just another da vinci code post

[Gamblor]

"The Da Vinci Code" and the Jews
By Rabbi Benjamin Blech (1)

It's commonly called "the runaway best seller of the 21st century." The numbers are staggering. Forty million copies sold round the world. Translated into 44 languages. Soon to be released as a movie starring Tom Hanks. Critics agree: There hasn't been anything like Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code in publishing history.

And that, truth be told, hasn't made the Catholic Church very happy.

This, after all, isn't just an exciting mystery novel. Woven into a story of the aftermath of a murder in the Louvre Museum is a tale of Christian conspiracies, high level cover-ups, and ancient secret societies that the author repeatedly hints is more fact than fiction. Written in breezy roman-a-clef style, the reader is introduced to Catholic orders that really exist, prominent holy sites that can readily be visited, and famous people of past and present -- all of whom share in what is presented as the greatest theological falsification of history.

"Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false," laments one of Brown's characters. "Faith," he has one of his heroes tell us, "is based on fabrication."

Mingling fact with fiction in a combustible mixture that leaves readers perplexed by the boundaries between one and the other, Brown leads us to believe -- with more than an author's wink -- that an incredible hoax has been played on millions of pious Christians who've never been told the truth about the Holy Grail.

For centuries, pious Christians have been taught that the Holy Grail is the cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper. But for Brown's all-knowing art critic and alter-ego Robert Langdon, that isn't true.

"The Grail," Langdon tells us in a scholarly voice that appears to echo the author's personal conviction, "is symbolic of the lost goddess. When Christianity came along, the old pagan religions did not die easily. Legends of chivalric quests for the Holy Grail were in fact stories of forbidden quests to find the lost sacred feminine. Knights who claimed to be 'searching for the chalice' were speaking in code as a way to protect themselves from a Church that had subjugated women, banished the Goddess, burned non-believers, and forbidden the pagan reverence for the sacred feminine." (The Da Vinci Code, pages 238-239)

And there is more. A woman's body is symbolically a container, and the most famous of these has a name every Christian will immediately recognize. Brown claims that the Holy Grail was actually Mary Magdalene. She was married to Jesus and was the vessel that bore his children.

The secret that could not be revealed since the birth of Christianity is that Jesus' bloodline continues to flourish to this day. The Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion (an actual Christian organization), among whom Brown lists Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton and Victor Hugo, have -- according to the book's premise -- kept to their oath never to reveal any of this to the public and the Roman Catholic church is committed to suppressing this information. Brown strongly hints that only the fortunate readers of this "documentary disguised as fiction" may at last share in this incredible revelation.

Small wonder the Church is profoundly disturbed. Brown's book is for the Vatican blasphemy masquerading as history. If the Da Vinci Code premise is true -- and the entire book is replete with suggestions that the reader is permitted entrée to secret truths merely couched in a fictionalized framework -- Rome needs to revise its faith and its past, its beliefs as well as the story of its beginnings.



Chilling Effects


But what strikes me, as a rabbi, is the remarkable irony that the very theories about Jesus presented by Brown that make the book blasphemous to Christians are concepts that make Jesus far more comprehensible to Jews.

So Jesus was married! Well why shouldn't he have been? Reared as a Jew, celibacy would have almost certainly been an idea totally foreign to him. "Be fruitful and multiply" was the biblical creed that all Jews considered sacred. Celibacy as a Christian ideal wouldn't become law until the Council of Elvira (300-306) decreed (Canon 33): It is decided that marriage be altogether prohibited to bishops, priests, and deacons, or to all clerics placed in the ministry, and that they keep away from their wives and not beget children; whoever does this, shall be deprived of the honor of the clerical office.

Christian scholars explain the reason: The Church wanted to insure that the wealth of its leadership would not be dissipated by way of family inheritance. A non-married clergy would always return their possessions to Rome.

