Brou’ha ha on “The Da Vinci Code”

...Somewhere among the posts... its written.....
``We have become victim of the written word ``

.... Have any one heard Old songs..... Now there is a new version of them....its
Called Remixes........

..... without adequate knowledge of Chiristanity......and have not actually read the book...
But have read a lot of reviews........ I consider it as a `` REMIX ``

Re: # 23
Now you`ve got to tell me who the female nicks are, I`m curious!!!

AlpaNull:24

Names,Alpha-Null names.

Deconstructionism gives one the illusion of acquiring ``knowledge``. We have become prisoners of the written word & perhaps that is supposed to be our Destiny.

It is his mythology, your cult and my religion.

Even if there is `historical` existence (of anyone) as opposed to `mythological` existence it is still OUR understanding within the prevailing contexts of Time & Space. It has become our lot. It is US now.

A whole ``science`` of ids & libidos was concocted and `life` was breathed into them so that they became sacred, hallowed, spiritual in the corridors of ``science``.
Whole generations of innocents were crucified at the altar of this religion & on the behest of its `prophet`. The sacraments were Research & Experiment.

Perhaps unbeknown to us a similar Faustian opera is going on around us. Perhaps we have hallowed the priests(not mullahs!) of science to the point of divinity. Maybe a day will come when all this would be ``mythology``. When most of the younger generation thinks itself to be `superior` to the one before it, then just imagine how much increasingly stupid would we look to, say, ten generations from now. Maybe the most `advanced` way to live then would be exactly as some aborgines live in the jungles today. Maybe the city dwellers will then be called the equivalents of rats & cockroaches--the lower, downtrodden , trailer-trash ones.

Lots of amybes--but we are intellectuals, word-wizards, calculators. We are burdened by books. How is it possible, we conclude, that without discussions, debates, and `analysis` we can `know` something new. It is beyond us to comprehend that in solitude & without the urban din one CAn read Nature & do so without a purpose, without an ulterior motive, without the urge to exploit & ruin.

We despise the street urchin until he becomes a billionair & wreaks vengeance upon society. Is it not always the ones from outside the `system` , the drop-outs, who end up hiring the Harvard MBA`s or Engineers. We as humans punish those who are capable of independant thought or action. Of course once they out-establish the establishment we wag our tails to get ourselves photographed with him. What does it tell about us? That sir we are really not THAT much interested in knowledge as we[yes that is you & me] fancy ourselves or brag about to the `street-urchins`.

In this two-solitude world of alphabets & numerals, it is these definitions and these digitisation which are really the bane & frustration of humankind. How can that which we created as a convention would be able to reveal to us what our true intent is. The means do not know the End. The tool or instrument does not know the Design.

My point is that we all are a sum-total of our past & no matter what words we assign to what we are trying to say it is the cards we have been dealt with within the Time, Matter & Space capsule called our being and whatever we are endeavouring [Killing as well as Caring] we seem to be not doing it of our own volition.

and I will leave it here lest this musing drifts into my religion.

The Di Vinci Code is like a joke. And really wonder why we are making such a noise about it? It is just good, imaginative fiction that has bothered the Church. So I wonder how many of us go to a church to actually defend it or blast it?

I read this book only because the blurb said it was better than Umberto Eco`s ``The Name of the Rose``. And ofcourse my interests in cryptography made me dwell into it further. However, the pleasant surprise was evident in the end when I found that it was about how Christianity (and other Semitic Religions) may have tried to promote the obvious Tribal Patrairchy of the revealed religions. Ofcourse the theme is old but I liked the treatment as a re-mix of cryptography , semiotics and thriller.
Good thing was that it touched upon the politics behind the great religious orders when they competed for the temporal benefits in the course of the power struggle within the papalry . I welcome this book as it was a nice and credible attempt at an alternative historiography of the sacred religions (after Marx and other Historical Materialists) - a subject of great importance which has always been disregarded by the popular culture of this sub-continent.

