The DaVinci Code

“Has anyone who is a Christian read it? I'd love to get the opinion of anyone who has been a long time Christian and has read the book. Find out your take on it?

I am reading it now and it is good.... but its difficult. I knew it would be. Its making me do alot of hard thinking and re-evaluation. It seems so much of Christanity is just a new spin on old pagan ways. Kinda bums me out.”

“Is this about predicting the future..........in the past?”

“Its not.”

“It seems so much of Christanity is just a new spin on old pagan ways. Kinda bums me out.

Well of course! That's one of the major theories on the origins of christianity - that a lot of it was plagiarized. I thought most xtians knew that.”

“danababy, the book is fiction. If you're concerned about this being real, read one of the many rebuttal books.”

“but now I do. I feel like I want a new and revised Bible. The REAL one. If the Catholic church or whatever manmade church has messed with the word.... then I'd like to have the real deal. Not one that has been tampered with.”

“I guess I need to look at it this way..... Nothing has really changed except that I've read a book which puts a different spin on things. Doesn't mean its true.
Even if Christ was married and a father... it doesn't change anything in my mind or heart.
I will conclude the book, but I will never be the same. I think it is going to cause me to question everything now... more than I already did. Perhaps that is not a bad thing.”

“dana's going to hell now.

nya nya nya nya nya!

c'mon down and join the rest of us !!!”

“I often say I am already bound in that direction. Try to be good---but it just never works out for me. My fleshy human nature, my big mouth, and my overactive brain.”

“keep on reading dana ! not just the davinci, not just what buck suggests, but read about other religions too.
the more you read the closer you'll come to us heathens !!!”

“in all seriousness dana, this is the way i look at it:

i believe that it is important to be spiritual.

religious does NOT equal spritiual.

i believe that most people have a basic need to maintain their spiritual health, but they don't know how, so they look to religion to try to solve their problems.”

“I prefer to think that "religion" is not the answer.....instead, it is the question.”

“Yeah, King James tampered with the bible.

And after all, he was a king and people believed in the "divine right of kings", that kings were descendants of god........pure nonsense.

The guy thought he was god and that his word was as good as "god's word".

The whole idea of divine right of monarchs is morally corrupt.”

“The guy thought he was god and that his word was as good as "god's word"

Who, Dubya?”

“I ordered this book yesterday. My wife is an ancient and medieval language scholar, and she's been bugging me to buy it for a while.

I'm finishing up Fast Food Nation right now, and then this one is next.”

“ancient and medieval language scholar

Geez, talk about a useless degree! I take it she's stuck in academia....”

“Phaedrus, you gonna take that crap?”

“So, Phaedrus, digressing to the subject of another thread, what does your wife think about the use of the word c*unt?

Seems the President of CU thinks it is ok.”

“Yeah, Mutt. She chose to value knowlege over money. She's working on her Ph.D. right now, and she's already been offered a research position when she's finished.

I find it interesting that your reaction is much like many people's: "what the hell is she going to do with that?" Sometimes, despite the cliche, knowlege is its own goal.”

“Chili, I'm not brave enough to ask ;)”

“She's a better man than me, then, phaedrus.”

“If you understand how we arrived at the Bible, you would then understand that the Bible can not be "tampered" with. We have thousands of copies of ancient documents from all parts of the world through various ages. If one King or scribe or whatever wanted to change the Bible, then they'd have to find every copy from every part of the world through the ages and change them all. Ancient texts are compared from various sources from all over the world. There was no central printing press in those days.

As for the Da Vinci Code, it's fiction. It's not even sold as non-fiction. Check out the New York Times Best Seller list, it's under "Fiction". People not grounded in the facts of their faith can be easily swayed by this stuff. The New Testament even warns about those who want their ears tickled with this kind of stuff. It's fascinating, it's conspiratorial, it's secret-society ooOOOoooOOOoo stuff that lots of people like to read. But it's fiction.”

“I understand, phaedrus.

Until they make improvements in Kevlar, I have removed that word from my active vocabulary as well.”