Historians have pointed out the chilling effects of this doctrine. The "best and the brightest" were invariably encouraged to enter the prestigious life of the priesthood. That effectively condemned their genes to hereditary oblivion. Jews, on the other hand, turned those with the greatest intellectual potential to rabbinic lives of learning and teaching combined with an emphasis on large families. That, claims Will Durant in his classic The Lessons of History, is what in all probability accounts for the statistically unbelievable preponderance of Jewish Nobel Prize winners and achievements.

More troubling for Christians, a married Jesus is far too much a human figure instead of a god to be worshipped. Christianity can't conceive of their object of divine reverance as a sexual being – or even as one conceived by the sexual act. It is a troublesome relationship with physical pleasure that turned Christian teachings away from their Jewish biblical source. But Jews have no problem with a married Moses. It is the Torah that Moses brought to us that not only commands marriage but calls it Kiddushin -- an ideal state of holiness.

Here is the crux of a crucial concept that has separated Judaism from Christianity throughout the centuries. Jews spared no effort to insure that their greatest leader never be confused with God; Moses was always to be viewed as human, mortal, less than divine, even capable of sin for which he was punished and denied entry into the Promised Land. His very burial site was to remain hidden so that it not become revered beyond measure. The greatness of Moses rests precisely on his human qualities. He represents mankind's potential. In him we see what we fellow human beings are capable of becoming.

Christians, on the other hand, insisted that Jesus be viewed not as man but as god; his human form could never be allowed to overshadow his divinity. Jesus was not elevated man but a god descended to earth. Physical frailties and human weaknesses couldn't possibly be part of his makeup.

And that is what Brown has breached in revealing, albeit in an ostensibly fictionalized account, a "human" truth about Christianity's founder. A married Jesus with children is, for the Church, nothing less than a diminished god.

That's why Jews shouldn't be upset about the success of The Da Vinci Code. After all, it's responsible for making more than 40 million people question what Jews have long recognized about Christianity's founder: Jesus was not God; he was human.

And perhaps the day will come when the world will acknowledge what Judaism teaches: It isn't God who became man, but man who must strive to become more like God.

---------------
Rabbi Benjamin Blech is the author of seven highly acclaimed books, including Understanding Judaism: The basics of Deed and Creed. He is a professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University and the Rabbi Emeritus of Young Israel of Oceanside which he served for 37 years and from which he retired to pursue his interests in writing and lecturing around the globe. He is also the author of "If God is Good, Why is the World So Bad?"

[MrMon]

Thanks for that, I read this in our local Jewish newspaper last week and thought it worth posting, but had no electronic link. Glad you found it. I hope some people take the time to read it, it's really worth the time.

[BluffTHIS!]

The New Covenant is differrent from the Old in many ways, which partially explains why Jews don't credit it.

And the fact is that there every evidence, despite Jewish protestations to the contrary, that the Old Covenant is broken. It was not broken by God, whose word is true, but by the Jewish nation itself on many occasions. There were contractual obligations imposed upon the Jewish nation to receive the benefits, and they didn't keep them. Time and again the Jewish nation rejected God's teachings given by the prohphets and Judges He sent, and time and again God sent new prohpets to set them back on the faithful path. Until finally He deemed the Jewish nation to have irredeemably have broken the covenant on their end, and instituted a new one, not just for them, but for the gentiles as well.

And the evidence that this is true is that since the time Christ walked the earth, in complete contrast to the two preceeding millenia, the Jewish nation claims to have received no new prophets, and also have not rebuilt the temple. You can give all the explanations from the Talmud that you want for this, but they are merely human excuses not in accord with the history of God's dealings with the Jewish nation prior to Christ.

[RJT]

[ QUOTE ]
…This, after all, isn't just an exciting mystery novel…

[/ QUOTE ]

That is exactly what it is and all that it is. (And calling it “exciting” is more than generous.)

[Copernicus]

I have no interest in the book or the movie. However, the good rabbi needs to google "roman a clef", since from what I understand DaVC is the opposite. A roman a clef novelizes real people and events using fictitious names (eg "On the Road"). DaVC novelizes (presumably)fictious events using real peoples (at least accepted as real people) names.