Haven`t read The Code. I have however read Holy Blood Holy Grail which I understand The Code cites extensively.
Christianity is really Paulism 4 it was Paul who made it into a religion and gave it its mythology. John with his apocalyptic vision infused meanspiritedness into an otherwise harmless cult. Now we have all these deluded souls holding candles outside a hospice center in Florida.

I have not read Brown’s book and probably won’t read it. I suspect that the ruckus over the book is overblown and misdirected. Speculations about the circumstances of Christ’s birth, his paternity, his relationship with Mary Magdalene, whether he died on the cross etc. are all old hat and have appeared in print before. All this while there is little or no evidence that a historical character corresponding to the Christ of the Gospels ever existed.

The suppressed truth about the origins of the Christian faith may actually be far more scandalous, explosive and damaging to literalist Christianity and its successors than the stuff in ‘The Da Vinci Code’. The conventional account of the origins of Christianity can be paraphrased by saying that it arose as a schismatic Jewish sect in Palestine of the first century AD and incorporated elements of Hellenized philosophy and culture over the course of several centuries, while gradually spreading through the Roman empire. This is a view about the history of belief that can be held whether or not one is in any sense a Christian, believes in a historical Jesus, or indeed has any religious faith.

There is an alternative hypothesis, according to which Christianity began - not as a Hellenized version of a 1st century AD Judaic sect – but rather, as a Judaized version of the Pagan Mystery religions that predominated in the Roman Empire and in most of the ancient Mediterranean World in the centuries before and after the supposed birth of Christ. In this view, early Christian practioners never regarded the familiar Christian mysteries – Virgin Birth of Christ, assorted miracles like changing water into wine, Resurrection after Death on the Cross, Ascension into Heaven, etc. – in any but a metaphorical and symbolic sense; they knew very well that there was no historical Jesus. Christian scriptures – specifically the Gospels, of which there were over a hundred – were meant to be understood as parable and allegorical myth, not as literalist history.

This view neatly accounts for some well-known facts that would otherwise be very difficult to explain causally. The most significant are that the myth of the Mystery god Osiris-Dionysus - god made man, born of a mortal virgin, surrounded by 12 disciples, turning water into wine, crucified, dying to take away the sins of the world, being resurrected etc - prefigured Christianity by several centuries. According to this view, the Hellenized Jew Saul of Tarshish (Paul) was a genuine and key historical figure in the synthesis of the original Christian faith from Pagan mysticism and Jewish tradition. Metaphorical-mythical-mystical – gnostic – Christianity – coexisted with a literalist version for a couple of centuries before that brutal Roman emperor Constantine came down decisively in favour of the literalist camp and made literalist Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire.

So it’s quite likely that Christianity was really intended as a sophisticated metaphorical Pagan religion, not a silly literalist revealed Judaic faith. The supression of this history may have led to untold human suffering over nearly two millennia.

(sorry for this digression gill sahib)

hamidm:

click on this link (you will have to sign in on chowk to access)… HERE

this is the filth our infamous abdul-hate the purveyor of morality and islam aka as echoboom writes as chusni unprovocatively on the unplugged section of off the wall…and FYI he also interacts under some female nicks as well…

so much for his righteous indignations and call to islam for now ….

rgds

t

Re: # 19

gill sahib,

............. you don`t know much fun i could with your revelations about paul !.......... but i won`t because the weatherman has predicted thunderstorms in our area !

..... but as an aside - do you realize how silly we look discussing all this stuff so seriously ?

Delhiwala had mentioned Paul. The following information about Paul is abstracted from Bishop John Shelby Spong’s “Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism.” Paul was a first century Jewish convert to Christianity.

Spong wrote (p.82), “In time that community would enshrine the letters of this man within the corpus of its own sacred story and call them Holy Scriptures. Then the line that divided the words of this Paul from what was thought to be the Word of God would begin to fade.”

Spong opens chapter 7 of his book, The Man from Tarsus”, i.e., Paul, with nine quotations from his letters. I give hereunder only one for the sake of brevity:

“…Let her wear a veil. For a man ought not to cover his head since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. (Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.)” (1Cor. 11:6-9)

So Christian veil is older than Islamic hijab.

