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In "Whose God may we mock?" (thanks to Mackie), Pat Buchanan, whom I rarely if ever agree with these days, says something that is right on the mark:
If you would know who wields cultural power, ask yourself: Whom is it impermissible to offend? Thus the hoopla attending the release of "The Da Vinci Code," based on the Dan Brown novel that has sold 7 million copies in the United States, tells us something about whose God it is permissible to mock and whose faith one is allowed to assault.
Absolutely. Compare the hype surrounding The DaVinci Code to the pious handwringing about how important it was not to offend religious sensibilities that we heard all over the West at the height of Cartoon Rage. And why aren't we hearing that handwringing now? Not because of some subtle difference involved, but because the target this time is Christianity, and because the handwringers were and are smarmy hypocrites who were speaking out of fear, not conviction -- and they fear Muslims in a way that they don't fear Christians.
But anyway, Buchanan then drives his train of thought right off the deep end:
Putting "The Da Vinci Code" on film, with what it alleges about the Catholic Church, is the moral equivalent of making a movie based on the "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and implying this is the truth about the Jewish plot to control the world. One imagines Ron Howard and Tom Hanks would take a pass on that script.Like the "Hitler's Pope" smear of Pius XII, a man who did more than any other to save the Jews in World War II, "The Da Vinci Code" is a Big Lie that, though readily refuted by the facts, will be believed.
But that it will be a box-office smash, that it is the subject of lavish praise in the press, that it is the best-selling novel of the 21st century, tells us we live not just in a post-Christian era, but in an anti-Catholic culture not worth defending or saving, for it is truly satanic.
Not worth defending or saving? Truly satanic? We should give up and accept dhimmi status now, Pat? The West is just so corrupt, so truly satanic (Ahmadinejad would agree with you on that one) that we should lie down in the face of the global jihad?
No, Pat, no!
Let me be perfectly clear: I am a Christian, and I do despise The DaVinci Code. (However, I do not plan to burn down any embassies or kill anyone to show just how much I despise it.) I know enough about Christian history to know just how insidious and dishonest both book and movie are. And yes, there is much in today's Western society that is absolutely rotten -- soul-destroying and life-destroying -- and you don't have to be a Christian to realize that. All-encompassing materialism, relativism, the trivializing of the human being in 1000 ways -- you name it.
But Ayaan Hirsi Ali spoke today about "issues related to Islam - such as impediments to free speech; refusal of the separation of Church and State; widespread domestic violence; honor killings; the repudiation of wives; and Islam’s failure to condemn genital mutilation." I still believe in the vision of human dignity that Judeo-Christian civilization gave the world strongly enough to believe that those things should be resisted. And I still believe that the heirs of that civilization, although they have largely cast it off, have a chance to recover it enough to fight back against the jihad, and to find that fighting back an occasion for a new flowering of that civilization.
And -- as I said yesterday -- even if that new flowering doesn't come to pass, and all is already lost, I still won't give up. I will keep fighting, not to defend The DaVinci Code or other symptoms of the West's suicidal corruption, but to stand for the principles of the equality of dignity of all people, the freedom of conscience, and the other principles that are derived ultimately from Judaism and Christianity (yes, some will say that they come from the rejection of Christianity; I in turn reject that view, but this is not the time or place to go into that).
There was once a great civilization built upon those principles, and there can be again -- even if its adherents are reduced for awhile to a tiny few in a mountain redoubt. From Pelayo ultimately came the great forces that drove the warriors of jihad from Spain. Perhaps from those of us who do not give up today will come those who will drive them out of our own lands on some bright future day.
Posted by Robert at May 16, 2006 2:07 PM
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Robert,
I could be wrong but I think when Buchanon wtote:
"...tells us we live not just in a post-Christian era, but in an anti-Catholic culture not worth defending or saving, for it is truly satanic"
he was lamenting the fact that this is what our secular culture feels, not what HE feels.
Posted by: Cornelius![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 16, 2006 3:07 PM
Cornelius,
I disagree.
I very seriously doubt that "our secular culture" thinks of ITSELF as "satanic."
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at May 16, 2006 3:12 PM
Nice post Robert as I hate seeing so much of the politically correct revisionist history about Christianity from some of the bloggers here. I hope a "Politically Incorrect Guide to Christianity" comes out someday.
Posted by: William the Sinner at May 16, 2006 3:14 PM
William the Sinner says hopefully:
"I hope a "Politically Incorrect Guide to Christianity" comes out someday."
I think it did. It's called The Bible.
Posted by: ShortBoard Surfer at May 16, 2006 3:25 PM
What would be the point of a Politically Incorrect Guide to Christianity?
Posted by: Jesus Christ Supercop at May 16, 2006 3:26 PM
Ladies and Gentleman...
Is not the Christian belief system based on "FAITH"?
Therefore if your "FAITH" is rocked by a such simple thing as a book or a movie do you really have "FAITH"? It is all about "FAITH"! Believe it or not, make up your mind and GO FOR IT.
at May 16, 2006 3:27 PM
No, Whistling Dixie.
He is not saying that the novel tells us that we live in an anti-Catholic culture. It doesn't, anyway.
He is saying that the novel's popularity tells us that we live in an anti-Catholic culture.
That much may be true.
Then he, Buchanan, says that that culture is satanic and not worth defending.
Well, that's where Pat and I part company.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at May 16, 2006 3:36 PM
I agree with Mr. Spencer here. There is a lot about Western Culture that as a Christian I find disturbing. Yet it is not only still worth defending, it must be defended.
Yeah, it's OK to mock or satirize Christianity while Islam is treated with kid gloves, but it must be remembered that Islam doesn't differentiate much between one type of Infidel and another. We're all filth in there eyes, wether we are Christian, Jewish, atheist or whatever.
Posted by: Proud Infidel at May 16, 2006 3:41 PM
Mr. Spencer:
A particularly good post, especially the last two paragraphs.
Despair is no more an option than failure itself.
Posted by: Chatillon at May 16, 2006 3:43 PM
Dan Brown is a good novelist. I enjoyed both of his books. I personally do not care if he is a pagan (Whistling Dixie) and runs around with a bone through his nose howling at the moon.
My faith was not shaken or rocked (tgusa) by reading this novel, nor will it be upset when I see the movie. My belief in the fundemental principles of oceanography were not upset,either, when I watched SpongeBob SquarePants with my children last night.
Posted by: ShortBoard Surfer at May 16, 2006 3:43 PM
Excellent ShortBoard Surfer,
You have a brain and choose to use it. You are way ahead of the game!
at May 16, 2006 3:49 PM
As a poor boy Hoosier, I never thought I'd say this. But may God Bless Tarheel Blue, cuz what he said made, and makes, perfect sense.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at May 16, 2006 3:56 PM
Whistling Dixie
I know he has an agenda, but I guess I view movies and novels as entertainment. As a conservative, I hate to admit it, but I thoroughly enjoyed "The day after tomorrow"; lots of special effects, some thrills and chills. That movie was dripping with agenda, but I still drive my SUV.
Posted by: ShortBoard Surfer at May 16, 2006 3:57 PM
Buchanan isn't saying his religious faith is rocked by the book and film. He's saying that their success has rocked his faith in American society.
It seems a little petulant to me.
I notice that although floats the phrase "post-Christian" first, he then moves onto "anti-Catholic". If we ignore the various reformed and protestant churches the Christian world has been split in two for a long time. Would the film have been OK if the Orthodox had been the villains then? Put in the form in which he puts it (and even though Satan appears at the end) the complaint seem less a "religious" matter than a complaint about the loss of status of a specific institution in the U.S. throughout Buchanan's lifetime.
There's hints of this throughout. Even "blasphemous" does not seem to have a specifically religious connotation for Buchanan - more a quasi-anthropological one. Note that the cartoons of Mohammed are "blasphemeous" and Salman Rushdie's book is "blasphemous". If God is really as Christian doctrine teaches then, frankly, the Koran is blasphemous and a (rather tame) cartoon poking fun at its originator is anything but.
I can't say I'm wildly enthusiastic about many aspects of highly secularized societies. But I think this is a case of "gird up your loins", Mr. Buchanan. Or perhaps And Always Keep Ahold of Nurse, For Fear of Finding Something Worse, "nurse" being the U.S., because there certainly are far worse things out there. And as Robert said they really do need to be resisted.
Posted by: Yojimbo at May 16, 2006 4:02 PM
I think that secularism has made us weak front islam, and we are very weak now.
