SpiritLedEd said:
Chad, regarding the book The DaVinci Code, my pastor made a very telling comment this morning to wit, there are no footnotes in the book. It is a work of fiction. It was never intended to be a historical narrative.SLE
While I agree with this statement entirely, I must also point out that the word..."FACT"...is seen in big bold letters numerous times on the screen. It, in much the same way all other films of fiction, is portrayed as fact throughout the film.
I saw Independence day with Will Smith, you know the one with the aliens coming to earth and blowing up major cities, and the White House. It never said, "this is just a movie, it's not real". Until the end in very small print scrolling quite quickly up the screen. However, it was so incredible and outrageous, that no one would believe it was actually happening. Everyone knew they were going to a movie to be entertained. It was not like "war of the worlds" that was broadcast on the radio many years ago. This movie however has no unbelievable characters, or events. At least not to non-Christians. There are no laws of physics broken, nothing to challenge the reality that people have come to know everyday.
The difference is that the Book by Brown was always presented, at least a little bit, as fact. It was done in order to create controversy and attention for the book.
This is not a new idea that Brown had. The alleged connection of Jesus to the French royals is not new, the priory of Zion theory is not new. Nothing he wrote about is new at all, but old stuff rehashed, and maybe put together as never before. It has been brought up several times in the past, but never to this level of exposure.
It reminds me a little of all the so called documentaries on the belief that we never went to the moon, and it was all done on a sound stage in Hollywood, or the many UFO documentaries, or the numerous shows I've seen on Area 51 and Roswell New Mexico. All portrayed as "FACT" by people other than those directly involved (in the case of Area 51, they never interviewed someone who works there). The point is, the viewer is led to believe that it is fact and not just entertainment. I visit a site that has many short movie clips that people submit, and people leave comments on the videos. I can't tell you how many times I see a UFO clip and someone says "that's not real", and someone else says, "I was there, I saw the whole thing..." (weather they did or not), but some then actually start to believe it. It's crazy.
If you tell a lie loud enough, long enough, and often enough people start to believe it. Even the person saying it.
God bless,
Nigh
