[Apologetics] FW: Da Vinci Code- Blasphemy Hits The Big Screen

Tue May 16 23:48:59 EDT 2006

Marty,

Your suggestion is good. I was hoping our Apologetics
Group would do something as a project. We should have
been involved. This is way, way, way too big to be on
the sidelines. But I'll do what I can as an
individual.

Art

--- Marty Rothwell <martyr225 at cox.net> wrote:

> Art,
> 
> If you feel certain that there is going to be a big
> shake-up over the movie,
> why don’t you put together the pamphlet?
> 
> Marty
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: apologetics-admin at gathman.org
> [mailto:apologetics-admin at gathman.org]On
> Behalf Of Art Kelly
> Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 5:50 PM
> To: apologetics at gathman.org; jmurf80 at bellsouth.net;
> I.like.dragonz at gmail.com; arochaallen at juno.com
> Subject: [Apologetics] FW: Da Vinci Code- Blasphemy
> Hits The Big Screen
> Importance: High
> 
> This message states in part:
> 
>             But why all the fuss?  After all, it's
> only a movie, right?
> 
> The novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand was once asked why
> she primarily wrote
> fiction, instead of works of philosophy. Rand
> explained that it's far easier
> to convey ideas through fiction than non-fiction --
> witness Dante's The
> Divine Comedy, witness Uncle Tom's Cabin, witness
> Ben-Hur,  The Screwtape
> Letters and  To Kill a Mockingbird .
> 
> Novels and films aren't footnoted. The author or
> screenwriter can create a
> thoroughly convincing universe that powerfully
> projects his message. From
> The Birth of a Nation and Triumph of The Will to
> Thelma and Louise and
> Brokeback Mountain, films have told us how to think
> about the world around
> us...
> 
> Debunking Christianity -- which is The Da Vinci
> Code's mission -- advances
> this worldview.
> 
> Art
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: GrassTops USA
> [mailto:Christopher at grasstopsusa.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 4:13 PM
> To: GrassTopsUSA Member akelly at americantarget.com
> Subject: Don Feder Exclusive - Da Vinci Code –
> Blasphemy Hits The Big
> Screen: 05-16-06
> 
> Sign Me Up
>
<https://fs8.formsite.com/GrassTopsUSA/form745992344/secure_index.html>
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> Web Warfare Against The Liberal Establishment
> Subscribe To The GrassTopsUSA Action Alert
>  THE DA VINCI CODE -- BLASPHEMY HITS THE BIG SCREEN
> GrassTopsUSA Exclusive Commentary
> By Don Feder
> 05-16-06
>           The Da Vinci Code -- which opens in the
> U.S. on May 19 -- might be
> subtitled "Religion for Morons" or "Gnosticism Meets
> The New Age."
>  It's fantasy posing as reality. The Sony Pictures
> film is blasphemous,
> defames the Catholic Church, and promotes neo-pagan
> Goddess worship.
> I find it offensive, and I'm not even a Christian.
> Director Ron Howard (who specializes in visual
> candy) assures us that Opie's
> opus will be true to the novel -- a pretentious,
> overwritten piece of trash
> that makes Bridget Jones's Diary look like one of
> the 100 Greatest Books
> Ever Written.
> The plot of Dan Brown's mega-best seller (45 million
> copies sold) goes like
> this: Jesus married Mary Magdalene, who bore his
> children, who became the
> Merovingian monarchs of France, whose descendants
> are running around Europe
> today -- being chased by Opus Dei or Mormon
> missionaries or Martians or
> someone.
> Again, according to The Code, The Catholic Church
> has for centuries
> concealed the truth about Jesus to maintain its
> power. Mary Magdalene
> represents the "sacred feminine" -- which supposedly
> predates monotheism --
> and which wicked patriarchalists have spent
> millennia trying to suppress,
> the better to deny man's sexual nature and subjugate
> women.
> The book (and presumably the film) even has a
> ritualistic orgy, where
> communicants dance with orbs and the grand master of
> the book's mysterious
> order gets frisky with a plump, middle-aged lady.
> The scene is described on
> page 311: "'The woman you behold is love!' The women
> called, raising their
> orbs again. The men responded, 'She has her dwelling
> place in eternity.'"
> (All I want is lovin' you, and music, music, music?)
> Brown may have achieved the impossible -- devised a
> type of mumbo-jumbo that
> makes "healing" crystals seem serious.
> Orthodox Christians are rightly offended by The
> Code's plot, denying as it
> does the divinity of Jesus and his mission.
> People are free to believe, or not believe, in
> Jesus. Jews and Christians
> have been debating the identity of the Messiah, what
> God requires of us and
> how salvation may be achieved for almost 2,000
> years. But to turn the life
> of a man almost a billion people on this planet
> worship into a soap opera
> beggars the term insensitive.
> At least Christians can take comfort in the fact
> that their's isn't the only
> faith maligned and misrepresented by Brown's book.
> On page 309, Brown writes of his protagonist:
> "Langdon's Jewish students