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
Jews, on the other hand, turned those with the greatest intellectual potential to rabbinic lives of learning and teaching combined with an emphasis on large families. That, claims Will Durant in his classic The Lessons of History, is what in all probability accounts for the statistically unbelievable preponderance of Jewish Nobel Prize winners and achievements.

[/ QUOTE ]
Subtle racist (supremecist might be a better word) slip?

[Peter666]

Meh, just more people trying to overcome guilt due to their deviant sexual behaviour. Because Christ was celibate and encouraged his members to be so, it flies in the face of people living today who engage in practices such as masturbation.

People who are looking for truth in the Da Vinci code or try to reduce the Catholic Church to an institution that just wants money and power generally do so to justify (subconsciously at least) their own sexual misbehaviour.

[The Dude]

[ QUOTE ]
Because Christ was celibate and encouraged his members to be so...

[/ QUOTE ]
Can you reference the verses where Christ encouraged others to be celibate, please? (I'd like all of them you know of, please.)

[BluffTHIS!]

He's referring to St. Paul's writings, which as inspired by the Holy Spirit, is the same.

[Peter666]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Because Christ was celibate and encouraged his members to be so...

[/ QUOTE ]
Can you reference the verses where Christ encouraged others to be celibate, please? (I'd like all of them you know of, please.)

[/ QUOTE ]

From Christ himself you can read Matthew Chapter 19 verse 12.

From St. Paul, you can read Corinthians 7, verses 7-8 and 32-35.

Also, if you remember the divorce debate, Christ speaking in Matthew 19 also makes his famous phrase about the indissolubility of marriage: "What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.".

[Peter666]

[ QUOTE ]
He's referring to St. Paul's writings, which as inspired by the Holy Spirit, is the same.

[/ QUOTE ]

Plus Christ tells his followers "he that can take it, let him take it" in regards to celibacy. Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven.

[Gamblor]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Jews, on the other hand, turned those with the greatest intellectual potential to rabbinic lives of learning and teaching combined with an emphasis on large families. That, claims Will Durant in his classic The Lessons of History, is what in all probability accounts for the statistically unbelievable preponderance of Jewish Nobel Prize winners and achievements.

[/ QUOTE ]
Subtle racist (supremecist might be a better word) slip?

[/ QUOTE ]

you would deny the truth of the bolded fact? i posted a list of jewish nobel prize winners since something vs. a list of muslim nobel prize winners over the same period once and was met with the same reply... the final tally was something like 80-5 against the mohammed fans. Not bad for a population of 15 million worldwide (0.25% of the world's population)

[Gamblor]

[ QUOTE ]
Meh, just more people trying to overcome guilt due to their deviant sexual behaviour. Because Christ was celibate and encouraged his members to be so, it flies in the face of people living today who engage in practices such as masturbation.

People who are looking for truth in the Da Vinci code or try to reduce the Catholic Church to an institution that just wants money and power generally do so to justify (subconsciously at least) their own sexual misbehaviour.

[/ QUOTE ]

whether or not this is true is completely irrelevant to the question of whether christ had a child.

again, the very first commandment issued by god to adam and eve was that they should "pru (be fruitful) oorvu (and multiply)". I'd imagine that a young Jesus of Natzeret, as a deeply religious Jew, would have taken that extremely seriously.

incidentally, i learned something new today. in hebrew, christians are called "notzrim". which has nothing to do with egypt (whose hebrew name is mitzrayim", as i had always assumed, but rather from the town of Nazareth, which in hebrew is "natzeret". In other words, Christians in hebrew are called "nazarethians". [/useless fact]

[HLMencken]

[ QUOTE ]
Meh, just more people trying to overcome guilt due to their deviant sexual behaviour. Because Christ was celibate and encouraged his members to be so, it flies in the face of people living today who engage in practices such as masturbation.

People who are looking for truth in the Da Vinci code or try to reduce the Catholic Church to an institution that just wants money and power generally do so to justify (subconsciously at least) their own sexual misbehaviour.

