charles cure said:
I think I'm mixing up two paintings Dr Seracini studied.
The real "code," but was it Da Vinci's?
- Thread starter Medicine*Woman
- Start date
I think I'm mixing up two paintings Dr Seracini studied.
I'll leave you all to enjoy your fantasy 
But bear this in mind, you are being sucked in by the same process that attracts people to religion. NO proof just a good story.
But bear this in mind, you are being sucked in by the same process that attracts people to religion. NO proof just a good story.
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charles cure
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Theoryofrelativity said:I'll leave you all to enjoy your fantasy
But bear this in mind, you are being sucked in by the same process that attracts people to religion. NO proof just a good story.
what are you warning people of here? just so you know, i think the DaVinci code is a load of horseshit. but i think the bible is too. i do however think that the story of the DaVinci code presents a more realistic and convincing explanation for things than the bible does. that doens't mean i got sucked in. it means that maybe there's a kernel of truth to the ideas in the DaVinci code and i'm happy someone is taking them seriously. i'm excited by the prospect of christians being exposed to the idea that the church exists only to perpetuate itself and retain moral authority. i'm glad that people are reexamining jesus's life and asking their priests if it was possible that jesus could have been married. it makes his character more human, possibly flawed, and allows for a reconsideration of all kinds of outdated, extreme, and arcane points of church doctrine. that's what i think the legacy of the DaVinci code will be. the people on this forum are too smart (by and large) to be sucked in to believing the DaVinci code literally, but there's no harm in talking about it. the christians here seem frustrated that people would read the book or see the movie and take its ideas literally or believe they are true without proof. well, if you feel that way, welcome to the club, for you have just begun to feel the same type of frustration that atheists and agnostics feel when confronted with christians who believe in the literal word of the bible or the church.
charles cure said:
eh? If this was true then you and I are entirely on the same side of the fence, but the reams of dialogue you've typed here discussing the possibility that DaVinci himself hid codes in his paintings seems to suggest otherwise?
charles cure said:
As 'Enterpirse D' said, don't mix up the film with reality. You have spent reams of dialogue here on the subject of DaVinci's art and THAT isn't even the subject of the film, so how do these two things relate to each other? They don't.
The film does maybe point a way to the truth. Your discussion about DaVinci's paintings (unrelated to the film) does NOT!
Meanwhile:
You say:
"..... welcome to the club, for you have just begun to feel the same type of frustration that atheists and agnostics feel when confronted with christians who believe in the literal word of the bible or the church."
Exactly my thoughts. I do see here some people believing and wanting to believe in a load of subjective nonsense sparked by a book title (as there is NO code in the book as ED pointed out) and think 'what the fuck?' but whereas I can understand how adults indoctrinated with religion from birth for 'psychological and biological' reasons find it hard to break away from those untruths taught in childhood, am utterly flabbergasted that someone like yourself is willing to indulge in this utter fantasy.
(I do admire your knowledge on the subject matter though...but sucked in is a good expression for what I see here)
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charles cure
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Theoryofrelativity said:
you seemingly never fail to misunderstand what i say. i said that the possibility that DaVinci used subversive symbolism in his paintings is very real and that his life and ideas should be examined, which they have been for a long time anyway. nothing more than that.
DaVinci's art plays a key role in the story. an interpretation of his paintings is used to reveal the existence of an alternative point of view with respect to the life of jesus. the fact is that that view has existed for thousands of years and has been held by some unlikely people. most laypeople have never even heard of that before, and it is a shocking piece of news for them. to see it possibly being communicated in a famous piece of art may force them to contemplate what else is hidden right out in the open. in addition to that, in the book there are actual coded messages written on DaVinci's paintings by the curator of the louvre.
well, you know everyone has there reasons for believing what they believe. many of the most fervent and ridiculous christians i have ever met are ones who found god in their adult life in the absence of a religious upbringing, or even just an unobservant one. the DaVinci code likely operates on the same kind of premise. many people, despite being religious find dogma and doctrine to be oppressive and find it difficult to relate to a perfect superbeing who sacrificed his life for us so that we could feel guilty about masturbating for the rest of eternity. these people are looking for a way to make jesus more human, or even just more realistic. the DaVinci code, being the wishy-washy piece of trash that it is with its anti-church/pro-faith message offers them exactly what they need. they get to believe that jesus was a person, although an extraordinary person, who had urges and relationships just like everyone else, which makes the church wrong and deceitful, allowing them to now cast aside any one of its rules that they don't like as a product of that deceit. on the other hand, their faith in god or a higher power and the goodness of jesus is somehow reinforced by the end of the story. when i see christians offended by it, i assume that they either have not read it, or just did not take the time to understand it. considering i think the entire message of the book is worthless, i can't see how i've been sucked into it, other than the fact that i really do think that DaVinci inserted heretical symbols into his works on purpose, something i had learned about before the DaVinci code was ever even published.
