Is Dan Brown the Antichrist?
As the release date for The Da Vinci Code gets closer, I see more and more articles which attempt to "teach the controversy" (to borrow an apt phrase from Intelligent Design advocates). Dan Brown debunkers run rampant through the blogosphere and mainstream media.
And I have to ask myself - why the nuclear response? Is his fictional story really that threatening to Christianity?
Is Dan Brown the Antichrist?
Looking at it from the outside, it looks almost like the response of Islam to the release of the cartoons of Muhammed. Rising from the far corners of their extremism, fundamentalists express their outrage as the "insult" to their religion. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden said in an audio tape aired by Al Jazeera that people who ridiculed the Prophet Mohammad were to be killed.
"If such lies and errors had been directed at the Koran or the Holocaust they would have justly provoked a world uprising," said the Vatican's Archbiship Angelo Amato.
"This has all the evidence of something cooked up in the fires of hell," evangelical radio broadcaster James Dobson said on Focus on the Family.So called moderates attempt to enlighten the "debate" by pointing out where the object of their criticism is wrong. However, most of the fact based arguments appear to be picking nits, and the primary (often only) source of evidence used in these "debates" is the religious tract which forms the basis of their beliefs (Koran or Bible).
Does the Koran forbid images of Muhammed? Did the Council of Nicaea severely edit the gospels to hide Jesus' human foibles?
I really don't give a flying fig leaf.
What is interesting here is the reaction. The perception of extreme threat, and the resulting explosive response.
What are these people afraid of?
If their religious dogma is so fragile, so feebly taught or its adherents so lacking in conviction that works of satire and fiction can so devastatingly undermine their very underpinnings, then perhaps it's time that the house of cards came tumbling down.
Certainly the Keepers of the Faith must worry - strongly - that their own beliefs are without reason. Otherwise, why run so scared?
posted by A Muser @ 4:12 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Hey Muser,
Short answer, the so-called "Antichrist" is the Vatican/Papacy and this whole controversy is over the Vatican's fear of people learning the truth about the ancient symbology they have long struggled to obfuscate and recast literally to hide the truth from their followers (and others). These ancient prophecies don't refer to an individual but to an organization...
It is quite a joke that the Vatican and Catholic Church have the gall to accuse the author of a novel of attacking their fantasies and dogma. Remember that this is the same organization that manufactured fake relics and miracles for many centuries. This is the same group that massacred and tortured people for seeking the truth and having a mind of their own. This is the same group of deluded deceivers that makes more noise about a fictional book and movie than about child raping priests, aids, famine, or even the Holocaust! At what point does the Vatican's behavior go from the absurd to simply purely evil?
It is undeniable the New Testament is framed by symbolism and allegory. The same is evidenced in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Gnostic texts, biblical apocrypha, and other related texts. All ancient religious, mystical, and wisdom texts have been shrouded in mystery for millennia for one primary reason: The ability to understand their widely evidenced symbology was lost in antiquity. How do we finally solve these ages-old mysteries? To recast an often-used political adage: It’s [the] symbology, stupid!
It's amazing the Vatican still tries to insist the Gospels are literal truth. It is beyond obvious they are replete with ancient Hebrew symbology. Every miracle purported for Jesus has multiple direct symbolic parallels in the Old Testament, Apocalypse, Dead Sea Scrolls, and other symbolic narratives and traditions.
Likewise, the following Washington Post article ( The Book of Bart) demonstrates how many changes and embellishments were made to these texts over the centuries, unequivocally demonstrating they are not original, infallible, or truthful.
What then is the purpose of "faith" but to keep good people from seeking to understand truth and wisdom? It's no wonder the Vatican fears the truth more than anything else. Now comes justice, hot on its heels... (symbolism...)
Revelations from the Apocalypse
Here is Wisdom!!
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