[/ QUOTE ]

If Christ truly was a man, then he jerked his chicken a few times without a doubt.

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Jews, on the other hand, turned those with the greatest intellectual potential to rabbinic lives of learning and teaching combined with an emphasis on large families. That, claims Will Durant in his classic The Lessons of History, is what in all probability accounts for the statistically unbelievable preponderance of Jewish Nobel Prize winners and achievements.

[/ QUOTE ]
Subtle racist (supremecist might be a better word) slip?

[/ QUOTE ]

you would deny the truth of the bolded fact?

[/ QUOTE ]
I didn't say that. Perhaps there are other factors at work in producing Nobel Prize winners besides ethnicity/religion?

[Gamblor]

Jews, on the other hand, turned those with the greatest intellectual potential to rabbinic lives of learning and teaching combined with an emphasis on large families. That, claims Will Durant in his classic The Lessons of History, is what in all probability accounts for the statistically unbelievable preponderance of Jewish Nobel Prize winners and achievements.
Subtle racist (supremecist might be a better word) slip?

you would deny the truth of the bolded fact?
I didn't say that. Perhaps there are other factors at work in producing Nobel Prize winners besides ethnicity/religion?

there undoubtedly are. the quote only argues that ethnicity IS a legitimate factor for comparison, not that it is the only factor. at the same time, it's not like the jewish are a majority even in richer academic countries.

You could just as easily compare Americans to English, but that wouldn't necessarily deny the conclusion the author reached.

[Peter666]

Meh, just more people trying to overcome guilt due to their deviant sexual behaviour. Because Christ was celibate and encouraged his members to be so, it flies in the face of people living today who engage in practices such as masturbation.

People who are looking for truth in the Da Vinci code or try to reduce the Catholic Church to an institution that just wants money and power generally do so to justify (subconsciously at least) their own sexual misbehaviour.

If Christ truly was a man, then he jerked his chicken a few times without a doubt.

Not every man follows their base passions and jerks hmself, despite your own personal experience.

[Peter666]

"again, the very first commandment issued by god to adam and eve was that they should "pru (be fruitful) oorvu (and multiply)". I'd imagine that a young Jesus of Natzeret, as a deeply religious Jew, would have taken that extremely seriously."

Jesus preached celibacy, poverty and obedience as the surest path to Heaven, and he practiced what he preached. The commandment that God gave to Adam to be fruitful and multiply was not binding on Adam's children.

[Andrew Karpinski]

Hey guys. This just in :

There is no God, religion is a creation of man. Since there seems to be a little confusion about this I just thought I'd let you all know.

[Peter666]

[ QUOTE ]
Hey guys. This just in :

There is no God, religion is a creation of man. Since there seems to be a little confusion about this I just thought I'd let you all know.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the update. If you are correct, when we will die, you will not have the satisfaction to tell me "I've told you so." However, if I am correct, than I am really going to rub it in good.

[MrMon]

Rather than start another thread, I'll toss this in here. Another long but good read.

[ QUOTE ]
The Truth at the Heart of 'The Da Vinci Code'
by Elaine Pagels

Archbishop Angelo Amato, a top Vatican official, recently railed against The Da Vinci Code as a work "full of calumnies, offenses and historical and theological errors.'' As a historian, I would agree that no reputable scholar has ever found evidence of author Dan Brown's assertion that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child, and no scholar would take seriously Brown's conspiracy theories about the Catholic group Opus Dei.

But what is compelling about Brown's work of fiction, and part of what may be worrying Catholic and evangelical leaders, is not the book's many falsehoods.

What has kept Brown on the bestseller list for years and inspired a movie is, instead, what is true – that some views of Christian history were buried for centuries because leaders of the early Catholic Church wanted to present one version of Jesus' life: theirs.

Some of the alternative views of who Jesus was and what he taught were discovered in 1945 when a farmer in Egypt accidentally dug up an ancient jar containing more than 50 ancient writings. These documents include gospels that were banned by early church leaders, who declared them blasphemous.

