Shooting the messenger is a cheap ploy,...

Dude..with all respect..I think you're simply insane.

What could "his specific reasons" could be? Exterminate muslims?
PUH LEAZE!

Hit a little too close did we?

"As far as 'murderous crusades,' I have stated more than once in past posts that the crusades had little to do with true Christianity. We have a powerful enemy on this earth called satan and he is extremely capable of twisting the most beneficial into evil, especially by using the minds of weak and sinful individuals."

Anyone who says this seriously is obviously a troll.

...and one that appears to be quite popular here.

Well boys, considering these normal religious and political oriented 'discussions' are the same old circle jerk with the same old players, shooting the messenger is particularly hazardous, haha.

I noticed you fellers pull the trigger often enough too.

DMT

Peculiar, yes...insane, hardly. Enlightened, definitely.

Dubya is hoping once the muslim masses are extinguished in a rain of nuclear fire, jesus will come down in his space ship and cart all the faithful off to Andromeda 5 or some s---.

Because the fringe elements call the shots and represent the whole group dude. If Christianity is such a peaceful religion, how come the people claiming to be christians in positions of power are so greedy, warlike, and well....un-christianlike?

Not really, no.

We are presented with two possibilities, and I'll happily grant that your idea is a possibility.

1. The person who wrote the passage from Luke really did know about Old Testament Judaism and was personally familiar with the places and customs described.

2. The person who wrote the passage somehow read the Old Testament (which was almost unavailable except to members of the Jewish religious hierarchy and was especially not available to gentiles) hundreds of years later but knew by some unspecified means that the practices described in that Old Testament were still in use in an area where he or she did not live prior to 70AD despite their having been discontinued ever since in some but not all areas.

Now, both are possible.

Which is more likely?

Ah, attacking the source and not the facts.

A pretty clear sign that you have no evidence to the contrary.

We'll take that as a clear verdict then: the New Testament is not fiction.

Thanks!

My god - that's even more of a stretch than Thorne's original quote.

Almost unavailable? WTF does that mean? Wouldn't a book that's so closely guarded as to be almost unavailable be pretty damn highly prized by any apikoras who managed to get their hands on it?

It's a funny thing about you, Dave. You seem to have this unshakeable belief that the people of those times were all morons or something.

Oh, and in reference to what percentage of the world's religious population is Christian - if you are going to make the claim the Roman Catholics are not Christian (which I don't see how you can), you have to cut a huge section out of your stats.

Alright, so the Bible has man created in the image of God, right?

the Judeo-Christian God is male

...and as far as your numbers and stats, numbers and stats are irrelevant in the context of Truth. If there was only one true believer in all of history, it wouldn't make Christ's life, death and ressurection for that one believer any less meaningless.

Still, it was entertaining for what it is, fiction.

The Da Vinci Code is a novel and therefore a work of fiction. While the book's characters and their actions are obviously not real, the artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals depicted in this novel all exist (for example, Leonardo Da Vinci's paintings, the Gnostic Gospels, Hieros Gamos, etc.). These real elements are interpreted and debated by fictional characters. While it is my belief that some of the theories discussed by these characters may have merit, each individual reader must explore these characters' viewpoints and come to his or her own interpretations.

The author didn't try to pull this off as non-fiction... So what exactly IS the problem?

LONDON (Reuters) - "The Da Vinci Code" has undermined faith in the Roman Catholic Church and badly damaged its credibility, a survey of British readers of Dan Brown's bestseller showed on Tuesday.

People are now twice as likely to believe Jesus Christ fathered children after reading the Dan Brown blockbuster and four times as likely to think the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei is a murderous sect.

"An alarming number of people take its spurious claims very seriously indeed," said Austin Ivereigh, press secretary to Britain's top Catholic prelate Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor.

"Our poll shows that for many, many people the Da Vinci Code is not just entertainment," Ivereigh added.

The actual drama is pure fiction. But his claims of historical accuracy and the use of certain weel known facts allows him to introduce some historical fictions, that could easily be considered historical truths.

Here are some of the grey areas -

Hidden (but intentional) message in Da Vinci's The Last Supper
Relationship of Jesus and Mary and any offspring
Prior of Sion
Opus Dei

Primary Colors and JFK were supposedly fiction, with some factual aspects. When an author/director presents a compelling case, while maintaining the story is fiction (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), a lot of people come away thinking some of the pieces of fiction were actually fact. :wink:

Here's an interesting article:
http://news.yahoo.com/..._davinci_religion_dc