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Da Vinci Code, 2
Topic Started: May 21 2006, 09:34 AM (651 Views)
Justine
Member
ps, I just read Angels and Demons. It was entertaining not as good as the Code, but maybe because they are similar and I get bored with that sort of thing.
I also laughed out loud at a really crappy line of writing. I believe it was something like
"the wind blew through her almond scented hair and suddenly his mind wandered" and this is after the " heroine" had been awake over 24 hrs and not washed. :floorrollin:
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TexasShadow
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Jane
maybe she was using 24 hour deodorant? ;)
Posted Image "A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."
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DocInBird
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I wish that I had read "angels and demons" first. It would have explained a lot of things.
--doc
Just Doc and Orson (German Shepherd) wandering around North America.
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Justine
May 23 2006, 11:34 PM
I believe in alot of things I can't see, or understand.
I don't understand the wind, and I don't see it, and when wind and air currents are explained to me, it still doesn't make sence. But, I believe in the wind.

Just because I don't understand something, doesn't make it not real.
Just because I don't see something, or have " proof" I can understand, doens't make it not real.

Proof is in interesting term, I mean many scientific therories are supposed to be
" proved" but, have they ever produced " proof" of the Big Bang" or just supported therories?

I do see "proof " that God exists, you may not understand my " proof" , it may not take a form you consider understandable. Thats ok.

Justine, what you say mixes meanings and metaphors. You may not see or understand wind but it is felt and its effects readily observed by all and despite your not knowing there are quite simple explanations of how it works. None of that requires proof, science is not about proof the way religion is. The same is simply not true of the leap of faith required for what you believe. It is all captured in your words:
Quote:
 
I do see "proof " that God exists, you may not understand my " proof" , it may not take a form you consider understandable. Thats ok.
That's exactly what personal belief is about, it is personal. I do not share your belief, I doubt you can communicate it or that I or anyone could really fully understand--it's not important because it is personal. But the wind, everyone knows it, everyone experiences it, it moves meters.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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ngc1514
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Justine
May 24 2006, 12:37 AM
ps, I just read Angels and Demons. It was entertaining not as good as the Code, but maybe because they are similar and I get bored with that sort of thing.
I also laughed out loud at a really crappy line of writing. I believe it was something like
"the wind blew through her almond scented hair and suddenly his mind wandered" and this is after the " heroine" had been awake over 24 hrs and not washed. :floorrollin:

While I haven't read anything by Danielle Steel (is that her name?) or many of the other authors who make the NYT Best Seller list, Dan Brown is - without a doubt - the worst author I've read who hit #1 on that list. I mean.. the guy actually used "jaw dropped!" He is an author in need of a new and MUCH better editor.

His "Deception Point" was even worse.
Posted ImageEric
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DocInBird
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ngc1514
May 24 2006, 12:09 PM
His "Deception Point" was even worse.


I must agree with you that Deception Point was not well written.
--doc
Just Doc and Orson (German Shepherd) wandering around North America.
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ngc1514
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It's not every day a movie critique can reduce me to gales of laughter, but the New Yorker Magazine's review of "The Da Vinci Code" was just too funny to not mention here.

A few outtakes:

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A dead Frenchman is found laid out on the floor of the Louvre. His final act was to carve a number of bloody markings into his own flesh, indicating, to the expert eye, that he was preparing to roll in fresh herbs and sear himself in olive oil for three minutes on each side.


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Help arrives in the shape of Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), a police cryptographer. She turns out to be the granddaughter of the deceased, and a dab hand at reversing down Paris streets in a car the size of a pissoir.


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He works for Opus Dei, the Catholic organization so intensely secretive that its American headquarters are tucked away in a seventeen-story building on Lexington Avenue.


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Second, one’s natural reaction to arm-twisters of any description is to wriggle free, turn around, and kick them in the pentacles.[/quote

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There has been much debate over Dan Brown’s novel ever since it was published, in 2003, but no question has been more contentious than this: if a person of sound mind begins reading the book at ten o’clock in the morning, at what time will he or she come to the realization that it is unmitigated junk? The answer, in my case, was 10:00.03, shortly after I read the opening sentence: “Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.” With that one word, “renowned,” Brown proves that he hails from the school of elbow-joggers—nervy, worrisome authors who can’t stop shoving us along with jabs of information and opinion that we don’t yet require.


The whole thing can be found here.
Posted ImageEric
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TexasShadow
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Jane
granted it's a lightweight piece of work..
it's also entertaining to some (or many, as it appears to be)
people who read this book hoping for some proof (finally) that the catholic church is, indeed, a devilish sect run by knaves, will be disappointed (once again) upon finding out that the author's "proofs" are fictional.
Posted Image "A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."
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ngc1514
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TexasShadow
May 30 2006, 02:38 PM
granted it's a lightweight piece of work..
it's also entertaining to some (or many, as it appears to be)
people who read this book hoping for some proof (finally) that the catholic church is, indeed, a devilish sect run by knaves, will be disappointed (once again) upon finding out that the author's "proofs" are fictional.

There is a huge difference between a "lightweight piece of work" and an absolutely awful piece of writing from a purely stylistic view. The book, and the other piece of Dan Brown writing I tried to read - "Deception Point" - are just bloody terrible. Any author whot uses, or editor who lets pass "His jaw dropped" needs to be taken to the wall.