It is not surprising that The Da Vinci Code builds on the idea that many early gospels were hidden and previously unknown. Brown has said that part of his inspiration was one of these so-called Gnostic Gospels as presented in a book I wrote on the subject. It took only three lines from the Gospel of Philip to send Brown off to write his novel:

The companion of the savior is Mary Magdalene. And Jesus loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often... The rest of the disciples were jealous, and said to him, "Why do you love her more than all of us?''

Those who have studied the Gospel of Philip see it as a mystical text and don't take the suggestion that Jesus had a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene literally.

Still, by homing in on that passage and building a book around it, Brown brought up subjects that the Catholic Church would like to avoid. He raised the big what-ifs: What if the version of Jesus' life that Christians are taught isn't the right one? And perhaps as troubling in a still-patriarchal church: What if Mary Magdalene played a more important role in Jesus' life than we've been led to believe, not as his wife perhaps, but as a beloved and valued disciple?

In other words, what Brown did with his runaway hit was popularize awareness of the discovery of many other secret gospels, including the Gospel of Judas that was published in April.

There have long been hints that the New Testament wasn't the only version of Jesus' life that existed, and that even the gospels presented there were subject to misinterpretation. In 1969, for instance, the Catholic Church ruled that Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute, as many people had been taught. The church blamed the error on Pope Gregory the Great, who in 591 A.D. gave a sermon in which he apparently conflated several women in the Bible, including Mary Magdalene and an unnamed sinner who washes Jesus' feet with her tears.

But even that news didn't reach all Christians, and it is the rare religious leader who now works hard to spread the word that the New Testament is just one version of events crafted in the intellectual free-for-all after Christ's death. At that time, church leaders were competing with each other to figure out what Christ said, what he meant -- and perhaps most important, what writings would best support the emerging church.

What we know now is that the scholars who championed the "Gnostic'' gospels are among the ones who lost the battle.

In the decades after Jesus' death, these texts and many others were circulating widely among Christian groups from Egypt to Rome, Africa to Spain, and from today's Turkey and Syria to France. So many Christians throughout the world knew and revered these books that it took more than 200 years for hardworking church leaders who denounced the texts to successfully suppress them.

The copies discovered in 1945, for example, were taken from the sacred library of one of the earliest monasteries in Egypt, founded about 10 years after the conversion of Constantine, the first Roman emperor to join the fledgling church. For the first time, Christians were no longer treated as members of a dangerous and seditious group and could form open communities in which many lived together. Like monks today, they kept in their monastery libraries a very wide range of books they read aloud for inspiration.

But these particular texts appeared to upset Athanasius, then archbishop of Alexandria; in the year 367 he sent out an Easter Letter to monks all over Egypt ordering them to reject what he called "illegitimate and secret books.'' Apparently, some monks at the Egyptian monastery defied the archbishop's order and took more than 50 of the books out of the library, sealed them in a heavy jar and buried them under the cliff where they were found 1,600 years later.

In ordering the books destroyed, Athanasius was continuing the battle against the "Gnostic'' gospels begun 200 years earlier by his revered predecessor, Bishop Irenaeus, who was so distressed that certain Christians in his congregations in rural Gaul (present day France) treasured such "illegitimate and secret writing'' that he labeled them heretics. Irenaeus insisted that of the dozens of writings revered by various Christians, only four were genuine -- and these, as you guessed already, are those now in the New Testament, called by the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Irenaeus said there could be only four gospels because, according to the science of the time, there were four principal winds and four pillars that hold up the sky. Why these four gospels? He explained that only they were actually written by eyewitnesses of the events they describe -- Jesus' disciples Matthew and John, or by Luke and Mark, who were disciples of the disciples.