“Yeah. Cuter too, no doubt.

:)”

“"facts of their faith"


HAHAHAHAHAH”

“That's the thing about translations...

It's what struck me the first time I studied another language: when translations are done, meanings are unavoidably changed. Always. Nuances of meaning are magnified (and minimized). It's simply the nature of the process.

And if you're translating a translation.... Look Out! <G>”

“Its not wise to blindly accept any doctrine. The more I consider it.. the less the DaVinci Code matters.
I have to relate to my Creator and higher power on my own terms as I understand him/her. I should next read The Malleus Malefactorum. The Witch Hammer. That will probably put the final nail in the old religion coffin for me. Its already got me muttering under my breath.”

“when translations are done, meanings are unavoidably changed.

Which is one reason xtianity cannot possibly be the one true religion.”

“Read Foucault's Pendulum, also.”

“Tilt, we have thousands of ancient documents of the Bible in the ORIGINAL languages, ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic. No translations. It's a misnomer that the Bible is a translation of a translation of a translation, etc. It's not. We go directly from the original ancient language to English. If you read the ancient languages, you are reading the original untranslated versions. If you don't read the original languages you can get a word-for-word lexicon of the ancient language and the corresponding English word used.”

“Tilt, we have thousands of ancient documents of the Bible in the ORIGINAL languages, ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic. No translations. It's a misnomer that the Bible is a translation of a translation of a translation, etc. It's not. We go directly from the original ancient language to English. If you read the ancient languages, you are reading the original untranslated versions. If you don't read the original languages you can get a word-for-word lexicon of the ancient language and the corresponding English word used."
Buck
12:01:27 PM
06/16/04
ignore this user
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except that the printing press wasn't widely used until what.. the mid 1300's or something ???


that's an awful lot of hand written copies for an awful long time.”

“And it is written........on what ever they wrote it on in those days.

I like your optimism, Buck!

"That will probably put the final nail in the old religion coffin for me."

Drive them nails good and hard!”

“I figure Sacco is right
"Its not wise to blindly accept any doctrine. The more I consider it.. the less the DaVinci Code matters.
I have to relate to my Creator and higher power on my own terms as I understand him/her. I should next read The Malleus Malefactorum. The Witch Hammer. That will probably put the final nail in the old religion coffin for me. Its already got me muttering under my breath."
danababy
11:57:14 AM





NYAH NYAH NYAH NYAH NYAH !


buck's losing his flock !

dana's going to hell now!”

“another one bites the dust.

buddum bum bum.

another one bites the dust.”

“sacco, exactly, no printing presses, which is why the texts of the Bible could not be tampered with. Sure, someone could tamper with a version of the Byzantine text, or perhaps the Alexandrian text, or maybe the Western text, etc., but they couldn't tamper with them all, nor even a tine % of them all, because these original-language ancient texts came from all over the world and from different times. It would be much easier to tamper with text if you had a printing press. In fact the texts we have of the Bible are so collectively accurate we can even see the miniscule error of a particular scribe who might have said, "Christ Jesus" instead of "Jesus Christ". That's how accurate and complete the texts of the Bible are in the original languages. Scribes were extremely careful in copying (not translation, but copying) each little letter and if they made a mistake they would toss the entire document they were diligently working on. You can question the authority of the Bible, or what it says, or what books should or should not have been included, but you can't dispute the accuracy of the document in a historical preservation sense.”

“It's amazing how scared of religion some of you are.”

“Ha! If anyone considers me their shepherd, and they are my flock, they're in for a bumpy ride! :^D”

“Buck, your faith is IMMENSE.

Collectively accurate?

bazonka!

impossible!”

“And everyone reads Aramaic.

Don't be silly.”

“I misspelled it the first time.
That book is the fuel for the Inquisition and for the deaths of many women who were NOT witches. Killed by the church of men.
Many of them for being "free thinkers", having medical knowledge, knowledge of midwifery, in other words.... for having a brain and feminine intuition.