Without Christ, any of the saviors of Europe could do nothing, and the democracy and the freedom that are good, aren´t enough to answer this challenge.
Greetings
at May 16, 2006 4:04 PM
Franz wrote...I think that secularism has made us weak.
http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~wonj/me/ftstps.html
Overnight things can change.
at May 16, 2006 4:09 PM
Well, upon a second reading, I guess you're right Robert.
One then wonders if Pat is prepared to throw the baby out with the bath water. There is certainly alot of trash in our culture, mountains of it, but the fact that it is free and pluralist holds out the distinct possibility for change, maturation and even yes, even redemption...(as opposed to a fixed belief system locked in 7th century barbarisms).
I look at my daughter and am amazed at how sensible and perceptive she is...and though I proudly take a degree of credit, I willingly acknowledge that she too is a product of our culture.
In other words, there is hope.
Posted by: Cornelius at May 16, 2006 4:09 PM
Christians should be proud that they no longer kill or harm those who mock their beliefs. This shows a greater maturity. Didn't Jesus ask his followers to pray for those who mock and persecute them?
Posted by: DesertDawgN29 at May 16, 2006 4:10 PM
Dan Brown is a good novelist.
Dan Brown is a goddamned liar. History is knowable. The unknowability of history was first discovered in fancy finishing schools. I must presume that you went to Duke and got real stupid there. Enough of this self-loathing. No mo Marxists. No mo unutterable stupidity.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at May 16, 2006 4:14 PM
Buchanan says: "Though he [David Irving] recanted in court, it did not save him. Prosecutors felt his sentence was too light."
Actually, I think Irving was playing games with the court, because he later retracted his admission.
But Holocaust denial (in places where there is any regard for evidence - obviously not in certain countries) should get even more difficult to sustain publicly in the future. New item at the BBC:
The 11-nation commission in charge of the vast Nazi German archive documenting war crimes have agreed to open it up to public access. ...The 47 million files hold Nazi records of forced labourers, concentration camp victims and political prisoners. ...
The Nazis recorded everything - from the number of lice on a prisoner's head to the exact moment of their execution.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4985444.stm
Posted by: Yojimbo at May 16, 2006 4:16 PM
Eisenhower was a forward thinker.
Eisenhower felt that it was necessary for his troops to see for themselves..
http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/camps.html
at May 16, 2006 4:20 PM
Fond memories from back in '92 when my older sister nicknamed him "Bat Puke-cannon."
Bat, I mean, Pat, is actually conceding a major selling point of the dawa peddlers: the notion that that Western civilization is evil, and corrupt beyond redemption. He's also taking the worst of our popular culture as representative of the whole thing.
What are we fighting for, then? I don't think I'd like Pat's answer.
Posted by: Shinoliite at May 16, 2006 4:30 PM
Oh come on, people. It's a work of fiction. Read it, enjoy it, and forget it.
Don't worry, be happy!
Viva El President Jorge al-Bush!
Islam is a religion of peace.
Allahu akbar
at May 16, 2006 4:32 PM
tgusa,
Thank you. It was harrowing reading, but it as well to remind oneself of such matters from time-to-time.
I liked this comment: "Eisenhower realized that it was imperative for the soldiers to at least understand what they were fighting against".
It brings us full circle.
This is just what Buchanan has missed.
Posted by: Yojimbo at May 16, 2006 4:35 PM
Forget what?
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at May 16, 2006 4:38 PM
Looking over Buchanan's bookshelf would tell anyone all he needed to know about what, for that Gucci-loafered primitive and oily parvenu, constitutes Western culture. Not much to write home about.
Posted by: Hugh at May 16, 2006 4:38 PM
Most all Our philosophies and dogma need a 21st century tune-up and one, Islam, should self destruct with some help, no tune-up well resolve its dogma death wish and love to hate Idol Mohammed.
Posted by: SirSeth at May 16, 2006 4:38 PM
Robert- I'm with you. Despair is not an option for any Christian. Shoulder to shoulder, we will fight the Good Fight!
God bless Jihad Watch and all those who love the truth.
Posted by: miasarx at May 16, 2006 4:43 PM
"the moral equivalent of making a movie based on the "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and implying this is the truth about the Jewish plot to control the world."
Pat Buchanan should know about that first hand, after all this is a man who has defended neo-Nazis, embraced David Duke, and made countless references to anti-semitism.
With "friends" like Pat Buchanan, Christians don't need enemies.
at May 16, 2006 4:44 PM
DesertDawgN29 said
Christians should be proud that they no longer kill or harm those who mock their beliefs.
At the risk of encouraging a whole anti-Christian sub-thread in a posting about the benefits of Judeo-Christian belief, when did Christians kill those who mocked their beliefs? Are you on about the Salem witch trials, the Crusades (spare me), the Inquisition?
But maybe you can just ask Robert to remove my postings again.
Posted by: special_guest at May 16, 2006 4:53 PM
special_guest
The postings were removed because of porn posts from trolls.
at May 16, 2006 5:16 PM
you lnow there is an alternative way to look at the different reaction of critisism between the christian and islamic faith.
We christians are SECURE in our beliefs - we KNOW that our religeon is the truth whereas the muslims are totally UNSECURE in their faith - underneath all the violent protestations, maybe even at a subliminal level, they, the muslims, KNOW that that their faith is FALSE - that muhamed was a killer - what kind of man-prophet is a killer - its so obvious they MUST know it - so they are doomed to inhabit a kind of schitzophrenic fantasy where up is down and good is bad etc etc - I do feel sorry for them in a way !
at May 16, 2006 5:19 PM
"One then wonders if Pat is prepared to throw the baby out with the bath water."
Buchanan seems to belong to that ultra-right minority which Alexandre Del Valle categorized as part of the "Browns" in the still inchoate, but coalescing Red-Green-Brown Axis.
Red = Left/Socialist/Communist/Trotskyite
Green = Islamic Jihadist
Brown = neo-Nazi/ultra-right:
All bedfellows with a common Enemy: the evil globalist Capitalist Neo-Imperialist West and its evil cabal of "Illuminati", "Masons" and "Zionists".
Posted by: Television at May 16, 2006 5:28 PM
tgusa, thanks, but I was talking about this. No porn or trolls there, just attempted censorship in the interest of not offending Islam.
Posted by: special_guest at May 16, 2006 5:36 PM
If I post this it should be censored?
Alarmed Pig Farmer said
thinker, how much time you pull in the Big House?
Can't speak for thethinker, but I've been in a federal prison (long story), and he's right. It's not like the Jean Claude Van Damme movies or Shawshank Redemption (great movie though) with rusty bars and dripping water and some guy playing a harmonica. No rapes, no sadistic guards, and few escape or murder attempts.
It's more like being stuck in a clean, modern hospital for a long time. Try making an interesting movie out of that. Moussaoui got better than he deserved, but as long as the bacteria is isolated, we can consider it a victory.
Gee, DesertDawgN29. Which comments are those, my sensitive little friend? Something like "I say give the jihadists all the martyrs they want."?
You wouldn't be saying that "jihadists" is equivalent to "Muslims", would you? Because that would make you a racist. Why would you make a leap of logic like that?
Ronin said
I hope he lives a very long life, nothing to do but think about what a screwball he is.
Moussaoui will have a very long, safe, comfortable, and boring life from here on out. And it's all on our tab, including medical and dental coverage as he gets older. I will think of him when I am elderly and deciding whether to pay for groceries or medicine. Hopefully he will live to see the end of the dream of a global caliphate.
There have been several postings of mine, even entire articles that have been removed. My first instinct being a westerner was, Did I offend someone? No, but someone else did. There is “NO” censorship here. Unless you use the tactics of the enemy, i.e., insults {that only fires me up} name-calling, {ignored}. Keep posting your opinions. I am interested...Information is our greatest friend.
at May 16, 2006 5:54 PM
Does anybody get the least twinge of irony when *more* religion is proposed as a solution to islam?
at May 16, 2006 5:58 PM
Buchanan is more a Leftist than a Rightist - just recall him during the 1996 campaign, with his diatribes against the "lounge lizards of Palm Beach", his tirades against NAFTA, et al. The Right Wing candidate in that primary was Steve Forbes, with the Flat Tax, SS Reform, et al. To call Buchanan a Right Wing Extremist is to overlook his extreme-Left leanings, whether it was the Reform Party, or his other post GOP mis-adventures.
