So I was watching EWTN this morning, and those guys are PISSED!

[JVS]

There were a lady and two priests talking about the DVC. The lady talked about the Danish cartoons that caused such an uproar among Muslims and seemed to be lamenting the fact that the level of outrage due to this film is not as high. One of the priests was talking about how the film is an attack against "mother Church" and that they shouldn't stand by and allow such an attack.

[Wetzelbill]

1. you'd think people didn't understand the concept

of fictional characters or something. :)

[JVS]

4. Just because a character is fictional doesn't make it inoffensive

Take Buckwheat for example. Or how Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs caused anger in the GLBT community.


I can understand their offense, but I think to lament the fact that people aren't as pissed off as the people rioting about the cartoons is really fucked up if they'd step back and take a look at the implications of their statements. Do they really want people torching buildings over this?

[jukes]

7. i find

*their* fictional characters to be MOST offensive...

[Wetzelbill]

8. I'm strictly religious

and I can't see their offense at all. I'm not all that thick-skinned either. A person has to go out of their way to be offended by the film or the book. It differs from Buckwheat and Buffalo Bill because, neither of those characters are supposed to be telling an alternate view of history. Dan Brown isn't so much as telling an alternate view as he is making up a fictional story. Sure is research is great and very interesting, but in the end, what he's telling is not a true story and he doesn't acknowledge it to be. Buckwheat and BB play on certain stereotypes in stories that are wholly fictional. Dan Brown wrote a fictional historical novel. Somewhere in the middle of that, people can't grasp that he is writing fiction and not an absolute concept of history. I was raised a Catholic and there is nothing in that book, and the movie, that is offensive, unless you are just looking to be offended. That these people are crazy enough to think a fictional historical novel warrants mass violence is pretty sick.

[JVS]

9. You don't think that the murderous albino might be an offensive...

charictarization of your typical Opus Dei member?

[Wetzelbill]

10. no because it isn't

supposed to be a typical Opus Dei member, it's a guy who has gone too far and has had some serious problems in his past anyway. It's one person and one person's flaws shouldn't be taken as a condemnation of the whole group. The same thing applies to the eventual main villain who is an academic and an intellectual. Because this guy is a murderous nutjob, one shouldn't assume all intellectuals are murderous nutjobs. Dan Brown doesn't say that all Opus Dei members are like the Opus Dei character, who is actually very sympathetic at times. He says this one guy was manipulated off the proper path. If a reader or filmgoer is cognizant enough to put two and two together those characters are not offensive. However, religion is an issue that no matter what anybody says, somebody is always going to find a way to be offended by it.

[JVS]

12. Ok, but the priests were saying that the movie mischaractarizes Opus Dei

Frankly, my though is: tough nuts to them. I've seen these same priests mischaractarize and actually making false claims about my denomination. I think that they have every right to be offeneded, it just saddens me that they wish that their followers would display the same level of outrage that those Danish cartoons caused.

[Wetzelbill]

14. oh definitely

they have the right to be offended, it's just that there really isn't anything to be offended about unless you're looking to be offended anyway. It is sad that they wish to have a violent outrage over this film. It's just a nightmare to see the type of climate we're in nowadays.

[Wetzelbill]

11. dupe

[MadHound]

2. It's absolutely amazing how many people don't get the concept

That this book is FICTION. It isn't an attack on the church, I don't find it to be anti-Catholic, it's a good page turner that is FICTION.

It absolutely amazes me how insecure these fundies are. The least little criticism and they go crazy.

[Wetzelbill]

3. exactly

but in their defense they tend to believe that fiction is true. Like Compassionate Conservatism and Fox News, for example. :)

[tjwmason]

15. Apparently a large proportion of its readers.

The Church wouldn't be getting half so het up, were it not for the fact that a large number of people are swallowing the nonsense contained in the book without thinking.

I agree that it's fiction, and that's what the Church is saying too - the people who don't seem to grasp that it's fiction are those who read the book and then start poking round S. Sulpice wondering where the murder might have taken place.

[MadHound]

18. Have to disagree

I think that the vast majority of people who've read DVC realize that it is a work of fiction. I think that the reason the church is getting so worked up is because DVC calls some of the church's most cherished dogmas into question:shrug:

[tjwmason]

19. 2/3 of its readers believe that Christ fathered a child.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/17/nvinci17.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/17/ixuknewsnew.html

This without a shred of evidence to support the notion.

I wish they could realise it's fiction, but apparently even the ridiculous character of Sir Leigh Teabing (one of the worst attempts at an English character by an American author that I've ever read - which really is saying something) didn't make it plain that this is just a crappy author (nothing wrong in that per se) writing a crappy novel (again nothing wrong) based on a fraud which was outed several years ago, which said crappy author doesn't seem to have realised.

[MadHound]

20. This apparently was a poll commissioned by the Catholic Church

I would take it with a huuuge grain of salt.

And even if the results are true, at least their believing in Christ fathering a child is more sensible that a belief in immaculate conception:shrug:

[LaurenG]

5. Me thinks they doth protest too much

They did this with "The Last Temptation of Christ" as well. Something is scaring them about the concept that Christ may have been in love with a woman.

[Reverend_Smitty]

6. Down with this sort of thing!

I never really understood protesting a movie or anything of that sort. There have been many things out in popular culture that I didn't agree with. I just don't understand what compels these religious groups to be so outraged over a stupid movie or cartoon. I saw Cardinal Regali on the news last night telling Catholics to boycott this movie. Why isn't the cardinal out in the streets raising a stink against the war, or poverty or the death penalty?

The only reason why I've stayed a Catholic was because of the works of Dorothy Day and the Berrigan brothers. Otherwise I'd have left long ago

[Hardrada]

13. Atheist anarchist here but the memory

of Dorothy Day and the Berrigans makes me smile. I used to seek out copies of the Catholic Worker. Miss those folks a lot.

[YankeyMCC]

16. They want people to die over it?

[JVS]

17. I don't think that the lady who said this had quite connected the dots...

and realized that your question addresses the logical next step in her statement.