The Da Vinci Code

[j$]

Absolutely agree with you Rabid, especially since it's about a book, but equally one shouldn't get shouty when someone replies to that hard-on in a way other than the one you were expecting. I would reccommend trying to rephrase your message in a more acceptable form, if you believe that strongly in it.

We are a contentious lot, indeed. I've been a shouter, and I've been on the condescending end too, and s'truth I like being on the noisy end better, meself.

I just like a good discussion, and I'm guilty on occasion of posting leading responses to encourage one.

PS it occured to me for the first time on reading the bit you quoted above that it might not be clear that the 'you' is a general 'you' not a direct or personal suggestion! I actually changed the first 'you' to 'one' for that reason but in retrospect it might make matters worse, not better.

j$

[Jim of Seattle]

Yeah... Da Vinci Code.... good book....

[JonPorobil]

For what it's worth, I'm not hating on Sober for liking The Da Vinci Code, I'm hating on him for trying to defend it by calling it nonfiction and saying "fuck" repeatedly, as though that would convince anybody of anything.

[Sober]

A: I never called it nonfiction.

B: Fuck fuckitty fuck.

[john m]

I guess I'll start now: John M, Drew Tetz, Poncho: Nothing you ever say will ever be correct, because you are younger than me. Wow, that feels pretty good. Now I understand why you do it all the time.

Man, I'm even in threads to which I pay no attention.

Also, I'm pretty sure my always being right overrides your age advantage. Either that or it's one of those unstoppable force vs. immovable object scenarios. Except with no answer.

[Sober]

Also, I'm pretty sure my always being right overrides your age advantage.

That's exactly why I mentioned you.

[c hack]

Sober: go read Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces" and come back when your viewpoint has progressed beyond 19-year-old spit and bile.

C Hack - could you give us a quick blurb on that one please. I've never heard of it and I'm too lazy to look it up on Amazon

No. But I can give a long one. It's, at its most basic, a dissection of the hero myth and comparison across as many cultures as Campbell was able to study (which is like, all of them). But he waxes loquacious about anything tangentially related to it and the book winds up as a wave of amazing shit that's hard to wrap your head around, but like a slap in the face when you do.

Before reading it, I, like Sober, wondered about how much truth there was in the Bible (though I didn't act like an ass about, IIRC). Campbell makes an interesting assertion: to say a myth (like the crucifixion) is true cheapens it. Whether it's true or not. And to say it never happened is to miss the point completely. Myths are true in a sense larger than fact or fiction. Now some myths (like Noah and the flood) are pretty obvious "tall tales," while some (like the Crucifixion) have historical precendent, but it's totally irrelevant. What's important is what they mean to you today.

Most people brush off mythology as a branch of anthropology, and many brush off religion as the study of fantasy, or worse (like Sober did), a big scam. But things like the Bible, the Gita, etc., they address issues that are greater than life-and-death, issues that are all too often ignored.

An example: the story of creation goes that man and woman were created in the garden of eden and told not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They were like animals, in that there was no good or bad, stuff just happened. This is the same as what Chuang Tzu (started daoism) refers to when he talks about "the men of old." Then Eve, tempted by the serpent, ate from the tree, and Adam had some too. Then they were banished from the garden, and two angels were put to guard the entrance.

So whats the point of that? Is it to just tell you how the world was created, like a science book? Not even close. When you understand it at a fundamental level, you come that much closer to understanding your place in this world, why there is pain and suffering, and what needs to be done to get away from it. The garden is a paradise that's inside us all. It's like Nirvana. What's keeping us out of the garden? The knowledge of good and evil. Duality. What do Buddhist monks put so much effort into getting beyond? Duality. This is how they can immolate themselves and remain seated, and how they can sleep in snow with only a light blanket -- they've gone beyond the duality of hot and cold. The angels (2 of them) that guard the gate to Eden represent this duality. When you defeat them you can (like Joni Mitchell sang) get back to the garden.

At least, as far as I understand it. I could be wrong.

Here's a simpler example: Cuchulainn, an Irish hero, was as a youth set off on an impossible journey to a warrior woman to be taught supernatural fighting arts. On the way there was a plain that on the first half your feet would get stuck and on the second half the grass would rise up and grab your feet. But a youth appeared and gave Cuchulainn a wheel and an apple. Across the first part, Cuchulainn rolled the wheel in front of him, and along the second part, the apple. As long as he stayed on the path they made, he'd be safe. Campbell says "This is to be read as symbolic and instructive of the miracle of destiny. To a man not led astray from himself by sentiments stemming from the surfaces of what he sees, but courageously responding to the dynamics of his own nature -- to a man who is, as Nietzsche phrases it, 'a wheel rolling of itself' -- difficulties melt and the unpredictible highway opens as he goes."

[Eric Y.]

<RabidGarfunkel> So Sober got an intellectual hard-on from a book that showed him a different way of looking at things. So he wanted to bang on the tables and swing from the rafters and shout at the top of his lungs "Hey! Check this out! This is coooooooooool!" Big frelling deal. Good on ya, man. Don't ever stop getting those hard-ons.
* tviyh changes the topic to 'Shaving in the Dark, Moon Shine - due Monday 10/25/04 9:59am pdt | <RabidGarfunkel> Don't ever stop getting those hard-ons.'

[john m]

What is said in IRC...

[Caravan Ray]

stuff
[."

Thanks - I shall investigate further

[Eric Y.]