Along with John Sununu and Bob Novak, he has been one of the 3 pro-Jihadists on CNN. I'm glad that he left the GOP - he didn't belong there, and they aren't his type either.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at May 16, 2006 5:59 PM
Am I the only reader who found the "Code" to be very poorly written? Seemed more like a very hastily written film tratment than a book. I read it last summer and kept thinking "Why didn't I write this thing? I could be retired now!" The basic idea was a rip-off of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail", the characters seemed two dimensional, and the writing itself screamed for both an editor and a proof-reader.
Posted by: MP at May 16, 2006 6:07 PM
John 10:11-13
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
at May 16, 2006 6:10 PM
20And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;
21I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.
22And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD.
23And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?
24Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?
25That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?
26And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.
This conversation continues until God tells Abraham that if 10 decent people can be found in Sodom he would not destroy it....there are more than 10 God-fearing people in the USA, I hope God will continue to be slow to anger.
Posted by: Carolyn2 at May 16, 2006 6:19 PM
Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it.
And this is why the Infidel and Dog became buddies. The moral is.. Trust your Dog before you trust a hired hand!
at May 16, 2006 6:20 PM
I don't mind the movie Da vinci code. I don't see it as anti-Christian at all. It does take a few shots at the Catholic Church, but even in the end, the bad guy turns out to be a professor, not Opus Dei. But ultimately, the book's plot does not undermine Christian beliefs. In fact, it holds Christ as the most important figure in history and promotes Christianity as the world's greatest religion. Hardly something that these islamics will want to see or read. Indeed, if every islamic read the book, they might realize that their prophet Mohammad is just an insignificant desert rat by comparison.
As far as Buchannan is concerned, sometimes he stands for what is right, other times, he is just out of left field. What I do get from him is a disdain for the West as morally corrupt, which is similar to what the islamics are saying, and similiar to what a lot of these survivalists believe in their compounds in the backwoods of Utah. Me, I like our moral corruption, our sexual society, our cheesy movies, and our degenerate rock music. And I like seeing girls in tight jeans and halter tops. All those things islam hates and wants to take away from us. So I say more power to those things and we should be willing to fight to death to keep them. Buchanan doesn't want us to keep those things. In that sense, he might as well be with the taliban.
The only moral corruption that is relevant is our moral relativism vis-a-vis true evil and our leftist dominated politics and media. That is evil because it is advancing the cause of islam. Indeed, it is in bed with islam. The ACLU, Sheehan, Dan Rather, NYTimes, etc., that part of America is what is morally corrupt. Buchannan needs to criticize that, not western women in tight pants.
Posted by: somethingaboutislam at May 16, 2006 6:21 PM
somthingabiutislam wrote...
The only moral corruption that is relevant is our moral relativism vis-a-vis true evil and our leftist dominated politics and media. That is evil because it is advancing the cause of islam. Indeed, it is in bed with islam. The ACLU, Sheehan, Dan Rather, NYTimes, etc., that part of America is what is morally corrupt. Buchannan needs to criticize that, not western women in tight pants.
I demand my rights!! More tight pants or Bikini's..whatever
Posted by: tgusa at May 16, 2006 6:27 PM
Robert that was an inspiratational post! Christians might disagree with the movie, but we dont go out and burn down building, kill people, etc. There were reports of Christians from India telling their government that they will go on a hunger strike. you see the difference between "We Christians", we would
become take it on ourselves, and do not inflict injuries and death on others, such as you see with the muslims for their cartoons of allah. WE are the moral people of the World! thank you again Robert for a great post!
at May 16, 2006 7:07 PM
From Robert, "However, I do not plan to burn down any embassies or kill anyone to show just how much I despise it." (About the "DaVinci Code")
This needs to be expanded. Please refer to the following list:
Number of people involved in the "DaVinci Code" production murdered - Zero. Rembember Theo Van Gogh.
Number of theaters showing this movie bombed - Zero
Number of people killed in rioting - Zero
Number of plausible death threats sent - Zero
I think this, in a backward, obscure way, explains the difference between Christianity and Mohammedanism.
Posted by: Pelayo at May 16, 2006 7:15 PM
Gee, Lulu beat me to it. I spend too much time composting ans spel cheking>
Posted by: Pelayo at May 16, 2006 7:17 PM
I still believe in the vision of human dignity that Judeo-Christian civilization gave the world strongly enough to believe that those things should be resisted.
I think so too -- but I don't think the civilization that we see in the US and Europe is Judeo-Christian.
As I see them, these civilizations are purely secular with only vestiges of Judeo-Christianity that remain more symbolic.
I would not say that I prefer it that way -- but my life's experience suggests that it is that way despite my "feelings" about it.
In that context, perhaps Pat is right in his assessment -- that it not, as such, worth preserving. As Hume would have said -- life in such an environment is "...nasty, brutish, and short."
However, I think a truly "Judeo-Christian" civilization is worth preserving; but I am afraid we foolishly threw it away.
And I still believe that the heirs of that (Judeo-Christian)civilization, although they have largely cast it off, have a chance to recover it enough to fight back against the jihad, and to find that fighting back an occasion for a new flowering of that civilization.
Geee, I hope your right.
at May 16, 2006 7:31 PM
Pelayo l like your post, numbers do stand out..l should do spell check more often, but l seem to have to go offline too often to do that.
Christians will hurt themselves over their disagreements rather than go and kill others in the name of Jesus. another thing, when l was in grade school, (Catholic) my favourite was listening to the stories of Jesus doing miracles, and generally good things. when you compare with what stories Muslim children hear from their teachers of the koran, where heads of boys and men are lopped off, etc. you can see the cultural divide of Christians vs Muslims. Jesus does not ask you kill those who insult him as compared to Allah does with his aposates.
at May 16, 2006 7:51 PM
For the Championship of the World, the finalists are:
Christianity:
Love and forgiveness for your enemies, turn the other cheek. Concede power to the secular State. The founder was a gentle soul and was killed at a young age, without putting up a fight.
Islam:
Conquer and/or kill your enemies, strike back all who dare to even insult you. Retain all power; Religious law is supreme. The founder was a powerful warlord conquerer who killed thousands and died naturally, at a ripe old age.
If this were a sporting event, which team appears poised to win? Christians (and all other non-Muslims) must realise the severity of the battle that looms ahead. (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND SINGING KUM-BAY-YAH IS NOT A BATTLE PLAN).
at May 16, 2006 7:56 PM
Pat is like the half-crazy uncle in a Dickens tale (a far better writer than Brown) who comes out with something near-brilliant, then proceeds to destroy his own stature and argument with half-baked sloganeering and crankisms ladelled clumsily over top of the initial bon mot, like a simpleton pouring chocolate sauce over a filet mignon.
As MP noted, Brown stole the entire thesis for his work from the 1980's book "Holy Bood, Holy Grail", a decent little "true" mystery. That work did nothing to weaken the "faith", but only hypothesized -based on the gnostic gospels- about the nature of Jesus and Mary Magdalen's relationship, and the possibility that she was pregnant with his child when he died.
How the recent English court case absolved Brown from the charge of [obvious] plagiarism is one of those quirks of law that make as much sense as an albino assassin. (Now there's a guy sure to be hard to spot or identify!)
Plus, another novel from the '70's (can't recall the title, but it might be something like "The Judas Document/Plot?") had the same essential story as Brown's book... of another "forbidden" Catholic document and another "Church assassin" (a rogue priest) travelling around Europe and bumping off those who would reveal the text and endanger the structure of the Roman hierarchy.
"The Skeleton in God's Closet" has the same basic thrust and part of Kazantzakis' "The Last Temptation of Christ", also. Lucky for Brown, I wasn't the judge. And lucky for him that no one in that court reads and retains.
The idea that the "human" Jesus may have had a wife -and child- (utterly common for a Jewish rabbi) who both survived his execution and escaped the later Roman conquest of Israel, means nothing "faith"-wise. The "divine" aspect of Christ is untouched by his mortal side's actions.
He drank wine. He chatted with whores and tax collectors. His earthly life was not "perfection" (as Mohammad's is touted as), but a tribulation. Transcending death is the point of the tale, not whether he had a family. (People also tend to forget he also brothers and sisters.)
It sounds like Buchanan has too little faith.
And I'm an agnostic nature mystic.
Who likes Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Maha Deviyakka, Bahu Bali, Hypatia, Milarepa and Hui Neng as good souls.
