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Seven Star Hand
May 21, 2006
8:33am

Hello David,

There is a way to uncover the truth the Vatican is afraid of

Yes, the DaVinci Code novel is better than the movie. Both are no more accurate as a literal version of history than is the New Testament. In other words, none of them is the literal truth, which is a key fact of the story and ancient history. The primary sub-plot is about purposeful symbology being used to encode hidden meanings, exactly like the Bible and related texts. Arguing about whether the DaVinci Code, Gospel of Judas, or the Bible are accurate history is a Machiavellian red herring.

There is a foolproof way to verify the truth and expose religious deceptions. It is the common thread connecting the ancient Hebrews, Yahad/Essene, Jews, Gnostics, Cathars, Templars, Dead Sea Scrolls, DaVinci Code, and others who have all been targets of Rome’s evil machinations. What the Vatican and its secret society cohorts don’t want you to understand is that the ancient Hebrew symbology in all of these texts purposely encodes and exposes the truth about them. Furthermore, the structure of ancient symbology verifiably encodes the rules to decode messages built with it. This is what they most fear you will discover.

It is undeniable the New Testament is framed by ancient Hebrew symbolism and allegory. The same is evidenced in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Gnostic texts, biblical apocrypha, DaVinci Code, and other related texts. All ancient religious, mystical, and wisdom texts have been shrouded in mystery for millennia for one primary reason: The ability to understand their widely evidenced symbology was lost in antiquity. How do we finally solve these ages-old mysteries? To recast an often-used political adage: It’s [the] symbology, stupid!

It is amazing the Vatican still tries to insist the Gospels are literal truth. It is beyond obvious they are replete with ancient Hebrew symbology. Every miracle purported for Jesus has multiple direct symbolic parallels in other symbolic narratives and traditions. This is the secret held by the ancient Gnostics, Templars, and Cathars, which is presented with dramatic effect in the DaVinci Code. None of these narratives or stories were ever intended as the literal truth.

Likewise, the following Washington Post article (The Book of Bart) describes the many embellishments made to the New Testament over the centuries, demonstrating it is not original, infallible, or truthful.

What then is the purpose of "faith" but to keep good people from seeking to understand truth and wisdom? It's no wonder the Vatican fears the truth more than anything else. Now comes justice, hot on its heels... (symbolism...)

Revelations from the Apocalypse

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Irimi
May 22, 2006
8:23am

For the record it was much better than Cannes claimed.

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david
May 22, 2006
8:50am

I still think I'll wait to see it when it comes out on DVD.

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TGCG v 3.0
May 30, 2006
5:31am

The Da Vinci Code: What the Church is Really Afraid Of...

The Da Vinci Code: What the Church is Really Afraid Of | from Misguided Thoughts
With the Da Vinci Code movie out in theaters, it’s time for me to give my thoughts concerning this whole ‘controversy.’ (For the record, I’ve not read the book ......

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Rich Schmidt
May 30, 2006
5:33am

Um... I have no idea what this Seven Star Hand dude is on about, but I for one am glad to be part of a church that welcomes questions. I'm a Christian because I believe it's true. I'm happy to study the work of archaeologists & linguists & historians, etc, etc, because if Christianity isn't true, then why believe it? I don't know what the Roman Catholic Church has hidden away in its archives, but fortunately for all of us, the New Testament documents themselves go back early enough that we can be fairly certain of their reliability.

It's a shame Dan Brown didn't spend more time "seeking the truth" before writing his novel. The laughable historical errors kind of wreck it for anyone who knows their church history. Especially the bits about Constantine & the Gnostic gospels...

Oh, well. It was a decent novel. I'll see the movie on DVD someday. Probably.

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Paula
Jul 7, 2006
8:49am

"So what is the Catholic Church afraid of? Simple. Questions."

Actually the Catholic Church welcomes all questions, for that is how most converts and reverts come about, by asking the question they have and having them answered. The only thing is, is that you have to have an open heart for the Truth.

http://www.chnetwork.org/

"Questions like: What if there’s more to the gospel then we’ve been told?"

The answer to that is: read the Bible yourself. Do not depend on anyone "telling" the gospel to you. The Catholic Church is the one that decided to compile the Bible during a time when all books were written by hand, and it commissioned monks to create the only bibles in existence which took them many years for just one bible. Then they even made these precious creations available to all who entered the church by chaining them in place so that no one would run off with them, yet all could see them.

