 |
| |
|
|
DRoseDARs
|
 |
"My god, it's full of peas..."
Jul 2002
time: 21:20
|
|
You're gonna need 'em to wipe the spittle from your face while this guy rants and raves and wets himself over this. 
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...ican_davinci_dc
Top Cardinal Blasts 'Da Vinci Code' as 'Cheap Lies'
Tue Mar 15, 1:02 PM ET
By Philip Pullella
ROME (Reuters) - A top Catholic cardinal has blasted "The Da Vinci Code" as a "gross and absurd" distortion of history and said Catholic bookstores should take the bestseller off their shelves because it is full of "cheap lies." Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in an interview with the Milan newspaper Il Giornale, became the highest ranking Italian Churchman to speak out against the book, an international blockbuster that has sold millions of copies. "(It) aims to discredit the Church and its history through gross and absurd manipulations," Bertone, the archbishop of the northern Italian city of Genoa and a close friend of Pope John Paul (news - web sites) told the paper in its Monday edition. "This seems like a throwback to the old anti-clerical pamphlets of the 1800s," he said.
The central claim of the book, written by American Dan Brown, is that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children. The Bible says Jesus never married, was crucified and rose from the dead. Bertone's comments were significant because until the Pope named him archbishop of Genoa in 2003 he was for years the number two man at the Vatican (news - web sites)'s most powerful department - the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
"You can find that book everywhere and the risk is that many people who read it believe that those fairy tales are real," he said. "I think I have the responsibility to clear things up to unmask the cheap lies contained in books like that."
HOLY GRAIL
A central storyline of the book is that the Holy Grail is not the cup which Christ is said to have used at the Last Supper but really the bloodline descended from Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Bertone calls this idea "a perversion." Bertone is so incensed about the novel that he will be the key speaker at a roundtable in Genoa Wednesday night attempting to dismantle the book, which also accuses the Church of covering up the female role in Christianity.
"I will try to clear things up and help form consciences," the cardinal said. "I think that when faced with affirmations that are so shameful and unfounded, readers who have even a minimum of basic (Christian) formation should react," he said. He said it was "sad" that even Catholic bookstores were selling The Da Vinci Code "for purely economic reasons."
One bookstore selling "The Da Vinci Code" is the one in the Gemelli Hospital, a Catholic institution where the Pope spent a total of 28 days in two stints in February and March. In the interview, Bertone firmly rejected the book's claim that the feminine role in Christianity had been suppressed.
"This is one of the most vulgar of inventions. The feminine element is present in all the Gospels," Bertone said. Bertone also strongly defended Opus Dei, the conservative Church organization that the book depicts as a ruthless, Machiavellian group that resorts even to murder in its attempt to keep the Church's secrets hidden. The novel is going to reach an even wider audience next year with the release of a film based on the book staring Tom Hanks (news).
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Imran Siddiqui
|
 |
The Potterverse
Jan 1970
time: 00:20
|
|
Here are some grave errors Brown has made in writing his book, which he says has elements of historical truth even though it is fictional:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Da_Vinci_Code
spoiler(highlight to read):
Because of the novel's claim to contain elements of historical truth within its fictional framework, many have viewed The Da Vinci Code as a genuine exposé of orthodox Christianity's past. As a result, the book has attracted a generally negative response from the Christian, Jewish and Italian community, as well as from historians dismayed by the way Dan Brown has in their view distorted—and in some cases fabricated—history. Criticisms cover:
* The claim that prior to AD 325, Christ was considered no more than a "mortal prophet" by his followers, and that it was only as a consequence of Emperor Constantine's politicking and a close vote at the First Council of Nicaea that Christianity came to view him as divine: This has been debunked with extensive reference by various authors to the Bible and Church Fathers, sources that pre-date the First Council of Nicea. (See this example (http://www.envoymagazine.com/Planet...2-Full.htm#Full), or Olson and Meisel (2004), who refer to The Church in Crisis: A History of the General Councils, 325–1870 (1964) by Philip Hughes.) At the Council, the central question was if Christ and God were one, or whether instead Christ was the first created being, inferior to the Father, but still superior to all other creatures (see Arianism).
* The claim that Mary Magdalene was of the tribe of Benjamin: This is unsupported by any historical evidence. The fact that Magdala was located in northern Israel, whereas the tribe of Benjamin resided in the south, weighs against it.