(Personally, I hope Jesus had a wife and a kid who escaped to Gaul and lived on through some obscure family branch. He got a lousy deal in every other aspect of how his mortal life turned out.)
Posted by: profitsbeard at May 16, 2006 8:08 PM
agnostic nature mystic
What? Please explain this Agnostic Nature Mystic...
at May 16, 2006 8:18 PM
It really doesn't matter if Brown's book is fiction. He presents it as fact. The point is, why aren't major newspapers refusing to show the ads like they did with the Muhammed Cartoons? They by their hypocrisy send the message that if you want respect then you use violence. And where is all of the criticism such as we heard about Gibson's Passion of the Christ because it *might* lend itself to anti-semitism? People are either ignorant or forget the fact that this country has a strong history of anti-Catholicism with a big thank you from people like Henry Ford.
Moreover, religion per se isn't the cause of violence per se in the world, though with some religions such as Islam are the impetus and legitimazation for it. If violence were somehow directly linked to religion per se, then Communism should have been the most peaceful movement on earth. Violence in the name of some idea isn't the sole property of religious belief. Call it original sin, the will to dominate or the struggle for survial-whatever, but you are deceiving yourself if you think that humanity is basically good such that if we just stripped away religion things would be honky dory.
Posted by: American_Palamite at May 16, 2006 8:21 PM
tsuga-
Agnostic= one who reserves ultimate judgment on the "divinity" of the world because of the acknowledged weakness of his inherited vessel's mental powers for such Absolute assessments.
Nature= the physical world we know through our senses and given intelligence that is literally our womb and parents and field of expression.
Mystic= one who accepts the essentially profound and Awe-inspiring mysteriousness of Life, appearing in infinity and eternity with consciousness- of itself, who then plumbs the Given with all of its existing and potential sources on insight, all the while feeling the abysmal and rapturous, but not pinning a familiar name on them. Letting the mystery remain deeper than the shallow human mind that attempts to confine All to its own limits.
(Hope this gives a hint of what I mean. With an earthy sense of humor beneath the words.)
In a phrase:
I think we're mentally unable to do more than write poetry about the Ineffable, never prose.
Or, in rhyme:
God knows, while I'm content to simply smell The Rose.
Posted by: profitsbeard at May 16, 2006 8:41 PM
This conflict has more to do with modern civilization then it has anything to do with christianity. It was western science that at last crushed Islamic dreams of world conquest not christian prayers. The Christian Church was both a help and and hinderence in that effort. It was a help in producing loyal people to fight but it prevented the science and technology that at last won it. Rememeber the church tried to ban many early firearms becuase they thought they were inspired by the "devil" and it was the church who attemped at every step to prevent the scientific revolution that made the west dominant. Simply said the church led efforts againt Islam were at best a draw and at worst idiotic defeats. Lets be real also it is not christian belief that has made this country great but instead it was ideas put forth by ancient greeks and romans who knew nothing of the bible or christian dogma. It was a free society and system free of a "state religion" that allowed technology to flurish. Today we rule not becuase of christian faith but becuase we produce powerful weapons that science and logic can produce. Christian faith has uses which I won't deny and no doubt has importance in the moral stability of this nation but never forget...please never forget who saved the christian faith and never forget who will win this coming war now.
Posted by: greatcometof1577 at May 16, 2006 8:50 PM
Eloquent,
I can't argue with that! Kind of like you know but you don't know, plus live and let live, equals humanity?
at May 16, 2006 8:52 PM
greatcometof1577,
First let’s leap into the 21 century...
It was western science that at last crushed Islamic dreams of world conquest...
They have the Bomb.
free of a "state religion....
I’m sorry; did I miss the proposal of a state religion?
ancient Greeks and Romans who...
Destroyed their societies from with in.
BTW... Our Christian faith is the only thing that has restrained us until this point.
But the rope is fraying
at May 16, 2006 9:04 PM
profitsbeard that was a great explanation. l think that God works through people, be it Jesus, Budda, etc. and that the devil somehow got into muhammud's head.
Posted by: Lulu at May 16, 2006 9:12 PM
tsuga-
I do know that Islam would deny me the right to say "I don't know, but I'm looking."
So, it is my sworn enemy.
And, although I wish the Muslims would be content to revolve around a rock in Mecca and be "compassionate" (as their Allah is named before nearly every sura in the Koran), a sworn enemy back at them.
Worse then they would wish, or can even imagine.
Unrestrained by their feeble superstitions.
great comet of 1577-
Giordano Bruno murder was the last gasp of the nescient Church.
It has adapted to evolution and astrophysics since then. "My kingdom is not of this world"/"Render unto Caesar..." finally penetrating their dogmatic skulls.
Islam cannot adapt.
The followers of the pedophile "prophet" steal our infidel accomplishments (the internet/camera phones/jetliners/rocket launchers/semtex, etc.), but create nothing but chaos on their own.
Being too busy bowing toward what they are forbidden to examine.
(Whether the composition of the likely meteorite 'black stone' in the Ka'aba, or dubious methodology of the gathering and arrangment of the Koranic fragments into the accepted "Recitation".)
at May 16, 2006 9:20 PM
Lulu-
Devils are holy men who have forgotten how to laugh.
Mohammad's lack of a sense of humor is his fatal flaw.
And his followers'.
Posted by: profitsbeard at May 16, 2006 9:23 PM
profitsbeard,
I am humbled...couldn’t have said it better.
at May 16, 2006 9:28 PM
Devils are holy men who have forgotten how to laugh.
http://www.tabula-rasa.info/Horror/Inferno.html
Posted by: tgusa at May 16, 2006 9:33 PM
Test.
Posted by: Television at May 16, 2006 9:39 PM
The Christian Right is more worried about abortion, gay marriage, evolution, and yes the christian nature of our great land than about jihad. Let me say that yes I do accept their is a god and yes perhaps the christian view is right but how does any this have anything to do with jihad??? With winning???
If you want to win you will have to make alliances with those who do not share christian values...hindus, jews, gays, some liberials who have brains (not the tree huggers, animals lovers, and other red/green color coded libs who have faith in communism which is their religion (only one step up from Islam in madness).
And yes people like me who accepts rational thought and the scientific method for solving problems (Evolution is FACT, Gravity is not gods hand, dinosaurs are not gods chariots, stem cell research might be useful, etc etc etc....Late term abortion can go however).
If you want to save the basic christian values and perhaps the west you will have to suck up your pride as I have done.
We may all disagree about the nature of god and the religion that best fits god. We may disagree on science and some social issues.
BUT WE ALL AGREE ISLAM IS COUNTER TO MODERN CIVILIZATION.
No one is safe...Not a Christian, Not a Hindu, Not a Jew, Not the faithful or Rational, Not Democracy, Not Freedom. It goes counter to all. Never has a more diabolical idea ever been created then Islam.
Did not Mr. Franklin one of our founding fathers say something to that effect.
"We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang (beheaded) separately."
I like my head and hope the moral right does also.
Posted by: greatcometof1577 at May 16, 2006 9:48 PM
If we're appeasing Muslims, why not appease Christians? So thinks New Delhi.
From the article
In Mumbai, members of the Catholic Secular Forum of India have threatened to shut down movies halls showing the film.For those lamenting the lack of Christians with balls, here are some. Can they be imported by Europe to retaliate against Muslims who terrorize Christians and vandalize Christian shrines (They would need to be programmed to be anti-Islamic, not pro-Islamic as they tend to be in India)? In return, export any Hindu pressure groups in Western countries to India to do what local Hindus routinely fail to do re: prevent the appeasement of Muslims by Indian politicians.
Just thinking out loud. Although I'm normally against censoring movies, if we have to appease anyone, I'd rather appease Christians.
at May 16, 2006 9:53 PM
"Does anybody get the least twinge of irony when *more* religion is proposed as a solution to islam?"
-above.
Exactly. Christianity is not the answer for most. Perhaps some might leave Islam and become Christians, but it is NOT the way we can save the world from doom, secularism is.
Is there anyone here who is NOT AN EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN?
Posted by: Kafir Nonbeliever at May 16, 2006 9:57 PM
profitsbeard.....
Old Giordano Bruno was fine fellow was he not...
Thats why I both love and hate the church. It created men like Mr. Bruno and then proceeded to kill him. Oh well...they have changed but sometimes I wonder.
at May 16, 2006 10:01 PM
Kafir Nonbeliever...a what?