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Confutatis
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charles cure said:
Let's face it: Dan Brown is a terrible thinker, but a very clever writer. I almost got hooked on the book for the way he ties up seemingly disconnected events. You get more twists and turns per minute than in a roller-coaster ride. Eventually I gave it up; why waste a whole day reading a book when the movie only lasts a little over two hours? But I'm dying to know what the Fibonacci series has to do with anything and why Langdon's life is in danger.
(no spoilers, please)
I think Theoryofrelativity doth protest too much.
We have ALL established that the NOVEL is fiction. But (reiterating), questions posed therein grant those following christianity BLINDLY another possibility than their "leaders" postulate to be true factual history. NEITHER "side" (for lack of a better word) can be proven or disproven, but to borrow a legal term, isn't there enough for reasonable doubt?
Let me again reiterate repetitively one more time, the issue that some in the Vatican (or other bastions of christianity) fears is NOT any dumb code. The issue is the CHALLENGE, the POSSIBILITY, the ALTERNATE to that which christian leaders have held as the only true interpretation of their history.
You highlight only the unimportant facts of Dan Brown's quotes. You neglect to highlight wherein he explains that the book generated discussion of christian history, spiritual debates AND where he states various catholic leaders call him IN CONGRATULATIONS of his book. You also miss the important quote "How historically accurate is history itself?"...
We have ALL established that the NOVEL is fiction. But (reiterating), questions posed therein grant those following christianity BLINDLY another possibility than their "leaders" postulate to be true factual history. NEITHER "side" (for lack of a better word) can be proven or disproven, but to borrow a legal term, isn't there enough for reasonable doubt?
Let me again reiterate repetitively one more time, the issue that some in the Vatican (or other bastions of christianity) fears is NOT any dumb code. The issue is the CHALLENGE, the POSSIBILITY, the ALTERNATE to that which christian leaders have held as the only true interpretation of their history.
You highlight only the unimportant facts of Dan Brown's quotes. You neglect to highlight wherein he explains that the book generated discussion of christian history, spiritual debates AND where he states various catholic leaders call him IN CONGRATULATIONS of his book. You also miss the important quote "How historically accurate is history itself?"...
It's all fiction made up by the "last Grandmaster" of the Priory of Sion (which is NOT a teological secret society, and did NOT include any members stated on the famous list). Check this out.
illuminatingtherapy said:
excellent link:
A quote from said link:
"Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines in Pieces on the Ground
What on earth does the great name of Leonardo da Vinci have to do with the Templars, Mary Magdalene, etc.? Not much. Throughout Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the authors refer to their attempts to authenticate a sheaf of modern, privately printed documents, the Secret Dossier or Priory Documents, already mentioned, which have been exposed as hoaxes planted by Pierre Plantard’s sect. And it is only this false source that lists the great artist Da Vinci as one of the Grand Masters of the secret order. Thus there is no Da Vinci connection at all.
What of Brown’s claim that Mary Magdalene appears next to Jesus in DaVinci’s Last Supper? There is nothing to it. The figure is surely intended as John, son of Zebedee. In view of church traditions which imagined John penning his gospel as an old man at the close of the first century, it was traditional to picture John as a callow youth among the disciples of Jesus. In Renaissance painting, this means he winds up looking effeminate, as Jesus himself would were he not sporting a beard.
O Negative
We have several times had to get ahead of ourselves by mentioning the tantalizing notion that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene were married, and that their union would have issued in the Merovingian dynasty beloved by the modern French Far-Right. How does the Teabing hypothesis (if we may so denominate it, using the name of Brown’s scholarly character to stand for Brown’s recycling of the fanciful pseudo-scholarship of his mentors) make this connection? There are a number of individual issues tangled up here.