> always looked flabbergasted when he first told them
> that the early Jewish
> tradition involved ritualistic sex. In the Temple,
> no less.  Early Jews
> believed that the Holy of Holies in Solomon's Temple
> housed not only God but
> also His powerful female equal, Shekinah. Men
> seeking spiritual wholeness
> came to the Temple to visit priestesses -- or
> hierodules -- with whom they
> made love and experienced the divine through
> physical union."
> This would be amusing, were it not so disgusting.
> Jews daily pray for the
> rebuilding of the Holy Temple. For what -- so men
> can "experience the
> divine" by getting a little nookie?
> In Judaism, "Shekinah" refers to the Divine
> presence, at one time said to
> reside at the Temple. Because the Hebrew word is
> feminine, in Brown's
> fevered imagining, it has morphed into a female
> deity.
> There were no "priestesses" in the Temple. The Torah
> condemns the ritual
> prostitution practiced by the Canaanites as "an
> abomination" -- its most
> severe censure.
> It was Judaism that first related sexuality to
> morality. (Christian sexual
> ethics come from the Jewish Bible.) Where did Brown
> get his understanding of
> ancient Judaism -- from that noted Kabbalist,
> Madonna? Did he discover
> Jewish polytheism among the documents hidden away in
> the Templars' secret
> crypt, along with Jesus' marriage license?
> In an article on nationalreview.com, David
> Klinghoffer argues that Jews also
> should be concerned about The Da Vinci Code because
> of its disturbing
> parallels to "The Protocols of The Elders of Zion."
> "The Protocols," a forged document, postulates a
> conspiracy of Jewish
> leaders to conceal the truth about their alleged
> control of humanity through
> various political movements. The Da Vinci Code
> claims the Catholic Church is
> involved in a massive cover-up to hide the real
> history of Jesus, in order
> to maintain its control of the faithful. In both
> cases, the public is
> invited to scorn the sinister conspirators -- Jews
> or Catholics.
> As a Goddess-worshipping, neo-pagan, Brown seeks to
> reverse the Bible's
> process of taming man's erotic nature (by channeling
> it to fidelity and
> family), once again divorcing the sexual from the
> spiritual -- freeing man's
> hedonistic urges from Judeo-Christian constraints.
> That Brown has so many
> admirers among Hollywood libertines is unsurprising.
> But why all the fuss?  After all, it's only a movie,
> right?
> The novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand was once asked why
> she primarily wrote
> fiction, instead of works of philosophy. Rand
> explained that it's far easier
> to convey ideas through fiction than non-fiction --
> witness Dante's The
> Divine Comedy, witness Uncle Tom's Cabin, witness
> Ben-Hur,  The Screwtape
> Letters and  To Kill a Mockingbird .
> Novels and films aren't footnoted. The author or
> screenwriter can create a
> thoroughly convincing universe that powerfully
> projects his message. From
> The Birth of a Nation and Triumph of The Will to
> Thelma and Louise and
> Brokeback Mountain, films have told us how to think
> about the world around
> us.
> Most movies present the world according to Hollywood
> (and the word became
> flesh -- lots of flesh) -- that the sex act is good
> in and of itself, that
> people should follow their feelings (which
> invariably will lead them to
> right conduct and happiness), that prayer is like
> throwing a penny in a
> wishing well, that God is within us, that God is
> love, that God makes no
> demands of us and that the followers of traditional
> religion are a bunch of
> uptight, puritanical, hypocritical killjoys.
> Debunking Christianity -- which is The Da Vinci
> Code's mission -- advances
> this worldview.
> All too many people read novels or see films and
> think they're experiencing
> reality. Their understanding of the complicated
> history of settlers and
> Indians comes from Dances With Wolves. They are
> informed about the crusades
> by Kingdom of Heaven. Their understanding of the
> theory of global warming
> comes from The Day After Tomorrow.
> According to a Barna Group survey, 24% of those who
> read The Da Vinci Code
> said it aided their "personal spiritual growth and
> understanding." In other
> words, one in four of its readers believe the book's
> thesis (as opposed to
> its storyline) is true. Our "personal spiritual
> growth" isn't aided by what
> we believe to be a lie.
> The best response to The Da Vinci Code -- besides
> derisive laughter -- is a
> boycott. Resist the urge to determine just how bad
> it is by buying a ticket.
> You'll only be rewarding the perpetrators  --
> perhaps encouraging The Da
> Vinci Code: Part II, wherein Dan Brown reveals that
> Jesus was really married
> to Lazarus.
> 
> 
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  ART KELLY, ATM-S
  13524 Brightfield Lane
  Herndon, Virginia 20171-3360
  (703) 904-3763 home
  (703) 396-6956 work
  arthurkelly at yahoo.com
  art.kelly at cox.net
  ArtK135 at Netscape.net

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