Few scholars today would agree with Irenaeus. We cannot verify who actually wrote any of these accounts, and many scholars agree that the disciples themselves are not likely to be their authors. Beyond that, nearly all the gospels that Irenaeus detested are also attributed to disciples -- some, including the Gospel of Thomas, to the original 12 apostles. Nonetheless, Athanasius and other church leaders succeeded in suppressing the gospels they (and Irenaeus) called illegitimate, won the emperor's favor and succeeded in dominating the church.

What, then, do these texts say, and why did certain leaders find them so threatening?

First, they suggest that the way to God can be found by anyone who seeks. According to the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus suggests that when we come to know ourselves at the deepest level, we come to know God: "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.'' This message – to seek for oneself – was not one that bishops like Irenaeus appreciated: Instead, he insisted, one must come to God through the church, "outside of which,'' he said, "there is no salvation.''

Second, in texts that the bishops called "heresy,'' Jesus appears as human, yet one through whom the light of God now shines. So, according to the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said, "I am the light that is before all things; I am all things; all things come forth from me; all things return to me. Split a piece of wood, and I am there; lift up a rock, and you will find me there.'' To Irenaeus, the thought of the divine energy manifested through all creation, even rocks and logs, sounded dangerously like pantheism. People might end up thinking that they could be like Jesus themselves and, in fact, the Gospel of Philip says,

"Do not seek to become a Christian, but a Christ.'' As Irenaeus read this, it was not mystical language, but "an abyss of madness, and blasphemy against Christ.''

Worst of all, perhaps, was that many of these secret texts speak of God not only in masculine images, but also in feminine images. The Secret Book of John tells how the disciple John, grieving after Jesus was crucified, suddenly saw a vision of a brilliant light, from which he heard Jesus' voice speaking to him: "John, John, why do you weep? Don't you recognize who I am? I am the Father; I am the Mother; and I am the Son.'' After a moment of shock, John realizes that the divine Trinity includes not only Father and Son but also the divine Mother, which John sees as the Holy Spirit, the feminine manifestation of the divine.

But the Gospel of Mary Magdalene -- along with the Gospel of Thomas, the Dialogue of the Savior, and the Gospel of Philip -– all show Peter, the leader of the disciples, challenging the presence of women among the disciples. We hear Peter saying to Jesus, "Tell Mary to leave us, because women are not worthy of (spiritual) life.'' Peter complains that Mary talks too much, displacing the role of the male disciples. But Jesus tells Peter to stop, not Mary! No wonder these texts were not admitted into the canon of a church that would be ruled by an all-male clergy for 2,000 years.

Those possibilities opened by the "Gnostic'' gospels -- that God could have a feminine side and that Jesus could be human -- are key ideas that Dan Brown explored in "The Da Vinci Code,'' and are no doubt part of what made the book so alluring. But the truth is that the texts he based his novel upon contain much deeper and more important mysteries than the ones Tom Hanks tries to solve in the movie version that opened this weekend.

The real mystery is what Christianity and Western civilization would look like had the "Gnostic'' gospels never been banned. Because of the discovery by that Egyptian farmer in 1945, we now at least have the chance to hear what the "heretics'' were saying, and imagine what might have been.

Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels and Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, is a professor of religion at Princeton. She wrote this article for the Perspective section of the San Jose Mercury News.


[/ QUOTE ]

[Gamblor]

[ QUOTE ]
"again, the very first commandment issued by god to adam and eve was that they should "pru (be fruitful) oorvu (and multiply)". I'd imagine that a young Jesus of Natzeret, as a deeply religious Jew, would have taken that extremely seriously."

Jesus preached celibacy, poverty and obedience as the surest path to Heaven, and he practiced what he preached. The commandment that God gave to Adam to be fruitful and multiply was not binding on Adam's children.

[/ QUOTE ]

again, incorrect. every word of god is 100% binding in every capacity. his very word is by definition law. there is no question at all that the bible is 100% pro-child.

Introduction to Celibacy (http://www.ejhs.org/volume2/walsh/walsh1.htm)

[Chris Daddy Cool]

[ QUOTE ]
Hey guys. This just in :

There is no God, religion is a creation of man. Since there seems to be a little confusion about this I just thought I'd let you all know.