* The idea that the purported marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene would create a "potent political union": According to the Gospels, Jesus clearly stated that his kingdom "is not of this world"; if, on the other hand, Jesus was merely a "mortal prophet" seeking to establish only a political kingdom, he failed.
* The assertion that "the sacred feminine" has been suppressed by Christianity: In Roman Catholicism, for example, Mary (of Nazareth), the mother of Jesus, is specially venerated as the "Mother of God," the "Queen of Heaven," the spiritual mother of all mankind, and is believed to be free of sin. (It is hypothesized that Mary's Virginal nature does not accord with Brown's ideals.)
* The allegation that five million women were burned by the Church as witches: Olson and Miesel (2004), referring to information at www.gendercide.org (http://www.gendercide.org/case_witchhunts.html), state that the most reliable current estimates—including those not executed at the Church's recommendation, not killed by burning, and not female—range from 30,000 to 50,000.
* The assertion that the original Olympics were held in honour of Aphrodite: they were celebrated for Zeus Olympias.
* The theory that Gothic architecture was designed by the Templars to record the secret of the sacred feminine: historians note that Templars were not involved with cathedrals of the time, which were generally commissioned by European bishops.
* The depiction of the Templars as builders, guild-founders and secret-bearers: Templar historians point to abundant evidence that Templars did not themselves engage in building projects or found guilds for masons, and that they were largely illiterate men unlikely to know "sacred geometry," purportedly handed down from the pyramids' builders.
* The portrayal of the Priory of Sion as an ancient organization: While the Priory is a genuine organisation claiming to have been the Templars' driving force, most historians suspect it originated in the aftermath of World War II, on the grounds that it registered with the French government in 1956, and only became widely-known in 1962 (see Pierre Plantard). However, according to official sources of the Priory, it is founded in 1090.
* The suggestion that all churches used by the Templars were built round, and that roundness was considered an insult by the Church: Some churches used by the Templars were not round, and those that were round were so in tribute to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
* The contention that the Mona Lisa was painted as a self-portrait: Art historians are almost unanimous in holding the painting to be of a real woman, Madonna Lisa, wife of Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo. Still, some alternative researchers concluded using "morphing" techniques that the resemblance is striking (Lillian Swartz of the Bell Labs and Digby Quested of the Maudsley Hospital in London).
* The depiction of Opus Dei as a monastic order. In fact it is a personal prelature with primarily lay membership. There are no monks in Opus Dei, (although members of Opus Dei do practice mortification of the flesh).
* Mary Magdalene is said to have been labelled a whore; in fact, there is no Biblical correlation between the whore that Christ saves from being stoned to death and Magdalene whatsoever. This common misunderstanding is initiated by Pope Gregory I, who proclamed this based on a false analysis of Luke 7 and 8. He "integrated" three different women into one. (See Pericope Adulterae.)
* The suggestion that the Tetragrammaton is an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name of Eve, Havah. It is generally believed that the four Hebrew letters that forms the Tetragrammaton (Yud, Hay, Vav, Hay) represent the tenses of the Hebrew word for to be -- Quoting Exodus 3:14-15, "And God said to Moses, "I am who I am [...]". Actually, the phrase in Hebrew is "eh-yeh asher eh-yeh", which in English translation would really be, "I will be who (or what or that) I will be." Therefore, The Verb emphasizes God's absolute being.
* The planet Venus is depicted as visible in the east shortly after sunset. This is an astronomical impossibility.
* The book repeats various debunked claims about the golden ratio.
* Brown characterizes the cycle of Venus as tracing a pentagle along the zodiac every four years, and from here claims this as the basis for four-year Olympic period. The fact is, Venus completes five cycles in *eight* years, a fact well known to the ancient Greeks and Mayans. This eight-year cycle is one of the factors in predicting the transit of Venus.
http://analyzer.depaul.edu/paperpla...nus/JayRyan.htm
Many have held the novel's historical defects to be so serious and numerous as to warrant separate works debunking it; several books such, as Carl Olson and Sandra Miesel's The Da Vinci Hoax, have been written in an attempt to expose what critics perceive as Brown's many errors.
|
|
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:20.
Apolyton Time is 00:20. |
top of page
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
16-03-2005 12:18
ACK!
|