What is said in IRC...

but that was said earlier in this thread. it was just such a good quote, though, i had to change the (thread) topic to reflect it :>

[john m]

Oh, there it is. Like I said, I wasn't really reading this thread.

Resume jokery.

[Guest]

Dan Brown = an author with excellent ideas, stories, and research methods.

Dan Brown also = a very very very mediocre author.

He will go far in Hollywood.

I thought the DiVinci Code was a fun, good read for the three reasons listed at the top of this post. I enjoyed it and would recomend it as a fun, fast, enjoyable read with boring, cliche characters and average writing.

If you really want to get into the realm of amazing writing with brilliant characters and tremendiously though provoking results, may I recommend "Vernon God Little" by DBC Pierre.

[prayformojo]

oops...

the previous post was by prayformojo, not "guest"

[Gazelles]

hyperbole

I learned what that word meant in English. If you don't acknowledge me as being as smart as all of you because of that, then you must feel the full wrath of my teenage angst!

[erik]

He will go far in Hollywood.

I've heard it posited that he wrote the book only to sell the movie rights, that is to say, he really didn't really care about making it well written as much as he wanted to make it popular.

[Freudian Slip]

Literature / writing hopefully informs, inspires but also creates dialogue. There's a huge difference between discussing the points of a book and using someone else's work to tell people what the points of life are. J$

"Bang on, yo!" One of my all time favorite phrases is, "Question everything."

And with that-- My little contribution to the ongoing "joyful noise" is on the history of Christianity ... Ancient Christians had strong beliefs in magic, superstition, and talismans... There was a long, bloody road betweeen Jerusalem and Jimmy Swaggart and other great debates such as the earth being the center of the universe and "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?"...

The gospels/scrolls were originally written in Aramaic. Different parts as they were discovered/revised/ suppressed/ destroyed (Agnostic Gospels and the Apocrypha among them) were translated into probably no less than 5 languages by distinctly different cultures (including Jewish, Greek, Arab, Egyptian). *Centuries* before they became "familiar" to most "Modern Christians" as the "King James Version" of the Bible, which, if memory serves, Sir Francis Bacon was actually the final "author"/editor of. Bacon studied a number of cultural philosophies and was involved in Freemasonry and the Knights of Templar, among other,more obscure "factions" (secret societies) of the era. Religion even within it's own structure has always had its share of inner turmoil and revision to accomodate the culture it was supposed to "support and uphold".

C. Hack makes several decent points as well, fracas and general comments on "post juvenilism" aside (Cuz I can be a "third swing retarded teen" ANY day of the week right along with the rest of ya, maybe tomorrow, even-- But for right now I'm talking about the...) mythological/ cutural references and the way that religion is used to fascilitate structure and "place" in society. (He was obviously feeling more in the mood to type than I.)

Also, while I have varying levels of "agreement" with some of the conclusions presented, I would likely be among the first to agree that there are many "similarities" among the vast numbers of creation stories, myths, legends, and religions of the world. From the time we knew enough to think, people have been trying to find ways to explain the "inexplicable", define morality, place in society, provide "structure", etc.

I *could* point out the ways that religion of any given faith has been used as "justification" of action, illustrate how greed and genocide was "rationalized" to holy "endeavors"-- Allowing the "faithful and devout" to slaughter at will, acquire the style of living to which they "would like to become accustomed", all while still being able to "sit in the front pew at church". (Modify statement to fit religion/ historical event of choice.)

Whether you're talking about the Crusades, Galileo, slavery, terrorism, etc, etc. etc... History is written/ rewritten by the conquerors. So, what’s the difference between the word of God and the word of man? Guess that all depends on who you ask, what you believe, who you’re willing to kill and what you’re willing to die for, doesn’t it?
..But enough of my grist mill fodder... Go read something...

BTW-- I kinda liked the "DaVinci Code"...fun read.

[c hack]

He was obviously feeling more in the mood to type than I.

No, it's just that I had work to do and it was a good way to procrastinate

[Caravan Ray]

One of my all time favorite phrases is, "Question everything."

.

Yes, mine too. In fact, my wife and I had decided that our first child, if a boy, would be named 'Socrates' in celebration of this.

(As it turned out our first child born 4 months ago was a girl, called Harriet - probably a good thing in hindsight, I'd hate to think of what fun the kids at school would make of a non-Greek kid called 'Socrates')

[c hack]

sig

Hey, I take it you liked American Gods? I'm a huge Sandman fan, but Neverwhere came off like a cheap Crighton novel, so I haven't been too crazy about checking out his other books.

[mkilly]

I'm refusing to read Da Vinci Code on principle: namely, the principle that I have every faith it's terrible and the sort of trite filth that people read because they like clever things and they like to feel clever. I'd rather snuggle up to a dystopia novel than this, dumbed-down conspiracy nut shit written for the masses disguised as something worthy of my dollars.

Then, I haven't read it, and if I did read it I'd probably jizz all over it and become much like those I hate for jizzing all over it. So. I'll just continue to abstain from it. I dunno, generally I don't like things that have cultish devotion, or I like them much less than I find the cultish devotion warrants (Tori Amos comes to mind).

A good recent bestseller: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. Actually all of Sedaris's stuff is great. Maybe somebody should make a thread for that. Hm?

[Guest]

sig

Hey, I take it you liked American Gods? I'm a huge Sandman fan, but Neverwhere came off like a cheap Crighton novel, so I haven't been too crazy about checking out his other books.

God Omens = fucking genius!