From the review:

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Should we mind that forty million readers—or, to use the technical term, “lemmings”—have followed one another over the cliff of this long and laughable text? I am aware of the argument that, if a tale has enough grip, one can for a while forget, if not forgive, the crumbling coarseness of the style; otherwise, why would I still read “The Day of the Jackal” once a year? With “The Da Vinci Code,” there can be no such excuse. Even as you clear away the rubble of the prose, what shows through is the folly of the central conceit,  and, worse still, the pride that the author seems to take in his theological presumption. How timid—how undefended in their powers of reason—must people be in order to yield to such preening? Are they reading “The Da Vinci Code” because everybody on the subway is doing the same, and, if so, why, when they reach their stop, do they not realize their mistake and leave it on the seat, to be gathered up by the next sucker?


Is it any surprise that one of the fastest growing literary trends in the United States are "graphic novels?" Comic books for adults.

Don't get me wrong, I love "light" reading as much as the next person. Heck, I just finished Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series and he's never going to take a Pulitzer or Nobel prize for literature, but he can turn a phrase and, unlike Brown, doesn't use every cliche in existence. "Jaw dropped" indeed!


This thread should, most likely, be in the "Dumbing down of America" thread.
Posted ImageEric
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abradf2519
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Please forgive me for mot reading through this entire thread. I just wanted to comment on the DaVinci Code.

I read the book! I also must admit that I liked it and could not put it down until I was done. My taste in books is not cultured, if it holds my interest, its a good book.

I will say that the author had no real knowledge of the New Testiment. In the book, one of the characters, Teabing, went on and on about the New Testiment and what was in there. The character was wrong in his characterisation. For example, he implied that all things Catholic are in the new Testiment. This is wrong. The preisthood, the mass, veneration of Mary, etc. are not descibed in the new testiment at all. Also, the Teabing character said that the New Testiment slandered Mary Magnoline. This isn't true either. Nothing negative is said about her. In fact, she is praised by Jesus in the Gospels. It is mentioned that she was a prostitute, but only as a matter of fact, to prove that Jesus accepted everyone, and forgave even the sin of prostitution.

The real funny thing (to me) is the book's assertion that the Catholic Church wants to stop the worship of the "goddess" (Mary Magnoline). The Catholic Church actually venerates Mary, the mother of Jesus. Catholics are told to pray to her. Prodistant and other Christian churches reject this, because to us, this is nothing more that worship of the "goddess"! Just a different "Mary".
Alan
Milan, New York, USA
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TexasShadow
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Jane
Quote:
 
The real funny thing (to me) is the book's assertion that the Catholic Church wants to stop the worship of the "goddess" (Mary Magnoline). The Catholic Church actually venerates Mary, the mother of Jesus. Catholics are told to pray to her. Prodistant and other Christian churches reject this, because to us, this is nothing more that worship of the "goddess"! Just a different "Mary


this is where Brown got himself sued by the authors of The Bloodline of the Holy Grail. (good read, too, better than DaVinci Code)
The authors of this one maintain that the "worship" of Mary began as veneration of Mary Magdalene because, as Jesus' wife and mother of His children, her womb was the holy grail.. the vessel of the holy bloodline.

in my opinion, the veneration of Mary, Mother of Jesus, comes from the converted Celts of Europe whose chief god was the goddess, the earth mother, but we shouldn't look at this as wrong or bad because we all know that God is not male or female, but humans relate to God that way. To deny the female aspects of God is just as false as denying the male aspects, and neither is really the whole truth anyway. :)
Posted Image "A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."
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DocInBird
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I really enjoyed both of the books in the series, but agree that his previous novel didn't make the grade.

If the Roman Catholic Church has no secrets, then why not let scholars into the Vatican Archives? This is the church that ordered the systematic murder of the Essenes (from which "John the Baptist" came, the gnostics (for whom a student had to produce a miracle in order to prove his worthyness), and many many others.

Some Roman Cathoic power-monger said, "Kill them all", and the Roman Army (never known for its itelligence) went out there and murdered almost all of them.

The Roman Catholic Church, does have a secret archive that is not available to outsiders. This is well proven. I have the credentials, yet I am not allowed to view even the outside level because I have not sworn a vow to protect them. Even those researcher who swear the vow, can only get to a few of the tens of thousands of items in the archives. No one, except certain priests are allowed to delve deeper. And even they run up against the stone wall of the Vatican Archives.

If these archives support their church, why would they not want everyone to know about it? But the wall has become thicker, since the book came out. Fewer researchers are allowed in, and the proof that they are RC loyalists has become more stringent. Chris can show you the proof of that.

Did they actually retrieve some wisdom from the burning of the library at Alexandria, that proved them wrong? I doubt it. What we know is that the term "pope" came from political means. It does not appear in the Bible, even as mangled as it became after the "church" decided what holy books it wanted and which ones disagreed with the human enterprise. Why do they choose to be so secretive and why in the world in the pope opposed to tampons?
--doc
Just Doc and Orson (German Shepherd) wandering around North America.
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Doc, the proof lies with Opus Dei.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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