The Da Vinci Code and Catholicism

The Da Vinci Code and Catholicism - 2:58 PM, 8/21/2005
My topic that's come up today is The DaVinci Code-- I really enjoyed it, and I thought it made a lot of sense too. But, admittedly, I have a love/hate relationship with the Catholic Church; it's been my focal point for attacking the dark side of organized religion, so I've been game for reading any sensible arguments that have helped tear it down a peg or two.



So yeah, one thing I've been thinking about recently is that there are all sorts of reasons why one can support one side or another. For example, pro-choice versus pro-life. My very Catholic best friend forwarded me an article recently that successfully countered a lot of arguments in support of pro-choice with better ones supporting pro-life. Now, if I had been pro-choice for those reasons, I would have had two options-- I could have stubbornly and angrily opposed what the article said, or I could have accepted the arguments as better, and decided that pro-life was right. _However_, my reasons for being pro-choice actually take all sorts of deeper understandings into account, which the article didn't even address. (For example, what consciousness level does the unborn soul have-- is it human, or is it unconditionally loving like God?) So, I was able to reply back with my argument, and no one trumped it. :) I'm not saying that pro-choice is necessarily "right" or "wrong" through and through... I only understand it as well as I understand it-- other people could certainly understand it better than I do. But I do think a lot of people believe a lot of things that they hear a little too easily.




Anyway, I finished listening to a Catholic response to The DaVinci Code about a week ago. I don't know if I can do the argument justice, but I'll try to say a little. Basically, he argued that Dan Brown had a conspiracy theory approach, in believing that Christianity was originally a religion of goddess worship, and then somehow made this radical about face at one point in time. He explained how conspiracy theories come about and why people sometimes believe in them. He noted that the references that Dan Brown cited weren't scholarly papers, like those reviewed by groups of professors, but rather fringe books that weren't subjected to critiquing. He said a lot more too, but I'd have to listen to it again.



Okay, my assessment at this point in time, from the book, the response, and of course all my own spiritual studies, is this: I myself don't believe that Catholicism is "the one true faith" and/or "the correct path" or whatever. I believe that it has some pieces of the puzzle right, but not everything. Overall, I do believe that Catholicism is helping the world a lot more than it's hurting the world, which is the really important thing. That said, I believe that those who follow the beliefs of Catholicism unquestionably do so because (a) the Catholic Church has thought things out way more carefully than they have personally, so basically the Catholic level of arguing blows them away, and (b) bottom line, they want to believe it and/or they feel they have to believe it, for whatever reasons (fear, family, etc.). Personally, I believe that a person can find God in any of the major religions, or outside of religion as well.



Now, I find The Da Vinci Code incredibly valuable because it gets people questioning the historical details about Catholicism-- i.e., can we trust what we've been told? So, if a person's belief in Catholicism is based on factual assumptions like "Jesus never got married or had any kids," then yeah, better to throw that into question. I think a lot of people believe in Catholicism because of events that supposedly went a certain way 2000 years ago. If proving that wrong causes them to stop believing in Catholicism, then good... I think they were missing the point anyway. Now, I technically do believe in Jesus, but as a spiritual entity who I can pray to and communicate with _today_. I believe in other similar spiritual entities too. Whether he got married and had kids or not as a person 2000 years ago doesn't change who he is to me in my life now.