The hypocrisy radiating from Christian religious leaders throughout North America and around the world is for a lack of a better word – stunning.
I read Dan Brown’s fiction, The Da Vinci Code, and thought it was GREAT. Just as I thought his other book, Angels and Demons was just as good and perhaps even better.
I didn’t take The Da Vinci Code to be a challenge to what Christians believe, since he made no claims that his fictional interpretation of Christian history was somehow more accurate than what is more or less accepted dogma.
The Da Vinci Code is a story about what if. Nothing more and nothing less.
And since the whole concept and belief structure of religion in general, is based upon ancient writings by people who were not first-hand witnesses to the events, all of it is really what if.
What especially irks me about the Christian leadership’s outrage, is that they were ABSOLUTELY SILENT when Mel Gibson produced and directed his fiction called The Passion Of The Christ.
Gibson made it up.
He put words into the mouth of Jesus that were never said. he also made Jews into lustful ghoulish images who danced around the tortured crucified Jesus.
And yet, he and Christian leaders stand-by his disgraceful interpretation of what “might” have happened some two thousand years ago.
But now that the shoe is on a different foot, and the dogma of the Christian faith is being questioned through an admitted work of fiction, the leadership of Christendom is in a panic.
This looks very bad for Christianity and organized religion in general.
If the Church’s faith in its story is so shallow that a work of fiction can shake it to its core, they have an awful lot of thinking to do about themselves and their belief structure.
I make no secret of the fact that I am a Jewish Atheist. I am a Jew by birth, culture, history, tradition and social obligations. I was born Jewish. And I will die Jewish.
But, I’ll never believe in the divine stories created by man, in order to control man, and subvert the rights of women. To me, religion is a phenomenal business which incorporates fear, unquestioning dogma and mysticism as it’s primary selling incentive.
I ask no one to join me in what I believe. But at the same time, I ask no one to impose upon me what they believe.
If God is all powerful, as the story goes, I can’t see what the tumult is all about.
But, I can understand why a Church created by man to serve the power-needs of the men who created it can be so upset that their perfect world will be challenged, even if it is just one fiction challenging another.
I hope to see The Da Vinci Code tonight. And if it is only half as good as the book, I’ll be thrilled.
As for organized religion . . . my advice is simple:
Take a deep breath, and believe based upon the doctrine that God and His Son are all powerful, and a mere fictional book/movie has no capacity whatsoever to scratch the surface of your faith.
To believe otherwise, is not to believe at all in the omnipotence of God. That’s up to religious believers and not Dan Brown.
One Comment
the issue is black and white Hamas are the new Nazis. Period. Given this generations’ disconnect WWII would never have happened as they would have championed Chamberlain and then watched The Kardashians while the Nazis rolled over the world and Jews were exterminated.
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