Posted by: tgusa at May 16, 2006 10:03 PM
Kafir Nonbeliever said: "Exactly. Christianity is not the answer for most. Perhaps some might leave Islam and become Christians, but it is NOT the way we can save the world from doom, secularism is."
I would agree as you can see by my other posts but did not a secular Netherlands fall apart at the first sign of Islam.....
We need some mix. Like I promise to stay out of the church if christians will stay out of the science textbooks....etc etc. Christians do fight hard for their faith and that faith has produced a moral framework for our modern society (Like laws that prevent killing, rape, womens rights, peaceful conduct etc). It is a hopeful religion for the most part unlike Islam. The problem is when christians feel the need to protect god (example of Da Vinici Code OR The Judus story). If the Pope would busy himself with fighting Islam as he does with sex, morals, condoms, gays, and stupid fiction books and hollywood movies then who knows Islam might have already been pushed back.
Posted by: greatcometof1577
at May 16, 2006 10:17 PM
greatcometof1577,
The conflict has to do with ideas and you aren’t going to convert muslims to some non-worldview. It isn’t technology that is converting thousands of muslims every year in North Africa. Nor is it likely that given the rate of nuclear proliferation that the technological edge will matter a whole hell of a lot in 50 years.
It was by and large the underlying worldview of Christian theism that made modern science possible. It wasn’t as if scientists looked around and justified the concept of a uniformity of nature or the idea of secondary causation all on their little lonesome. And it wasn’t like all of the Enlightenment thinkers were a great aid to science either, David Hume being the principle example. Moreover technological progress isn’t to be equated with moral progress or the wisdom to use it well. And what neither side in the evolution debates have figured out is that the issue isn’t the mechanism by which humanity came about but the underlying metaphysics. What most people object to is not evolution, but the metaphysical belief of Naturalism smuggled in with it. Rant all you like about the “fact” of evolution. It is a side show.
Moreover you seem to be confusing Christianity per se with Catholicism. Whatever the mistakes of individual Catholic theologians, Popes and such, last time I checked, nothing that you refer to applies to the Eastern Church. After all it was the “Byzantines” (actually Romans) who were using “Greek Fire” (something like napalm) against the Muslims. No fear of technology there. What is more, they never lost Plato, Aristotle and Greek learning. As for the history of the medieval world, it was the church that fostered, funded and promoted the universities in which great technological advances came about. As a specialist in the field, the idea that the medieval world was “Dark” or any darker than any other time is pure mythology. And I wouldn’t call the liberation of Spain a “draw.”
The ancient Romans weren’t exactly too keen on democracy and they had no concept of pluralism. That foundation was laid by Saint Augustine in North Africa with his concept of two cities with an intervening Saeculum in this world between them. Neither Plato or Aristotle thought democracy was a good form of government, both thought some kind of monarchy was the best form. After all it was a democracy that killed Socrates.
The west has fostered free societies more or less based on a mixture of confused allegiances. That freedom is somehow intrinsic to humanity but humanity isn’t anything significant, that reason is universal and invariant but contingent creatures are its masters and vehicles, morality is a feature of human nature but humans are amoral biological machines, that knowledge has a goal or purpose but humans are purposeless. Tossing around Enlightenment rhetoric about science practices, logic and freedom, all of which are ideas which the Enlightenment project has failed to justify by its own standards, doesn’t do any practical or theoretical work against Islam. It is just engaging in another mythological narrative.
at May 16, 2006 10:30 PM
Kafir,
Yeah, I am not. I'm Orthodox. Gee, what what suprise.
Posted by: American_Palamite at May 16, 2006 10:31 PM
Is there anyone here who is NOT AN EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN? - Kafir Nonbeliever
Way to stereotype your fellow Jihad Watchers.
Let's keep our eyes on the task at hand: the jihadists who would like to ensure that you can't be gay, and I can't be Catholic.
Posted by: Shinoliite at May 16, 2006 11:05 PM
Sex, drugs and rock and roll.
That's what islam needs -- in spades.
Give the kids a way to get back at their elders and have a reason to stay out of the next world as long as possible.
at May 16, 2006 11:32 PM
American Palamite,
I 24 India and I am greatly indebted to you becoz u have let me know the minds of some of the greatest thinkers Aristotle and plato's views abt democracy. I arrived at the same fact that democracy is not the best form of governance long before I mean 4 years back by my analysis of the society, and this realisation would be quicker in societies like Indian than in any other..I am pround that my thoughts were same as those of the great in the history..
A good dictator will deliver in a matter of 2 decades what democracy cant in 100 years. Now the crux lies in creating a system, that facilitates the ascending of a good person to the dictatorship consistently....thats my view and I am a beleiver in everythign is possible..and so it is very much possible..
Democracy will go, in the coming 60 to 70 years if the trend of the destruction of social fabric of a country is destroyed by the so called utopian idea of Multiculturalism which may be possible with peaceful cultures but the existence of Islam will make life that much more difficult for true secularism..
at May 16, 2006 11:44 PM
Varma,
Make no mistake. My point wasn't that democracy per se was a bad idea, but that what the west owes to democracy didn't come in a pre approved package from Plato and Aristotle.Personally I favor a republican form of government. What the Enlightenment got wrong was in thinking that the non-legal social sanctions that glue society together would remain without some major help from the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Democracies can be slow but not always. It may take a while to awake the giant, but everyone knows when he is. And I don't think that western style democracies are going anywhere. In fact I think much of the Jihadi uproar is a sign that they have been loosing on a culture wide scale for some time and will continue to do so. So the west switches to bio-fuels. A hassle. But for the Muslims, without gasoline, it isn't as if Saudi Arabia has major exports of food stuffs to export, let alone much of anything else. It is also important not to confuse democracy with pluralism. Most western intelligensia today aren't pluralists or at least full blown pluralists but some form of communitarianism.
Posted by: American_Palamite at May 17, 2006 12:06 AM
American_Palamite
I was going to responed/challange everything you said but I just went for the end to keep it short. Yes I know about Byzantines and greek fire and they also had a flame thrower that tourched the arab fleet in the 900s A.D. I disagree with many things you stated but its late....
You said...
"Enlightenment project has failed to justify by its own standards, doesn’t do any practical or theoretical work against Islam."
It drove Islam from Southern Europe, Greece, Southern Russia, allowed European armies to march into Egypt, Syria, Persia, India, defeated the Ottoman Empire, North African Pirates, African muslim states, and more. (I will give Spain, Malta perhaps...)
Let me ask you this question...Was those victories above the work of Christian crusading to futhur the cause of Christ and led by the church or was it by semi-secular and full secular states of semi-free and free thinking, semi-free wheeling, hard loving, money loving, trade loving, practical Europeans and Americans using weapons made by practical scientific and rational minds.
If we want to win we need to get hard and mean not more religious. I am not saying the church or christian morals don't play a part...In other words lets take the liberation of Southern Europe and Greece from the Turks as an example. It was no doubt Christian values the drove the resistance in the conqured lands but that liberation was not possible without the use of better cannon, guns and weapons, warships, stratiges and mercenaries from Western Europe who were from secular states. Many of these inventions would not have been possible if the Christian Church (Roman Catholic, Eastern, Protestant, other) had their way. It is just that simple....
Lets put it another way when the Church ran things the Muslims won victories and when kings and secular leaders and governments ran things the Muslims lost lands.
Posted by: greatcometof1577 at May 17, 2006 12:17 AM
Jesus and Christianity or whatever(catholicsm,orthodox) are two different issues...
Faith will never quench the thirst of reasonable minds, Christinaity,Catholism will fall because they did what they should'nt have to do - means built a faith(beleifs) around Jesus that are so irrational, that the message of Jesus is hindered.
Buddha doesnt have such cliches, so he will always appeal to humanity as a whole..
Let me tell u my experience in India, I was walking on a road and was approched by a preacher of Christianity.He asked me if I can spare some time, I said yes,he started to tell me about Christianity, thoug I know abt Jesus and Christianity..and after listening I aksed him, is their any problem if I dont beleive in Jesus as my saviour..
He said in unclinching faith(beleif) that what u follow worshiping false gods and so on is Satanic, and u will be doomed if u dont accept Jesus as ur Saviour, Jesus alone saves...
I know that Jesus's teachings were of love and sacrifice, and they dont need fear factors like hell and heaven to follow these teachings, these qualities of Love and sacrifice may be absent in the middle east in those times, but various Christian Churches beleif that these were non existent in other cultures, is nothing short of stupidity...