First, is it possible for Mary and Jesus to have been married or at least to have been romantically involved? Of course it is. As all discussions of this issue point out, the Gospel of Philip says, "Now Mary was the favorite of the Savior, and he often used to kiss her on the lips." Indeed, if there is any historical basis to the gospel portrait of Jesus traveling with unattached women (Mark 15:40-41; Luke 8:1-3), we must even consider whether, a la the suspicions of husbands alienated from their wives who have left them to follow the Christian apostles in the Apocryphal Acts, Jesus had been using the group of women as his harem. And in view of parallel cases from the whole history of Mystery Religions and Utopian communities, we cannot dismiss the possibility.
Still, possibility is not probability, as it seems to have become for upholders of the Teabing hypothesis. The notorious tendency of conservative apologists and New Age paperback writers alike is to leap from mere possibility to the right to believe. "If there might be space aliens, we can assume there are." "If the idea of Atlantis is not impossible, we can take it for granted." "If the traditional view of gospel authorship cannot be definitively debunked, we can go right on assuming its truth." No, you can’t. And though Jesus might have had sex with one or many women or men, the mere possibility is of no help. He might have been a space alien, too. Some think he was. But historians don’t."
An amusing and frank text
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charles cure
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Theoryofrelativity said:
the passage you quoted is , for the most part, a load of trash. especially the part where it compares people broaching the concept of jesus and mary magdalen having had a relationship to people believing in atlantis. the two are nothing alike. atlantis is a popular myth with absolutely zero corroborating evidence. the possibility of a relationship between jesus and mary magdalen is countenanced by primary documents like the gnostic gospels, a long and persistent tradition of different sects beliving it to be the case since the beginning of christianity, and some evidence that may even be found in the bible if a person cares to interpret a passage or two with that end in mind. what these people are saying is that because there is no extant, tangible proof of the relationship, it is less probable than the church/bible's portrayal of events? that is laughable. the bible's version of jesus's life has virtually zero corroborating evidence. what makes it any more probable than any ficticious idiocy you care to dream up regardless of proof?
the problem we should have with this is that there is no church of the Married Christ and Magdalene with immense financial, spiritual, and governmental power controlling people's lifestyles choice, medical choices, laws, and liberties. yet the traditional Christian church does all these things based on a premise as pointedly proofless as the prospect of jesus being married. if you are against people believing in one stupid thing, you should be against them believing in any stupid thing.
i think that as far as the issues raised by the DaVinci code go, the main thrust of the paragraphs you quoted is dead on, and that would be - NOBODY KNOW OR CAN PROVIDE PROOF AS TO WHO JESUS REALLY WAS OR WHAT HE REALLY DID. not the church, not the davinci code, no one.
Do I detect that we agree on the fundamental point, but argued from three different angles?? That would be a little silly
I think Theoryofrelativity's approach to debunk actual references from Langdon, Teabing etc (characters in dVC) was a bit too technical, i.e. those fictional characters have no bearing on the real world. However, the possibility of an alternate explanation is the key, whether or not it is truth, or even provable. Reasonable doubt is all that was the aim of the story...to catalyse proper introspection.
As well, Charles did go a little too deep into DaVinci's actual work, since they were clues used by another dVC society and were not actually proof of anything.
In reading backwards in our posts though, am I right in saying that all of us agreed that either side of the "controversy" is unprovable?
That being said, would the real issue be if/how the dVC challenges the RCC status quo and power, and comments on that? (Phrasing?)
I think Theoryofrelativity's approach to debunk actual references from Langdon, Teabing etc (characters in dVC) was a bit too technical, i.e. those fictional characters have no bearing on the real world. However, the possibility of an alternate explanation is the key, whether or not it is truth, or even provable. Reasonable doubt is all that was the aim of the story...to catalyse proper introspection.
As well, Charles did go a little too deep into DaVinci's actual work, since they were clues used by another dVC society and were not actually proof of anything.
In reading backwards in our posts though, am I right in saying that all of us agreed that either side of the "controversy" is unprovable?
That being said, would the real issue be if/how the dVC challenges the RCC status quo and power, and comments on that? (Phrasing?)
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charles cure
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Enterprise-D said:Do I detect that we agree on the fundamental point, but argued from three different angles?? That would be a little silly
I think Theoryofrelativity's approach to debunk actual references from Langdon, Teabing etc (characters in dVC) was a bit too technical, i.e. those fictional characters have no bearing on the real world. However, the possibility of an alternate explanation is the key, whether or not it is truth, or even provable. Reasonable doubt is all that was the aim of the story...to catalyse proper introspection.
