The DaVinci Code?

I'm interested in getting people's opinions on this controversial movie/book.
I am a Christian but at the same time I have fought for this country and I believe in the freedom we have fought for. My opinion on it is 50/50 cuz of my believe in freedom of speech but I also dont believe in blasphemy... I'm still undecided but I wanted to know how others felt. Please express points of view in a respectable manner: no insulting, bereating, demeaning, offending, or flaming of religions or opinions, thank you.

 

For your reference, Junky's Jungle is for VF related stuff. This belongs in General discussion; I'm sure a mod will move it.

I read the book about 2 years ago, I enjoyed it. I hope to see the movie next week. I went to buy Dan Brown's earlier work, "Demons and Angels" and I hope that it may one day be adapted to film.

The theories mentioned in DaVinci Code are definetly nothing new to the public.As a Christian, I see it as fiction and nothing to get riled up about.

 

I liked it (the movie) and it was made all the more satisfying because, when the movie ended and people were leaving the cinema, all I heard were people complaining that they 'didn't get it' or that it was too complicated, which I thought was pretty sad, given most of the story is spoonfed to you in dialogue.
I also figured out near the beginning that the chick following Tom Hanks around was the last decendent.

Good movie though, I liked Sir Ian's performance too.

 

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I see it as fiction and nothing to get riled up about.

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my thoughts exactly. when I bought the book it was in the fiction section, why should anyone take it as anything other? Don't know if I can be arsed seeing the film, but if I do then it's only to see Audrey /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

Yes, the most prominant ideas in the Da Vinci Code were released on the public in the 80's in the book "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" where some historians pose the question if if were ever possible that Jesus fathered a child etc... Their work was attacked by Christians the world over yet all they were doing was presenting an idea (radical as it may seem to some, obvious it may seem to others).

Thing is, take Dan Brown's book with a very big pinch of salt. The things he loves to pass of as "facts" on the intro section aren't necessarily so. Holy Blood and Holy Grail takes great lengths to propose a hypothesis connecting such things as secret societies, the Knights Templar, the Priory of Zion/Sion, Freemasonary, the Merovingian bloodline, Jesus etc etc. I.E. they are simply suggesting an idea, based on historical evidence (even if the evidence is unclear). Brown uses these connections seemingly as pure fact in his book.

Bear in mind, in the intro to Angels and Demons, Brown talks very incoherently (but thankfully briefly) about matter and anti-matter and their "differences" (he obviously didn't do his homework well enough to properly describe anti-matter) and the crux of the piece is that the Illuminati have constructed an "anti-matter bomb". This is physically impossible.

So just go with the flow and take it as a fun conspiracy thriller story.

I've not seen the film yet but I'm going to try catch it at the weekend.

 

It seems entirely plausible that jesus might have married + had kids, if he was even real at all. As for everything else the movie gets into, we already know the catholic church is evil but beyond that *shrug*. Not worth speculating over. Masons ar emore of a threat! *snicker*

Personally i think Christianity is the conspiracy theory, and jesus christ is the fiction.

ps: <font color="red"> flame shield activated </font>

 

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Vith_Dos said:

It seems entirely plausible that jesus might have married + had kids, if he was even real at all. </font>

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Yeah, that's what I was suggesting above...however, "the idea" is seen as plausible to some (gotta love conspiracies) but to those who are particularly Christian it is completely unthinkable.

After all the controversy of the book release tho, only a handful of devoutly religious people showed up to condemn the film release in Cannes.

The critics pretty much hated it, even those who'd enjoyed the book...but then again I don't give a damn about a critics opinion in general.

 

That's an interesting p.o.v., Vith Dos. Before I got into Christianity my theory was that Jesus was just a man that thought that he was THE son of God and I think that back in those times when people had a lot of crazy notions and ideas, he developed a following that hyped up what they thought were miracles... there's more to my theory but I wont get into it, my point is it took me a while to believe in what I believe in now and what these people protesting this film need to understand is that if someone truly believes in Christianity then it should take more than a movie/book to make their conviction waiver.

So many films are based on fiction, science-fiction, history-fiction, and now that these religion-fiction movies keep getting made people want to get mad about it. It's like they dont understand that not everybody that makes any movie based on anything from the Bible is going to get it 100% accurate, they are going to spice it up or put their own spin on it, dont get me wrong, I dont agree with blasphemy but I do believe that The DaVinci Code and many more movies like it are inevitable.
There WILL be more of these movies made, after all the money that Passion of The Christ raked in and now The DaVinci Code, many more movies like these will come.