It is because of this stupidity, I fear that Jesus message is getting lost.
Hindus, doesnt believe(literal sense) that Jesus was a good person, they heard the life of Jesus and regard not beleif Jesus as a saint....
But for the Christian churches that is not enough because that doesnt give them political power, theya want people to shut down their senses
and beleive what they say like humans are born with sin, anybody who does'nt beleive Jesus as Saviour will go to hell...
To arm thyself with such Bullshit if Christina churches want to take the message of Jesus to the people, may be it is possible in Africa, but that will be impossible in Asia, where reason has triumphed than belief from Millinia....
But the Christians have one thing to exploit to overcome this difficluty to plant their beleif, that is poverty, they can exploit this to gain flock, and finally wiping out the ancient cultures and civilisations as they did in Europe and Africa and in the Americas......
at May 17, 2006 12:22 AM
As I have stated here before, the very fact that this site and CatholicReport.org are practically the only sites that will discuss stories like this speaks volumes. Why can't mainstream media sites and blogs focus on issues such as this? Perhaps the answer is as simple as it seems. As bold as the liberal media may claims to be, they won't critique Islam on the same level as Catholicism. We can give our opinion but it would be only fair if they would tell us. I am not holding my breath!
Posted by: Dave at May 17, 2006 12:26 AM
American_Palamite
I do agree with one thing...All this nonsense ends with new fuel technology. Nuclear, Coal Conversion to oil, verious bio-fuels etc.
Without oil cash The Glorious Islamic Jihad will be dead. Period. Game Over.
at May 17, 2006 12:31 AM
The fear of oil being used as weopon by the arab states in unfounded, and the beleif of the west that their will be no defenc for such an attack is again unfounded...You just need to think..If the arbas use oil as weapon let us use food(grains) as our weapon..
Solution:::::
Inflate the prices of grains in the international market accordingly with the oil, this will evaporate the oil money in the arab states significantly, thus a reduced funding of terror and a greater dependecy on the West and India and China who are largest producers of Food..
Do this until an alterantive fuel is obtained and then the World will again be a gr8 place..with our interest saved..
Wher are the policy makers and Economists,..they are just traitors eating bribes from the gulf states and sitting idle and seeing our surplus dwindled away to the terrorists states
at May 17, 2006 12:33 AM
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/05/16/060517004155.mxm43ky2.html
Here is a review of the movie. It doesn't sound too good.
I must be one of the few who hasn't read it! I have watched so many doco's on it,,why bother?
Bottom line: Maybe Jesus had a partner, maybe a child also. The rest is unprovable rubbish and lies, cleverly strung together in a work of FICTION.
I am hoping this will have a positive effect on Christians and draw them together. I think this is possible.
I find it interesting that we have all been so "taken" with this book, and the Harry Potter books.
We surely are living in fantasyland! What does it say about our state of mind?
Haven't read any Harry Potter either, but like many of you, no doubt, wish I had written something like either,lol! I think I would have been able to put that $$$$ to good use!
at May 17, 2006 1:15 AM
UncleSam-
Sounds Satanic to me.
Klondike?
Isn't that a demonic anagram for:
DEO KLINK?
The prison where religious extremists of the mysterious order named OPUS SCHMOPUS incarcerate all who would expose their greatest, most hideous secret, that...
(silence----------------------------------)
Posted by: profitsbeard at May 17, 2006 3:10 AM
greatcometof1577:
Evolution a fact? Want to make some money? There is a gent in Pensacola, Florida named Kent Hovind who has a website. He believes in Creation Science, and is willing to travel to a venue of your choice for a face-to-face debate. He has a certified standing offer of $250,000 if you can prove evolution is a fact.
at May 17, 2006 4:08 AM
Whether the secularists want to see it or not our greatest enemy is, indeed, the forces amongst us inthe West which are pulling our culture further from it's Judeo-Christian roots towards total license and permissivity which leads to the dhimmi attitudes most posters here revile.
As I posted earlier:
"For the last fourteen hundred years Mohammedans, whether Saracens or Arabs or Moors or Turks, have served God as a scourge to punish faithless Christians, or slack Christendom. When Catholics are fervent, God can grant them miraculous victories over the Mohammedans, as at the sea-battle of Lepanto in 1571. When Catholics are slack, God can allow the very survival of their nations to be threatened, as now, by birth-rates in Europe, by terrorism in the USA. When Spanish Catholics were slack in the 700's, God allowed Spain [to be betrayed] to the Arabs. When Spanish Catholics were truly Catholic, God granted them by 1492 to reconquer Spain from the Arabs, and then granted them to create a Catholic empire in the Americas. Either way, God writes straight with crooked lines for the salvation of souls."
So if Pat's remarks went a bit in the direction of hyperbole, I understand it, becuase we MUST face this fact, ie we cannot save a West that is gone. If the effete powers of corruption succeed in constructing a totally relativistic athiest materialistic culture (and they have pretty much done so already), then we are lost and maybe deserve the rise of Islam and its concomitant evils.
So the battle is at home first, quite literally in the homes of America and the West.
Posted by: Elendur at May 17, 2006 5:15 AM
Pat Buchanan is on the other side.
I saved this the day it was written in the Arab News:
WASHINGTON, 27 May 2004 — “So, how do we advance the cause of female emancipation in the Muslim world?” asks Richard Perle in An End to Evil. He replies, “We need to remind the women of Islam ceaselessly: Our enemies are the same as theirs; our victory will be theirs as well.
Well, the neoconservative cause “of female emancipation in the Muslim world” was probably set back a bit by the photo shoot of Pfc. Lynndie England and the “Girls Gone Wild” of Abu Ghraib prison.
Indeed, the filmed orgies among US military police outside the cells of Iraqi prisoners, the S&M humiliation of Muslim men, and the sexual torment of Muslim women raise a question. Exactly what are the “values” the West has to teach the Islamic world?
“This war ... is about — deeply about — sex,” declaims neocon Charles Krauthammer. Militant Islam is “threatened by the West because of our twin doctrines of equality and sexual liberation.”
But whose “twin doctrines” is Krauthammer talking about? The sexual liberation he calls “our” doctrine belongs to a ‘60s revolution that devout Christians, Jews and Muslims have been resisting for years.
What does Krauthammer mean by sexual liberation? The right of “teens” and teenage girls to dress and behave like Britney Spears? Their right to condoms in junior high? Their right to abortion without parental consent?
If conservatives reject the “equality” preached by Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, NARAL and the National Organization for Women, why seek to impose it on the Islamic world? Why not stand beside Islam, and against Hollywood and Hillary?
In June 2002 at West Point, President Bush said, “Moral truth is the same in every culture, in every time and in every place.”
But even John Kerry does not agree with George Bush on the morality of homosexual unions and stem cell research. On such issues, conservative Americans have more in common with devout Muslims than with liberal Democrats.
The president notwithstanding, Americans no longer agree on what is moral truth. For as someone said a few years back, there is a cultural war going on in this country, a religious war. It is about who we are, what we believe and what we stand for as a people.
What some of us view as the moral descent of a great and Godly republic into imperial decadence, neocons see as their big chance to rule the world. In Georgia recently, the president declared to great applause: “I can’t tell you how proud I am of our commitment to values. ... That commitment to values is going to be an integral part of our foreign policy as we move forward. These aren’t American values, these are universal values. Values that speak universal truths.”
But what universal values is he talking about? If he intends to impose the values of MTV America on the Muslim world in the name of a “world democratic revolution,” he will provoke and incite a war of civilizations America cannot win because Americans do not want to fight it. This may be the neocons’ war. It is not our war.
When Bush speaks of freedom as God’s gift to humanity, does he mean the First Amendment freedom of Larry Flynt to produce pornography and of Salman Rushdie to publish The Satanic Verses, a book considered blasphemous to the Islamic faith? If the Islamic world rejects this notion of freedom, why is it our duty to change their thinking? Why are they wrong? When the president speaks of freedom, does he mean the First Amendment prohibition against our children reading the Bible and being taught the Ten Commandments in school?
If the president wishes to fight a moral crusade, he should know the enemy is inside the gates. The great moral and cultural threats to our civilization come not from outside America, but from within. We have met the enemy, and he is us. The war for the soul of America is not going to be lost or won in Fallujah. Unfortunately, Pagan America of 2004 has far less to offer the world in cultural fare than did Christian America of 1954. Many of the movies, books, magazines, TV shows, videos and much of the music we export to the world are as poisonous as the narcotics the Royal Navy forced on the Chinese people in the Opium Wars.