[/ QUOTE ]

i don't understand the point of people making posts like this in this forum? even if you felt that this were true, wouldn't that just be the equivalent of someone going to a star wars forum and interrupting a conversation by saying "star wars is fake"? why you feel the need to even point out a rather irrelevent observation or opinion like that is beyond me.

[Peter666]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"again, the very first commandment issued by god to adam and eve was that they should "pru (be fruitful) oorvu (and multiply)". I'd imagine that a young Jesus of Natzeret, as a deeply religious Jew, would have taken that extremely seriously."

Jesus preached celibacy, poverty and obedience as the surest path to Heaven, and he practiced what he preached. The commandment that God gave to Adam to be fruitful and multiply was not binding on Adam's children.

[/ QUOTE ]

again, incorrect. every word of god is 100% binding in every capacity. his very word is by definition law. there is no question at all that the bible is 100% pro-child.

Introduction to Celibacy (http://www.ejhs.org/volume2/walsh/walsh1.htm)

[/ QUOTE ]

Your link to a heretical theologian quoting other heretical theologians is not conducive to good theological discussions.

If God explicitly commanded all men to procreate, you would have had that in the 10 commandments. The Blessed Virgin Mary would also not have been the Blessed Virgin Mary. The quotes in other parts of this thread directly from Christ and the teachings of his Apostles already prove the exalted position they gave to celibacy. Of course, this is the practice which they themselves retained; unless you think St. Paul is a liar.

[bocablkr]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Jews, on the other hand, turned those with the greatest intellectual potential to rabbinic lives of learning and teaching combined with an emphasis on large families. That, claims Will Durant in his classic The Lessons of History, is what in all probability accounts for the statistically unbelievable preponderance of Jewish Nobel Prize winners and achievements.

[/ QUOTE ]
Subtle racist (supremecist might be a better word) slip?

[/ QUOTE ]

Which part?

[Peter666]

The false Gospels and writings have been around since the beginning of the Church, and debate as to their authenticity was put to rest at the early Church Councils. If there are people who are willing to believe these texts, then they are excommnicated from the Catholic Church and may start one of their own denominations in the United States of America, or join one of the thousands already available, one of which is bound to agree with their view.

These debates are like sooo 4th century, man.

[MrMon]

[ QUOTE ]
The false Gospels and writings have been around since the beginning of the Church, and debate as to their authenticity was put to rest at the early Church Councils. If there are people who are willing to believe these texts, then they are excommnicated from the Catholic Church and may start one of their own denominations in the United States of America, or join one of the thousands already available, one of which is bound to agree with their view.

These debates are like sooo 4th century, man.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, and I'm waiting for 4th century punishments to make their reappearance for those who bring them up as well, like burning at the stake.

People are much more literate and less willing to accept authority today, which is why something like The DaVinci Code has found a universal appeal. We all know, or should know, The DaVinci Code is a work of fiction, yet when we explore just a little, we find that part of it is true, there is more to the Christian tradition than just the works found in the New Testament. And yes, those in power don't want you to know about those texts. What better way to attract people to them? Once people start down that road, even if they completely reject the texts not in the New Testament, what happens if they then explore the origin of the NT texts and discover that some pretty important parts were added on?

I think it's pretty clear that this is a road Christian leaders really don't want their followers going down, not because anything in The DaVinci Code is true but that there are too many hard to answer questions that are bound to come up if people start asking questions about the beginnings of Christianity.

[Zygote]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hey guys. This just in :

There is no God, religion is a creation of man. Since there seems to be a little confusion about this I just thought I'd let you all know.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the update. If you are correct, when we will die, you will not have the satisfaction to tell me "I've told you so." However, if I am correct, than I am really going to rub it in good.

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe in god but i believe that when we die he is going to punish those who abided by judeo-christian morality. so if we die, and i'm correct, then i can say i told you so.

Questions:
Do both our i told you so's cancel off?
Does Pascals wager really make any sense?