 

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tonyfamilia said:
these people protesting this film need to understand is that if someone truly believes in Christianity then it should take more than a movie/book to make their conviction waiver.


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Yes, this is very true and seems very simple in concept but almost impossible for strongly religious people (be they Christians, Muslims, Hindus etc...) to accept.

Just look at the worldwide madness that the cartoon depictions of Allah and prophets created only a few months back...Muslims the world over went insane about them.

If Islam is the one true faith, why would a cartoon picture, drawn by someone who doesn't follow your faith, cause you to kick up the immense trouble that happened?

I don't have any answers to why people reacted like they did, just pointing out that it's not always easy for people to just ignore something that says something negative about their religion, regardless of how big or small.

 

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LM_Akira said:

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tonyfamilia said:
these people protesting this film need to understand is that if someone truly believes in Christianity then it should take more than a movie/book to make their conviction waiver.


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Yes, this is very true and seems very simple in concept but almost impossible for strongly religious people (be they Christians, Muslims, Hindus etc...) to accept.

Just look at the worldwide madness that the cartoon depictions of Allah and prophets created only a few months back...Muslims the world over went insane about them.

If Islam is the one true faith, why would a cartoon picture, drawn by someone who doesn't follow your faith, cause you to kick up the immense trouble that happened?

I don't have any answers to why people reacted like they did, just pointing out that it's not always easy for people to just ignore something that says something negative about their religion, regardless of how big or small.

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You have to take into account the environment the people live in and are accustomed to. In the western world people get their ideas challenged all the time because of the simultaneous existence of free speech, press, and religion. Muslims tend to live in places where they have neither. Because of that they don't get their religious ideas challenged that often, so you would expect them to be over-react when they get the slightest challenge to their religous ideas.

After someone tells you that there is no God or that there is God a few thousand times you learn to disregard them and believe what you want to believe in spite of them. Most Muslims in the Middle East never learn to do that because no one would dare say that there is no God, out loud in their country.

If the DaVinci Code was a movie telling an admittedly fictious story saying that Muhammed was not a prophet, Hanks and Howard would both be afraid for their life Because Muslims often kill what they consider blasphemers. They are actually beginning to suppress our freedom of speech and press from afar.

 

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Darrius_Cole said:

You have to take into account the environment the people live in and are accustomed to. In the western world people get their ideas challenged all the time because of the simultaneous existence of free speech, press, and religion. Muslims tend to live in places where they have neither. Because of that they don't get their religious ideas challenged that often, so you would expect them to be over-react when they get the slightest challenge to their religous ideas.

After someone tells you that there is no God or that there is God a few thousand times you learn to disregard them and believe what you want to believe in spite of them. Most Muslims in the Middle East never learn to do that because no one would dare say that there is no God, out loud in their country.

If the DaVinci Code was a movie telling an admittedly fictious story saying that Muhammed was not a prophet, Hanks and Howard would both be afraid for their life Because Muslims often kill what they consider blasphemers. They are actually beginning to suppress our freedom of speech and press from afar.

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You're absolutely right, I never thought about it from their perspective, how our freedom of speech upsets them so much. While out in Iraq, on Operation Freedom II, I realized that some of the ideals and ways that countries such as these have had are ancient, like having a large amount of weapons in your house, this is the norm over there. It was part of our job to do random searches and make sure that everybody was abiding by the new rules and laws that we, along with Iraq officials, had established. Now, they are only allowed one AK-47 and one magazine clip per household. Violence is and has always been a part of their culture, when a thief got caught stealing they would chop his hand off but now we've changed that and there are a lot of people against all of the changes that America has brought upon their country. They describe it as someone coming inside of your house and telling you that you cant beat your kids when they do something wrong, but using that same metaphor they were not just beating them and I'm glad that we intervened. In retrospect, I think that in comparison to how a religious group like the Muslims would have reacted to this movie, Christians responded rather well.
You bring up an interesting point about how they are, in a way, censoring us but quite honestly, I'd hate to see a movie like The DaVinci Code made about their religion, it would be very ugly indeed.