A society that accepts the killing of a third of its babies as women’s “emancipation,” that considers homosexual marriage to be social progress, that hands out contraceptives to 13-year-old girls at junior high ought to be seeking out a confessional — better yet, an exorcist — rather than striding into a pulpit like Elmer Gantry to lecture mankind on the superiority of “American values.”
at May 17, 2006 5:49 AM
Beagle,
I take it you mean Pat Buchanan is pro-Islam?? You miss the point. He is saying what I said. What are we holding up to Islam as the alternative? Perversity, greed, obscenity on demand, moral corruption all under the guise of the idol of freedom, an anytihng goes society of hedonists and perverts? There is NO freedom without responsibility. As the Holy Father has said, as many conservatives have said, as Pat says, relativism is an empty room of despair. Wake up and smell the coffee ye secularists!
Posted by: Elendur at May 17, 2006 6:07 AM
Drudge reports;
CANNES, France - "The Da Vinci Code" drew lukewarm praise, shrugs of indifference, some jeering laughter and a few derisive jabs Tuesday from arguably the world's toughest movie crowd: critics at the
Cannes Film Festival.
I don't know how this is going to play to the public, but so far, "Da Vinci Code" doesn't impress.
Posted by: kevin at May 17, 2006 6:28 AM
"Does anybody get the least twinge of irony when *more* religion is proposed as a solution to islam?"
Posted by: Hyman Roth
It would be irony if all religions were the same, if their teachings were identical, if the results and manifestations of the applications of their principles were the same. But those are multicultural lies.
"I hope a "Politically Incorrect Guide to Christianity" comes out someday."
I think it did. It's called The Bible.
Posted by: ShortBoard Surfer
ShortBoard Surfer, you of course, are right. Usually, those who criticize it have never read it (start with John if you haven’t) and those who fall for its history (like the French) simply love to disparage religion.
Ladies and Gentleman...
Is not the Christian belief system based on "FAITH"?
Therefore if your "FAITH" is rocked by a such simple thing as a book or a movie do you really have "FAITH"? It is all about "FAITH"! Believe it or not, make up your mind and GO FOR IT.
Posted by: tgusa
Christianity is based upon faith, but in turn, that faith is based upon 1) the testimony of eyewitnesses, who willingly died because they knew it wasn’t fraudulent, (no one gets crucified for a hoax), 2) documentation that meets the requirements for historical evidence 3) external source material that also meets the requirements for historical evidence. So no, it is not just based upon faith, but upon faith rooted in verifiable historic evidence.
Those who are ignorant of History, particularly early Church History, and those who hate traditional values (liberals are three times more likely to see it then a conservative according to the “Barna Group”), etc., that will flock to “DaVinci” and any other error. Christianity is not “Believe it or not, make up your mind and GO FOR IT.” It rather invites rational investigation into history, and its textbook, the Bible. If Christianity can not be verified as historically true, then any experience will do, post-modernism and multiculturalism win and the West will lose.
at May 17, 2006 8:35 AM
Just to focus on the Da Vinci Code! Bunk! Poppycock! And...Caterwaller! I can't believe the furor that the religious community is creating. This movie will come and go and in a short time will be forgotten.
I read the book. It was entertaining from the first half to the book than it became contrived and a bit fantastic. Anyone with a bit of knowledge of history and a sense of reality realized that this is nothing but a novel, an entertaining novel and the truth takes a back seat to the entertainment value.
So, Catholics, religious right, Christians etc. CHILL OUT! This too shall pass!
Il Toscano
Posted by: il toscano at May 17, 2006 9:35 AM
Being in a high tech job, I tend to want to come home and read or watch a movie for pure escapeism. I read a lot of Sci-Fi and Horror novels. Writers like Isamov, Heinlein, or Arthur C. Clarke write FICTION starting with an "impossible" premise, and write a good story around this. If you throw in enough parellels to the truth, it makes the STORY even better. IMHO I feel it challenges the reader to sort out the fact from fiction. Being Russian Orthodox, I find no conflcit between my faith and this work of FICTION. BTW I find Dan Brown's works very good, but not great.
Posted by: ShortBoard Surfer at May 17, 2006 10:01 AM
Beagle-
The problem with your question boils down to: who gets to decide?
The Islamic umma decides for everyone and imposes its decision with violence and bloodshed.
People who live in liberty are free to decide for themselves. Some make sound choices, some do not. Some make choices based on how they respond to Christian values, some allow themselves to be informed by Jewish values, some by Islamic values, some on secular values.
I also lament the loss of life from abortion. Yet far more abortion has been practiced in countries like China. Indeed, why complain when some people in the West choose to abort, when the government imposes universal abortion as a matter of law in China for women who have had more than one child?
Your objections seem to be based on how you disagree with the choices that people have made. Yet, again, who gets to decide for all of us.
Stalin is reported to have asked, "Who, Whom?" Yes, exactly! Who gets to set themselves up as having life and death control over whom?
Islam has clerical control over "who, whom". And who do the clerics report to? Who can remove them from office when you find their rule to be too bloody, too arbitrary and too corrupt?
While I certainly am repulsed by some of the choices that many people in the West make in their personal lives, the Islamic cure is no cure at all. Instead, it is a road to bloodshed, poverty, and misery for most people.
It is such a miserable place that it must impose the death penalty for anyone seeking to escape it by converting to another way of life.
at May 17, 2006 10:48 AM
Again, granted that the book is fiction. But if you read the initial statements that Brown makes he claims it is FACTUALLY ACCURATE.
For those who are other religious perspectives here and don't see what the big deal is, let me put it to you with a bit of reciprocity. How would you feel if someone did the same thing to your religion? Made a film that claimed as fact the idea that wiccans, while professing peace, love and hugging am oak, secretly sacrificed children? Or a film that made great secular thinkers look like baffoons.
Moreover, the enlightenment categories of race, class and gender into which all things religious must be sifted, simply won't work with Islam. The Enlightenment project reduces all religious conflicts down to ethnic, economical or gender issues, which is why the left is generally so blind to the threat of Islam.
Posted by: American_Palamite at May 17, 2006 11:11 AM
Greatcomet
I wouldn’t say that the Enlightenment project drove the Muslims out of Greece or Russia or any of the other places you cited. Governments did and most of those weren’t exactly enshrining the goddess of “reason” either. I don’t take the Crusades to further the cause of Christ but an attempt to defend Christian civilization and the same is true for many of the contexts that you cited. Moreover, it was a strong sense of Christian identity that helped preserve the Greek nation under the Turkish yoke. And with the Greeks, the Orthodox church played a significant role in tossing off the Greeks, just as the Catholic Church did in tossing off the Communists in Poland. The problem is that you are drawing a hard and fast distinction between being rational, scientific, etc with having a religious perspective. Firs it is very difficult to gloss what counts as religious in the first place. Second, the dichotomy you are making falls out of Kantianism by and large, which is great if you are a Kantian, but I’m not. Moreover, the long term struggle with Islam will not be won by weapons alone.
I don’t understand why you would think that hardening our hearts to our enemies and becoming determined is incompatible with being religious, unless of course you identify religious belief with sentiment. Again, more Kantianism. In any case, that certainly wasn’t the case in WW2 when the country was arguably more religious and quite “mean.” And many of the pioneers in science, putting the Catholics aside for a moment, were advocates of the Christian worldview. Certainly there was no divide in Byzantium between knowledge of God and knowledge of the world. Moreover, even if some Christians opposed such technological advances, what they were more worried about was not the technology per se, but its potential for abuse. In any case such past protestations say nothing about whether it was Judeo-Christian concepts that made modern science possible in the first place.
Posted by: American_Palamite at May 17, 2006 11:12 AM
err, tossing off the the Turks rather
Posted by: American_Palamite at May 17, 2006 11:18 AM
Shortboard's Equation:
he claims it is FACTUALLY ACCURATE = Bestseller -> $$$$
Rush's Rule:
Follow the money.
Posted by: ShortBoard Surfer at May 17, 2006 11:25 AM
Gramfan,
I am not surpised that the "The DaVinci Code" movie opened to not-so-great reviews. I have seen enough documentaries that all state in the end that TDVC is simply a poorly put together work of fiction.
Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at May 17, 2006 11:40 AM
Dear "Special Guest".....Huh? How about the Thirty Years War for starters?