The fact that bible became available to the public during the Reformation had more to do with the invention of the printing press at that time then it did with the Reformation. But what good were they to the illiterate majority? These people had the priests also. Those that attended daily mass, and many did, had the whole bible read to them from Genesis to Apocolypse (now known as Revelations) in just 3 years.

So if you want to know more of the Gospel then what you are being told, then for Peter's sake, pick up a bible yourself! It's not like they take decades to create anymore.

Or, you could go to daily Catholic mass, and in 3 years time will have had the whole bible read to you...even the boring bits, which is something no Protestant church service offers, the whole complete bible read to you.

"For centuries the Catholic Church was the source of all Christian knowledge.

Yes, because they can trace their roots to the apostles as Christ planned, which is the only way of truly having all of the knowledge that is available. Jesus knew what He was doing. It was and still is the source for all Christian knowledge. There is no Truth that the Protestant churches hold that the Catholic Church does not also hold as Truth.

"What they said was the Truth."
Indeed.
They did not intentionally lie, nor did they claim to create the Truth. Indeed what they said, and still say, is Truth itself…or their best understanding of it, which as time goes on gets more and more right on.

Now granted, there have been a good deal of mistakes made in understanding what Truth is, but not by the Church herself, rather by those working on her behalf... who as we all know, are only human and are prone to make some doosy of mistakes. Also there have been individuals who have created their own ‘truths’ when indeed what they stated was not Truth at all. Such people will have to answer to God for not only their own souls, but for the souls they have mislead. What a horrible fate awaits such people!

However, in time, all these mistakes are corrected...as will be the ones being made today and the ones that will be made in the future. For God keeps His promises and He stated in Matthew 16 “upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.”

“Of course, there were ‘factions’ of catholicism, Benedictines and Franciscans for example, but still Catholic.”

I’m assuming you meant “fractions”, not factions (though the “Da Vinci Code” has everything to do with factions, lol), and indeed the Benedictines and Franciscans, though went against the grain of some Catholic individuals, were never fractions. They were in complete obedience to the Church and fully acknowledged the authority of the Pope. Not even remotely fractions. They are living proof that reform can and should come from within. They never ‘jumped ship’.

“And since people didn’t have their own bibles, again, they relied on the church."

This, of course, I have already responded to by showing that the Catholic church did not willingly keep bibles from people, in fact was extraordinarily generous in making them as available as was possible for the days before the printing press.

“And the church kept secrets to themselves. (The Vatican Archives.) If you think of the Catholic Church as a government, you can understand why secrets are kept. But we are talking about religion here. In a religion, shouldn’t adherents have access to all the information about it? Isn’t it morally wrong to keep secrets from your followers? “

This is an example of what is wrong with the “Da Vinci Code”.

What sort of secrets do you think that Catholic Church is keeping?

What proofs have you that there are ‘secrets’? There is no proof, for there are none.

If you want to know what is in the Vatican Archives, simply visit their website. It is all available.

http://www.vatican.va/

It’s just that easy.

Yes, the archives are called “secret”, it’s even right there on their button on their website which leads you to all the archives.

Read up for yourself if you want to know why it’s called “Secret”, it’s much more interesting then the factional work of Brown’s. The Truth is always more interesting.

“And as the oldest christian denomination, upon which just about all protestant groups came from, don’t they own the world the truth about what they’ve known?”

Umm, just out of curiousity what protestant group DOESN’T have its origin’s in Catholicism?

And yes they do agree that the Truth that they have should be shared with all, which is why they have made it all available to anyone who seeks it.

The fact that it is not available is a misconception that the Brown novel only helps to circulate. (Gee, I wonder why the Church is does not support a novel that only permeates the lies that float around about it. Hmmmmm.)

“Questions. I believe that’s what the whole Da Vinci Code controversy comes down to. Is what people are taught today the god-honest truth about the church?”

No. But it is not the Church that is teaching the untruths about the Church. The Church teaches the Truths, and makes the Truths available to all who seek. However there are those that are working very hard to make sure that such Truths get distorted, if heard at all.

The ones teaching untruths about the Church are the ones that do not want the Truth of the Church to be known, or are those that have bought into or otherwise been mislead by the lies of such teachers. Such teachers of untruths do so because they know that those that hear the Truth of the Church with open hearts grow closer to God and can look forward to sharing in His Beatific Vision.

Can you guess who might not want that to happen? This entity is also known as the “Great Deceiver” or the “Father of all Lies”.

The God honest Truth about the Church is readily available to whomever seeks it, and it is available from the Church herself if anyone really wants to know it.

“Does the catholic church know something no one else does?”

