I have a thought for those morons in the diocese: how about you stop acting like anal-retentive, slightly mentally handicapped imbeciles stuck in the 13th century. Seriously. Dan Brown may not be the best writer ever, but he is a FICTION writer. F-I-C-T-I-O-N. Do you have any idea what that word even means? It means it’s not real. And people stupid enough to think it is real (or at least think his fictional presentation of the myth is real) are not people you should be clambering to suck up into your religious dogma. Get over yourselves and realize that people like to read books that are controversial and we like to see movies for the same bloody reason. Your attempts to stomp out “dissent” have failed over and over again. So bend over and accept that you can’t do anything about it. And, if you manage to do that, maybe you could also bend over and be flattered that someone would like to use your church as a setting in a fictional movie. Likewise, the movie is going to be made anyway, whether you let them use your churches or not. You see, Hollywood does this thing called “building sets” and it really won’t be that difficult to recreate your church. Now for a handy quote:
The story drew anger and prompted calls for boycotts by church leaders worldwide with the idea that Jesus married and fathered children and by depicting the conservative Catholic movement, Opus Dei, as a murderous cult.
Yes, because the Catholic church has never, ever, ever murdered someone before, right? No, not once. Heck now. That couldn’t possibly be true. Nobody died in the Crusades. That’s all just anti-religious propaganda. This is exactly why a lot of people in the world are pretty much convinced that overly religious folks are crazy. If you believe that a fictional book is real then you really are completely and utterly insane. Seek psychiatric help immediately. Please. For all our sakes.
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As an atheist with a Christian upbringing, it is completely understandable why they are not allowing filming in two churches in the Diocese of Rome. Even though the book is fictional it doesn’t change the fact that it is still anti-Catholic, so the Church has every right to disallow filming in their churches. It’s not a matter of stupidity or hypocrisy–it’s a matter of “Your movie has anti-Catholic doctrine that I don’t support, so I’m not going to help you spread it.” Also, Dan Brown thought that the “art history” in the book was true (even though it’s not).
The U. S. military was going to help with Independence Day but didn’t because of the inclusion of Area 51.
The Church has repeatedly apologized for the Crusades, the Inquisition, and many of the wrongs that it has committed in the past–those were products of brutal times and for the most part, politically motivated. The fact that Christians have murdered people in the past doesn’t mean that they continue to murder people now, as the book seems to indicate.
By the a diocese is just a group of parishes. Like the Archdiocese of Baltimore is a bunch of parishes in MD controlled by Cardinal Keeler.
Except, by condemning the films, they are helping to spread it. It’s the same thing that happens with books that the Church bans. The more you throw a fit about something, the more people become interested in it. A lot of authors get excited when the Church bans one of their books because that usually means instant best seller.
But to give a good example here of why the Church is anal: How many movies have been made that attempt to present America as a giant sucky country of morons? How many of those has the U.S. Government sat down and went “uh, no, you can’t film in the states with that crap”. As far as I know, zero.
I know why they are doing it, but the fact is, they’re throwing a fit over a book that is not real. It’s not like they want to make a movie about the “other” Bible or something as if it were real. They want to make a fictional movie about fictional characters and a fictional religious plot. It’s all made up. Dan Brown might think it’s real, but he’s a writer…since when have writers been sane? So, I may understand why they are throwing a fit, but it’s all pointless and really stupid.
And I don’t care if the Church apologizes for the Crusades, etc. They still happened and apologizing doesn’t bring back the millions of innocent people who were killed because of such things :P.
“The fact that Christians have murdered people in the past doesn’t mean that they continue to murder people now, as the book seems to indicate.”
Again…fiction. It’s not real. Fiction. If the Church thinks the book is trying to be anything other than fiction, then we really have issues with how people are educated about literature.
They can condemn it if they want. They have reason to, even if it’s ultimately counter-productive.
Nearly every religion, country, organization, etc has committed some sort of wrong. Christians, particularly Catholics, have acknowledged that they have committed wrongs in the past and have seeked to repair relations with Muslim, Jewish, Protestant, and Orthodox communities. You said:
“Yes, because the Catholic church has never, ever, ever murdered someone before, right? No, not once. Heck now. That couldn’t possibly be true. Nobody died in the Crusades. That’s all just anti-religious propaganda.”
But Catholics admit to doing it and are deeply sorry about it. Though that wasn’t murder, unless you consider open war and public execution murder.
Historically, the Crusades were actually initiated by Turkish attacks on the Byzantine Empire and the Inquisition was mainly part of a reform instituted by Queen Isabella and the Spanish government to maintain unity, after reconquering Granada from the Muslim Moors. Catholics persecuted Cathars/Albigensians mainly because of their promiscuity and infanticide (they’d smash the skulls of infants, after blessing them to combat over population caused by their promiscuity).
Atheists also commit crimes–some see the pro-abortion standpoint of most Atheists as one of the greatest evils in humanity. Atheists are also have been known to persecute people for just having a religion–look at China, the Soviet Union.
They can condemn it and I can ridicule them for their stupidity.
And you clearly missed my sarcasm in that comment.
And the Soviet argument is a fallible. Stalin didn’t kill people in the name of Atheism, he just killed people and happened to be Atheist, just as Hitler didn’t kill Jews in the name of God (he was Catholic), but just killed them because he hated them. Religion, however, has killed people in the name of God, repeatedly, waging war, condemning people, etc. Big difference. Yes, I know atheists commit crimes too.
The whole point of my article was sarcasm. That’s it. I think what they’re doing is simply retarded. Any time religious people do something stupid, I like to call the out on it.