My mother is a "Granny Woman". My great grandmothers were. They and myself all free thinkers and knowlegable in medical arts and such... we'd all be dead had we been around back when that book was written. Horrors.”

“Scared of religion???

Hell no!

I find it un-interesting.

Its the "god-fearing" who seem to be scared.”

“buck - you're definitely a much better photgrapher than a shepherd.

man, some of the shots in your photoalbum are amazing.

did god give you you a hand developing those pics?”

“You find it so un-interesting that you posted the first response, and another one where you encouraged Dana to "Drive them nails good and hard!"
But you're not scared of it.”

“i'm like what kev spacey said -

i don't believe in god, but i fear him.

besides - people should be afraid of religion.

it's killed more people than smallpox !”

“Danababy - You don't accept Christianity on what can be presented to you as temporal evidence. You accept it on faith or you don't. If I have faith in something as truth, what the hell does it matter that someone can make an argument one way or another. Sacco's argument that the Bible has been changed does not shake my faith any more than Buck's argument that it hasn't been changed buoy's my faith. For whatever reason God put's up barriers to faith, there's no point in having faith if the truth can be proven to you, and consequently there's a larger point to faith if strong arguments can be made against that truth.”

“MarkO, study textual criticism and get back to me. The thousands of ancient texts of the Bible from all over the ancient world make it the most studied and documented book on the planet. Textual criticism is not a matter of faith (it doesn't care what the text says), it just concerns itself with the actual documents and compares them.

Tilt, you don't HAVE to read Aramaic (the Bible is actually mostly ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek), but you can learn it. Lots do. But if you don't wanna learn it, you can get a lexicon that shows the original ancient word and the corresponding English translation that was used.”

“Oh! <whew>

For a second there I thought you'd been listening to "The o'Reilly Malefactor"... <G>


I've heard that there were so many witch-burnings in Central Europe that it's a wonder there were any people left at all.”

“Movements don't kill people, people kill people.”

“< points to dana >

WITCH !!!”

“dana - you are correct. Christianity is a rehash of older Sumerian myths and over time, stuff was added in as the need for rules rose.

Goot old Abe was the first Jew and the first person to propose a worship in a monothesic religion. This was a wack concept back in the day. The Flood story in the Bible is a direct rip from the Epic of Gilgamesh, a Sumerian myth. Goot old Abe was Sumerian, so it's no suprise that these myths made it in to Judism, Muslim and Christianity.

Sumerian, and for that matter most of Mesopatamia, was a very vilonet area, people were conquering the area, massive floods from the Tigris and Euphrates and it was reflected in the gods they worshipped. I go out on a limb to guess that that is why Abe came up with the conecpt of a more compassionite god than was offered in the region.

All religions are myths, no matter what, or where they come from. As I stated to our resident hardcore Righties if it were not for Roman Emperor Constantine, wed all still be practicing polythesic religion.

Yes, you too Buck.

Here's a point I made on another thread that seems to be sticking.

"Buck - Here's one of the major flaws in your religion:

Your wrong. That's not the way I see it. I see your God talking about creating a being that was just like him in every way; he was lonely and wanted someone to talk to and something to do.


Now, seeing that this is the way I see it, you cannot prove me wrong. What ever it means to me is what it is and that's it. If I get enough people to agree with the way I see it, I form a church and bam, I have a flock to tend.

This religion is boarderline genius, as it can be a thousand different way to a million different people. There are a set of rules, through both convents, that govern your life, but after that, there is nothing else concrete about it. Just stories to promote the moral rules to keep people in line.

Once you get beyond the smoke and haze of organized religion, you will noticed that ALL religions are there for a couple of main reasons, one being keeping the general population in line. That's one of the main reason Humans came up with the concept. The other is to explain the unexplainable, due to a lack of scientific explaination.

I don't mean, or want to for that matter, piss on amyone's religion. I would just like to see people start evolving past this unimportant part of our civilization. It has promoted too many bad things in time; cause more hassles than it's solved."”