da vinci code

today, let's talk about the da vinci code. the movie's coming out soon and it's been one heck of a controversial one. the latest is that the church is calling for a mass boycott of the movie, solely on the grounds that the movie is 'blasphemous' and insulting towards christianity. i have not seen the movie yet (duh) but i've read the book a few times. so, here's some views.

first and foremost, the very point that a lot of people seem to be missing: the da vinci code is FICTIONAL. that means, IT IS NOT REAL. dan brown did not market it as a non-fiction book, it was marketed as a novel. which means that readers should not take everything in it for granted as true. i think the reason why people get deceived by the book is because of dan brown's writing style, to mix fact and fiction. i read somewhere that in the mixing of fact and fiction, a stronger lie is created. anyway, because it's fiction, readers should be aware that the sole purpose of the book is not to educate, but to profit and entertain. and i must say, it has achieved this objective. true, the ideas dan brown presents in the novel are interesting, but readers should verify the truth of these stuff. do not be like lemmings and blindly jump over the cliff with the rest of the crowd. seeing the church authorities calling for a boycott of the movie, i wonder whether they realise that the content was not meant to be considered as real. in cases like this, it is up to the authorities to educate the people in what they feel is true and what they feel is not. failure to do so, and merely telling people "don't watch the movie, don't read the book" opens up opportunities for conspiracy seekers to think, "oh..there's something the vatican is trying to hide." they may think that the vatican thinks that this movie will open up pandora's box or something about the faith, a sure sign that there IS something that they want to hide. it's like that pink elephant thing. the more you're told not to think of a pink elephant, the more you'll think about one. (try it)

i've read other books dealing with this subject matter. and i conclude that, yes, the bible contains a number of fallacies concerning the cruxifiction (i'm sorry my spelling's going down the drain). BUT that's not the point. the bible is not and should not be taken as a historical document. to my understanding, it was written for the purpose of instruction. ie, it's the message that matters, and not the nitty details. the writers of the bible would have been more interested in the message of jesus rather than in his background. for example, somewhere i read that the cruxifiction is not a literal nailing to the cross, but rather, a symbolic death. fine. the point is not whether or not jesus really died by being nailed to a cross, but rather, what does that mean? what does it mean that someone died FOR our sins and rose again and says that in doing so, he's saving the world? that book that talked about this said that, the symbolic death is representative of a rebirth, like the process of enlightenment. that one claimed that, as a very influencial teacher, jesus would have undergone this process as a rite of passage in the process of building his ministry. SO, this means that the factual content of dying and resurrection is not the main point but it is the symbolic meaning of the 'dying' and 'resurrection' that matter. i guess most of the stuff in the da vinci code lies on the premise that the bible is lying about stuff. but like i said above, the bible does not exist as a history book. true, there are stuff that could be proven historically. but the main point is not historical accuracy but content accuracy. the message matters more than whether jesus was married or not. for eg, what would happen if you found that sang nila utama never existed? that the whole 'singapura' story was fake? would it cause matters to change?

i don't really understand why the da vinci code is undergoing all this flack. i mean, there's lots of other books around that claim that jesus and mary magdalene were married and the bloodline theory etc etc. there are tons of other fiction books also that deal with prickly topics in christianity (one i recently read was about someone being cloned from cells from the shroud of turin and the vatican wanting to use this created christ to set up the 2nd coming of christ). my point is, why is it that it is specifically the da vinci code that's being targetted? why not books like "holy blood and the holy grail"? after all, that book came before da vinci code, AND it's marketed as a non-fiction book. the authors fully claim that that their claims are true. i smell conspiracies here. people planted in the crowd and yelling out against the book to generate publicity. i am not accusing anyone of anything here. but i'm just curious as to the huge reactions towards this book, even before it was made into a movie. it could have just sank back into the huge pool of best sellers, but it didn't. and it generated such controversy that other books with similarly 'blasphemous' content did not. there are a lot of people who stand to gain by the strong reactions to this book.

conclusion. i'm not condemning this book. i think that as a novel, it is highly entertaining and interesting. it challenges people to re-think about things they take for granted about christianity. but it should not be taken at face value as being true. people who are truely interested in the subject matter should look up other books that have been properly researched and analysed, rather than rely on a book that was never meant to be a textbook anyway. by all means, read the book, watch the movie. but don't readily believe what you see. we're all educated people growing up in this age of information. aren't we trained to question what we see? this value should not lapse just because the subject is glamourised and controversial. as christians, we should not take this as an attack against our faith. it would be so much more beneficial to use it as a learning point, to delve more deeply into our faith. maybe you fear that you'll find that everything you know about christianity was based on a lie. yes, it will change your perspective, but will it change your faith? that is the question.



mood: cheerful
listening to: orphans of god - avalon