will be comprehensive in its response to The Da Vinci Code book. Can’t wait for the movie next year too 😛

Those Envoy articles are quite good, and will probably be expanded for the book.

Phil P
 
Tyler Smedley:
Is anyone else freaked out about how widely read The Da Vinci Code is? I attend College at Western Washington University and people come up to me (they know I am Catholic) and ask me about the alleged cover-ups, while I am thinking to myself I didn’t even know you thought about God. Now we have the author saying that he left the biggest… well I will just quote him…

“Dan Brown said that when he wrote the best seller that dissects the origins of Jesus Christ and disputes long-held beliefs about Catholicism, he considered including material alleging that Jesus Christ survived the crucifixion.”

That sounds like old heresies with a new voice, but this is the part that really gets me fired up…

““The Da Vinci Code” has sold 7.5 million copies worldwide and is expected to be made into a movie.”

…7.5 million people have read this trash and billions will have the opportunity to see it if there is a movie made. What are we going to do about this?

PS I took those quotes from CNN.com just so there’s no mistake.
Click to expand...
Hi Tyler and All,
It doesn’t scare me for a few reasons… I don’t know about in your neck of the woods, but here in Cleveland area the book is selling at at least 20-30% off. This is hardly the pricing for a best seller, and it is heresy at a discount, as I call it. I have seen other like neo-gnostic novels sell for the same. Secondly, I do not trust the secular media as a whole, especially since y2k and they thought they knew better than Jesus about when the end of time was. (Remember: the “Father” did not even reveal that to him!) Thirdly, the gnostic gospels, which are the basis of this book, which are not aprroved texts (and not in the Catholic Bible) by the Catholic church partly due to the fact these “writings” do not reflect the true nature of Jesus and his teachings.
Also I think if it really bothers you, maybe you should persue it leagally. The Bill of Rights allow for us to freely practice and assemble for worship of our Catholic faith without someone having us to conform to a “state” version of it. I think those who are tying to change the Catholic faith by whatever means are forcing a state religion on us, which is unconstitutional.
Also there is a great web site on the “Da Vinci Hoax” which does preview the new book by Carl Olsen & Sandra Miesel. I can give the web out if permitted.
–davemcher5
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top