As well, Charles did go a little too deep into DaVinci's actual work, since they were clues used by another dVC society and were not actually proof of anything.
In reading backwards in our posts though, am I right in saying that all of us agreed that either side of the "controversy" is unprovable?
That being said, would the real issue be if/how the dVC challenges the RCC status quo and power, and comments on that? (Phrasing?)
i agree with what you are saying here. however, i think where we disagree is that ToR is trying to say that people shouldn't entertain the ideas in the DaVinci code because it is fiction. i'm saying look- people do that all of the time, look at people who believe in the bible. if you don't think that the bible is dangerous, then you can only think the DaVinci code is dangerous because it challenges the bible. thats like if i wrote a bookthat claimed to "debunk" the lord of the rings novels, and then people got mad because they thought someone would believe what i had to say about it. its ridiculous, but to me it represents the basic danger of religion, that a made-up idea can become so ingrained in a culture that eventually it becomes accepted as truth. i think that the davinci code version is full of holes, as i think the bible is. i was arguing with ToR about the DaVinci paintings, because i think that the interpretation made of them in the DaVinci code is not a totally invalid one. whether it is true or not is probably unknowable. i was also frustrated by her ignorance of the existence of two versions of the madonna of the rocks, and her insistence that the first version was a reproduction of an underpainting discovered two years ago. that's it.
Ah-hah! Realisation dawns...*pout* at Theory (jk). True that, totally ignoring a piece of literature either 1. simply because it is fiction or 2. because it challenges the bible is somewhat sanctimonious. And probably where archaic practices such as book-burning originated.
I've read both dVC and its follow up. I'm only just going to take in the dVC movie later. I imagine of course that much of the book will be missing...will probably post in one of the three threads dealing with dVC.
I've read both dVC and its follow up. I'm only just going to take in the dVC movie later. I imagine of course that much of the book will be missing...will probably post in one of the three threads dealing with dVC.
charles cure said:
Get off your moral high horse, The film is fiction, Jesus if he existed was mortal man, Da Vinici hid no secret code in his paintings just expressed his own view and whatever knowledge lay around at the time (largely commonsense I would hope). I accepted I made a mistake re the paintings and was recalling a detail incorrectly from the doc. I watched.
Unlike you, CC I am NOT hung up on religion, it does not consume me so much I STUDY it with the fervor that you do. I just don't give a toss about it. I admire your knowledge but as I said long ago, I see no difference between you and the most ardent theists. None. Infact you probably know more than they do. It's funny really. I'm sorry you take all this stuff so seriously. To me its pure entertainment. Have nice day.
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charles cure
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Theoryofrelativity said:
first of all, what moral high horse is it that i'm on exactly? do you even know what that means or did you just say it to sound indignant?
i clearly accept that both the book and the film are fiction, and though i have explained my position in enough ways to make it understandable to a retarded elementary school student, you have continued to labor under the misconception that i am somehow a cheerleader for the film and its concepts. i believed that i was having a discussion about the validity of some of the ideas in it, and attempting to explain why i thought that they weren't as easily dismissed as you appear to think they are. thats it. please try to understand. your opinion is not fact and neither is mine.
i'm not hung up on religion. virtually the only place i ever discuss the topic is on this message board. i find the subject interesting, and i find the behavior of certain religious people frustrating and would like it to stop, but i don't feel as though that constitutes being "hung up on it". i come to this forum to have a serious debate about a topic, so what? you posted on this thread too, claiming to know something about it, claiming that you have the knowledge and understanding of the subject to seperate fact from fiction for everybody. the truth is that you don't really know much, and now you are accusing me of being obsessed because i was right about some detail that you were wrong about. shit, if anything, i knew what i did about davinci's paintings because i really like to study art and history, not because i have a preoccupation with religion. i'm pretty much nothing at all like a theist, but i don't mind a good discussion about things here and there. if you think its all just time-wasting and frivolous entertainment, why don't you just read the posts instead of participating?
charles cure said:
shit and here's me anticipating this line reading 'why don't you stop reading the posts'.
You miss the point of everything I say, allegedly I miss the point of everything you say. We should get married.