That would be rather difficult seeing that the Catholic Church is not an individual, but a group of followers of Christ.

If what you are asking is “Is the Catholic Church keeping something from people?” the answer is no. However it has over 2000 years worth of compiled information. It is hard to make sure that everyone knows everything (and besides if she did, then the Catholic Church would be accused of ‘shoving’ it’s information down everyone’s ‘throat’), but just like in the old days when the Church labored intensively over compiling the bible, then again labored intensively over creating even just one bible so that it may be chained to a church building so that anyone may enter and read it, the Catholic Church is laboring intensively and using all the means modern technology has to offer to make sure that anyone who seeks the information can access it.

“And why does it keep secrets? Millions of people have the right to know.”

Then all they have to do is ask. There are no secrets.

You wonder why the Church has a problem with Dan Brown’s book, but here is the reason.

It permeates the misconceptions about the Church in today’s society.
Why shouldn’t she have a problem with Brown’s book when it misleads even intelligent people like you with myths and misconceptions?

If Dan Brown lied about you, you would probably have a problem with Dan Brown too.
There are a good deal of fallacies in Brown’s book that can be proven, no one denies this. So why do people think he is reflecting any truth at all about the Church?

There are no secrets.
And that’s the problem with Brown’s book. It plants seeds of deceit in people’s mind about the Church.

Ahhh, there’s that word again.
Deceit.
Now who is the “Father of all Lies” again?

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Paula
Jul 7, 2006
9:21am

“It is amazing the Vatican still tries to insist the Gospels are literal truth. It is beyond obvious they are replete with ancient Hebrew symbology. Every miracle purported for Jesus has multiple direct symbolic parallels in other symbolic narratives and traditions. This is the secret held by the ancient Gnostics, Templars, and Cathars, which is presented with dramatic effect in the DaVinci Code. None of these narratives or stories were ever intended as the literal truth.”

I think you are mistaking the Fundamentalist’s stance for the Catholic stance.

In fact this is the first time in my many years of talking with others about the Catholic Church that I have read someone accuse the Church of claiming the bible should be taken literally! It’s actually laughable only because I have spent many years in discussion with fundamentalists and the like who accuse Catholics of the exact opposite: reading too much into the bible, and not taking it literally enough. And now I am reading someone who says the Church insists the Gospels are literal truth only.

Yes, much of the New Testament is literal truth in many ways, including the Gospels, but they are much more then simply that.

The Catholic Church has always recognized the deep symbolism and gematria that is in the bible. This is the very reason why she cautions readers to pray deeply before reading, and to, as 2 Peter 1 tells us “"First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God”.

(And by the way, Revelations is not a Gospel.)

“What then is the purpose of “faith” but to keep good people from seeking to understand truth and wisdom?”

The purpose of faith is to draw seekers closer to God so that they may grow in His Love for them, and become complete and whole in such a manner that only their creator can show them.

“It’s no wonder the Vatican fears the truth more than anything else.”

The Vatican does not fear the truth; it is only trying to keep the promotion of lies down as much as she can. Distorted truth is not truth at all, and the Church understands this. The Church does not fear deceivers like Brown, only makes it her duty to identify them for what they are.

What would you have her do? Just sit back and watch such people lead others down a slippery slope? Christ entrusted the Church to lead souls to Him after He left, she is not going to drop the ball just because society scoffs at her and accuses her of lies. There is too much at stake. Individual souls of the children of God.

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Keum-Okie
Feb 19, 2008
7:54pm

Here's my take (sometime after all the dust has settled): People of faith can either use their belief system as a shield, to try to protect themselves (and others) from often harsh and uncomfortable truths, or they can use their faith as a lens to examine the world more carefully. The one group will always be seeking to withdraw, the other will advance and engage the world. One group will impact society, the other will pass from the scene, becoming an irrelevancy...You and I can choose which group we will belong to.

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Todd Horton
Jun 24, 2008
2:52pm

Interesting article. In my research I don’t believe that everything the church is teaching today is biblical. In fact on some accounts I believe we entertain the devil and try to worship God in the same house. I don’t necessarily believe that Mary Magdalene was married to Christ. However, what has happened over the years in the Church has not been all accurate. For example Mary Magdalene in Israel was accused of adultery in most circles you talk too. However, absolutely no where in the scriptures does it say this. You can trust the Word of God in its original authorship any day over the Church structure. The WORD will never lie. What the Word does say is that Mary Magdalene was cured from 7 demons. Interesting. So if we individually do our own homework we can unmask the myths or incorrect teachings that have come from the church for its own purposes and selfish gain.