After giving this quotation, Spong asks, “Is this Word of the Lord? As such these verses would certainly present us in this age with problems. But those words make no claim to be words of God. They are rather the words of Paul, a first century Jewish convert to Christianity…”

Woman was created from Adam’s ribs while man was created in the image of God. Man-child is baptized while a girl doesn’t need any baptism.

Paul was a complex and a tortured man. There is no evidence that he married. He hated women. He had written that if one could not exercise self-control, that person should marry. He had also written that “it is wise not to touch a woman.”

He himself had strong sexual urges which he wrote about in several letters. Spong theorized that Paul was mortified by homosexual urges although he did not indulge in them. Spong wrote (p.116), “ The passion that burned so deeply in Paul did not seem to be related to the desire for union with a woman. Why would that desire create such negativity in Paul anyway? Marriage, married love, and married sexual desire were not thought to be evil or loathsome. Paul’s sexual passions do not fit comfortably into this explanatory pattern. But what does? … Some have suggested that Paul was sexually impotent. That theory does not fit the data. Others have suggested that Paul may have been sexually abused in his childhood…..Still others have suggested that Paul was plagued by homosexual fears….”

At another place (p.104) Spong wrote, “Paul’s words are not the words of God. They are the words of Paul – a vast difference. Those who try to elevate Paul’s words into being what they cannot be will finally discard Paul’s words in the dustbin of antiquity.”

Remember Spong was a bishop. Unless we remove the decorative skin covering of the Gospels and view them objectively, the reality will remain hidden.

Mohammad Gill

irfanhamid:

I did not go into the Knights Templar stuff intentionally. It needed a lot of space in order to explain this secret society adequately. I was content to make a short reference to the secret societies. Had I taken Knoghts Templars, I couldn`t have avoided discussing Priori of Sion and Opus Dei. I thought readers like you would bring them out and shed light on them.

Mohammad Gill

Nice treatment of a popular book. Just a couple of observations:

1. Maybe you should have inserted a spoiler warning at the beginning for those who haven`t read the book yet (luckily I had read it before). For someone who hadn`t read the book your article pretty much lays it bare (specially with the reference that the chalice is a woman).

2. You didn`t treat the issue of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon (or the Knights Templar as they are known). It was this Papal order of knights that protected christian pilgrims during the time of the Crusades when they travelled to Jerusalem from Europe. It is they who are supposed to have discovered the holy grail in King Solomon`s lost tomb when they turned it into their secret headquarters. They were later prosecuted and killed by European kings because of their wealth. According to some legends the few surviving Templars changed their name to Freemasons and renounced christianity because the Pope at the time had conspired with the French and British emperors to trap the Templars.

Regards,
Irfan.

PS: Most of the information in point (2) is from a lengthy program on the Knights Templar that was aired on Discovery which I saw about 6 years ago so some of the details may be rusty (or just plain wrong).

gill sahib,

.......it is nice of you to say, ``You are probably on a surer ground than I am.``......... heck no!........ but unlike you, i gave up searching for the truth a long time ago and decided to believe in everything regarless of how outlandish it might seem - there is no point in tempting the gods .....

........... and i do enjoy your articles - keep them coming

hamidm2:
My intention was not to offend you or any body else. I am not expert in Christian history. I am slowly learning my facts. You are probably on a surer ground than I am. My point is that we should scrutinize what we have been led to believe blindly. I am writing this post to assure you that I didn`t intend any offense to you. I might write another post to bring some more facts and issues for consideration and discussion.


By the way, gabby brought the verses which I had quoted in my earlier post that ``God begetes no body...`` Wishing you well,

Mohammad Gill

gill sahib,

...... in case you are wondering, i wrote you the earlier letter because you said, ``The biological father of Christ was not known.``............ i was deeply offended but we will let it go for now.....

urstruly,

joseph the carpenter

i read the book a month or so ago and tried to figure out how factual it was and what inaccuracies it had...ill leave my own opinion aside but i wish i`d have found this book in the NON-FICTION section, to give it more credibility against those who oppose it here in boston.
anyways, carry on chowkies. i want to see a conclusion/agreement reached about how factual this book really is...and what part of it is mere speculation and untrue.