LOL
LOL @ "We should get married"
************POSSIBLE SPOILER*************
Went to see the show; and I think MedicineWoman was disappointed when comparing it to the book. She's right, there was a LOT of great twists in the book that were missing, and a couple of characters were downplayed. Like Captain Fache.
As well, the movie took it easy on the religious representatives, totally taking out the hint of political power play of the modern RCC, that was alluded to in the book, and making Langdon be easier on religious history. Indeed, Langdon appeared to be unsure of his own principles which is odd considering he and Teabing would have been the only two expert characters of reason in the movie. That despite the fact Teabing was...anyways, let's not reveal anymore.
I do understand however that given budget constraints and concerns of public backlash, how much of the dVC novel would have to be cut, and I think it was a creditable effort to satisfy both worlds.
There was even one guy in my country who went as far as to organise a public protest. I think that people who are 'protesting' the movie are trying to live in a perfect little universe, where contrary opinions can't be expressed. dVC was HARDLY insulting of the RCC; only expressing that maybe this was the possible turn of events, never stating that it was truth.
************POSSIBLE SPOILER*************
Went to see the show; and I think MedicineWoman was disappointed when comparing it to the book. She's right, there was a LOT of great twists in the book that were missing, and a couple of characters were downplayed. Like Captain Fache.
As well, the movie took it easy on the religious representatives, totally taking out the hint of political power play of the modern RCC, that was alluded to in the book, and making Langdon be easier on religious history. Indeed, Langdon appeared to be unsure of his own principles which is odd considering he and Teabing would have been the only two expert characters of reason in the movie. That despite the fact Teabing was...anyways, let's not reveal anymore.
I do understand however that given budget constraints and concerns of public backlash, how much of the dVC novel would have to be cut, and I think it was a creditable effort to satisfy both worlds.
There was even one guy in my country who went as far as to organise a public protest. I think that people who are 'protesting' the movie are trying to live in a perfect little universe, where contrary opinions can't be expressed. dVC was HARDLY insulting of the RCC; only expressing that maybe this was the possible turn of events, never stating that it was truth.
With reference to this whole "Priory of Sion" thing, and, of course, the grotesquerie termed "The Da Vinci Code":
I saw a BBC documentary by Tony Robinson (the guy who played "Baldric" on "Blackadder") that basically trashed the entire "Prioré" business (this was the second go by BBC at the bollocky theory). The "Prioré" was a group of three Frenchmen who basically hung around near a mountain called "Sion" and drank wine. As I recall they ambushed Henry Lincoln and you should have seen the look on the bugger's face when Robinson told him the entire theory was bull and that Plantard had made it all up.
I mean, the assumptions you have to slap on "Et in Arcadia ego" to get "Arcam Dei Tango Lesu" or even bloody "I Tego Arcana Dei"; come on, now.
Yeah, found the wiki, lots of good links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priory_of_sion
"Arnaud de Sède, son of Gérard de Sède, stated categorically that his father and Plantard had made up the existence of the Prieuré de Sion."
"has been demonstrated to be a hoax created by Pierre Plantard"
But, believe as ye will.
Geoff
I saw a BBC documentary by Tony Robinson (the guy who played "Baldric" on "Blackadder") that basically trashed the entire "Prioré" business (this was the second go by BBC at the bollocky theory). The "Prioré" was a group of three Frenchmen who basically hung around near a mountain called "Sion" and drank wine. As I recall they ambushed Henry Lincoln and you should have seen the look on the bugger's face when Robinson told him the entire theory was bull and that Plantard had made it all up.
I mean, the assumptions you have to slap on "Et in Arcadia ego" to get "Arcam Dei Tango Lesu" or even bloody "I Tego Arcana Dei"; come on, now.
Yeah, found the wiki, lots of good links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priory_of_sion
"Arnaud de Sède, son of Gérard de Sède, stated categorically that his father and Plantard had made up the existence of the Prieuré de Sion."
"has been demonstrated to be a hoax created by Pierre Plantard"
But, believe as ye will.
Geoff
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charles cure
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GeoffP said:
the modern priory probably was a hoax. but i still don't think the issue is as cut and dry as you present it.
you know what else is funny, I've always heard that the Priory was a hoax, but I've never seen how it was demonstrated that it was a hoax, other than proving what everybody already takes as fact - that plantard wrote and placed the Dossiers Secretes.