I'm not waiving the bloody shirt here, but let's be honest. Christians have fought many bloody wars in the past over religious issues.
Let's not deny the above fact; and let's not try to be overly sensitive to our own faults, past or present.
"Know the truth, and the truth shall set you see." Actually, according to Clarence Darrow, that was "Know the truth, and it shall make you angry."
Peace,
Desert Dawg
DesertDawgN29 said
Christians should be proud that they no longer kill or harm those who mock their beliefs.
At the risk of encouraging a whole anti-Christian sub-thread in a posting about the benefits of Judeo-Christian belief, when did Christians kill those who mocked their beliefs? Are you on about the Salem witch trials, the Crusades (spare me), the Inquisition?
But maybe you can just ask Robert to remove my postings again
at May 17, 2006 12:04 PM
Dear TGUSA, what ellicited the snide remarks you directed towards me....the "my sensitive little friend" remark?
Calling for indiscriminate genocide against all Muslims is offensive and must be decried from anyone who is seriousely engaged in confronting the menace of Islamofascism (and other threats to freedom and democracy as well.)Sorry, but vicariousely posting passive-aggressive and cheeky comments online doesn't count unless you're a middle school girl in a cafeteria.
As far as the "my sensitive little friend" snippet goes, the "dawg" and "29" in my screenname don't originate from a stint in the Girl Scouts. Look it up.
Anyway, the point should remain that those who have never faced another human being
when life and death hang in the balance have no right to "talk big" and blabber about whiping millions of people off the face of the earth.
at May 17, 2006 12:21 PM
Dear TGUSA, what ellicited the snide remarks you directed towards me....the "my sensitive little friend" remark?
Calling for indiscriminate genocide against all Muslims is offensive and must be decried from anyone who is seriousely engaged in confronting the menace of Islamofascism (and other threats to freedom and democracy as well.)Sorry, but vicariousely posting passive-aggressive and cheeky comments online doesn't count unless you're a middle school girl in a cafeteria.
As far as the "my sensitive little friend" snippet goes, the "dawg" and "29" in my screenname don't originate from a stint in the Girl Scouts. Look it up.
Anyway, the point should remain that those who have never faced another human being
when life and death hang in the balance have no right to "talk big" and blabber about whiping millions of people off the face of the earth.
at May 17, 2006 12:21 PM
What is with the Salem witch trials and the 30 years war reference? Who stopped the Salem trials? Atheists? Communists? Deists? Other witches?
Increase Mather and Churchmen.
30 years war, often as much political is religion. This was not the teaching of Christ, but an abberation. The real problem with Christianity is it sucks when people do not live up to its ideals. Islam, on the other hand, sucks when people do.
Posted by: William the Sinner at May 17, 2006 12:55 PM
"The real problem with Christianity is it sucks when people do not live up to its ideals. Islam, on the other hand, sucks when people do"
GREAT MENTAL BUMPER-STICKER!! (Standing O)
Posted by: ShortBoard Surfer at May 17, 2006 1:20 PM
skald did a bad job with his research - 70% of Americans are NOT non-Christian. Rather, it it is exactly the opposite http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religions. (Boy I sure dislike poorly cited statements of fact on the web) Christianity will also never go away, much to the dismay of those who want to carry on their misdeeds in peace and acceptance. Heck, when I was getting smashed every day, that's all I wanted.
At second glance though, maybe skald was closer to the truth than we think. While polls show 76% of Americans are Christians, one doesn't have to live here long to find that most of them must be hibernating or faking.
I see only good things coming from the Da Vinci codes, which I went into in a bit more detail on my blog.
1) Separates the believers from the "believers". Either you believe in Jesus as the Christ or you don't.
2) Controversy provides opportunities to witness.
3) So easily proven by even secular historians to be a pile of rubbish.
at May 17, 2006 2:29 PM
DesertDawgN29 said
How about the Thirty Years War for starters?
The Thirty Year War was all about the same old European jostling for territory and power. The French and Spaniards and Swedes all wanted a piece of Germany. The Protestant/Catholic conflict was just a pretext. But by all means, build that "Christian-Watch.org" site, and fill it with 16th Century newsflashes on how the maurading Christians are threatening us.
BTW, I think you were too easy on TGUSA. Imagine him criticising you for confusing "Moslems" for "jihadists". What nerve. Let him have it!
Posted by: special_guest at May 17, 2006 2:49 PM
DesertDawgN29 wrote...
Dear TGUSA, what elicited the snide remarks you directed towards me....the "my sensitive little friend" remark?
DesertDawgN29,
The following were "MY" words. Everything else was cut and pasted from other peoples writing.
To prove a point.."That there is "NO" censorship here at J/W.
Before you call me a Genocidal maniac make sure you understand the post completely.
1.If I post this it should be censored?
2.There have been several postings of mine, even entire articles that have been removed. My first instinct being a westerner was did I offend someone? No, but someone else did. There is “NO” censorship here. Unless you use the tactics of the enemy, i.e., insults {that only fires me up} name-calling, {ignored}. Keep posting your opinions. I am interested...Information is our greatest friend.
BTW.. No hard feelings?
Posted by: tgusa at May 17, 2006 6:19 PM
DesertDawgN29,
I address the rest...
Sorry, but vicariously posting passive-aggressive and cheeky comments online doesn't count unless you're a middle school girl in a cafeteria.
Again, try to follow the conversation.
the "dawg" and "29" in my screenname don't originate from a stint in the Girl Scouts. Look it up.
I don’t need to look it up I am well aware of what goes on in T.P.
Anyway, the point should remain that those who have never faced another human being when life and death hang in the balance have no right to "talk big" and blabber about whiping millions of people off the face of the earth.
Since you are now active you were probably just being born when I volunteered the first time. I also tried to join again after 9/11 but was very nicely told by the Marines that they have an age limit. And although they appreciated my patriotism they thought I could find something over here to do. Their loss. I also live in an area of the USA that is right on the front lines of this battle.
Freedom and Democracy,
My family came to the New World 100 plus years before the Revolutionary War. We chased the Brits out of the Carolinas. We fought on both sides of the Civil War. My Grandfather was at Normandy. My father was Army Intelligence. And I myself joined the first time to throw the Russians out of Afghanistan or get our hostages back from Iran. Sound familiar?
BTW… The Military in those days was not as popular with the people as it is today.
Generally I ignore posts such as this but the post was so egregious that I felt I must respond.
Go gettum bud!
at May 17, 2006 7:22 PM
The amount of spazzing about this is just ridiculous, not quite to Cartoon Rage levels (simply because westerners aren't Muslims, and thus, dangerously paranoid), but ridiculous nonetheless.
It's a book, for goodness sakes (well, now a movie too). Calm down.
Really, quit acting like not-quite-as-spastic Muslims.
PS: You know the producers are doing a Snoopy Dance over all the hoopla.
Posted by: MegaTroopX at May 17, 2006 9:35 PM
BTW, Pat Buchanan? Isn't that the fuckwad that stated that we deserved 9/11 because we don't kill homosexuals enough? You want to use this guy to make a point?
But anyway, Buchanan then drives his train of thought right off the deep end
That's because he is a psycho, a white Jesse Jackson. I'm waiting for him to demand "reparations" for the mistreatment of christians through history.
Posted by: MegaTroopX at May 17, 2006 9:49 PM
First off, please don't confuse my brief comments at the top of my last post with Pat Buchanan's long diatribe for Islam and against Hillary Clintion which came from the Arab News in 2004. Thanks.
Now for my opinion.
There are two western cultures, fundamental, and pop. It is possible to tune out pop culture. I don't go to movies. With some difficulty, granted, I turn off the TV. I read books, take care of my son, and work in my yard. It's like Jefferson's agrarian ideal, but without slaves or primitive dentistry.
I can't believe anyone would sacrifice American culture (rule of law, constitution, freedom of expression, religion, conscience, rights of defendants, no cruel and unusual punishment, science, enlightened capitalism) for Islam because of a USSC opinion (Roe) which reads like a statute. Roe should probably be overturned or modified to allow the states more latitude.
Why do so many religious people obsess over popular culture? Yes, with children in the equation it makes the job more difficult, but parenting a baby into a good person has never been an easy job.
Pat Buchanan does side with Islam, by his own terms. He either doesn't understand the totality of Islam (makes him stupid and dangerous) or he really does side with Islam knowing the facts (a traitor).
Posted by: Beagle at May 18, 2006 6:09 AM
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