I have a couple of friends that are hardcore Christians. I love them, and honestly, I never make an aggressive point of presenting them with massive amounts of research and publications that dutifully poke gaping holes in their religion's history and their belief systems. They have their views, and I have mine.
Hopefully I'll not be stepping on too many sandals with this post.
One of these good friends send me this flyer as a PDF: about a discussion titled 'The DaVinci Deception' today, and invited my wife and I to attend. I know it's all meant in the best of intentions, and it's probably heavily pushed within the church as a way to reach out to friends and bring them into the fold. But what gives them the audacity to actually be so myopic as to think that they have the right to do so, without in turn, going with me to an equally focused discussion and exploration into the numerous reasons why my view is correct? I don't do that because I don't necessarily believe that any view, including my own, is absolute, but I do know that mine is definitely not dogmatic.
Having spent several years of my life immersed in studies of various religions and science, I have as much comfort in my conclusion as they have in theirs. But for all the attempts to convince me to consider and learn about their 'truths', none ever give the same consideration in return, to openly consider and question the findings of my own searching, and the foundation of their faith. Oddly, although I would have asked repeatedly to consider that my beliefs might be wrong, no 'True Believer' of their faith would ever consider contrary evidence to be anything more then the devil's attempt to deter one from their God.
Sorry, but that just does not and does not work for me. And I've grown tired and weary of making efforts to exchange meaningful dialog with them. It's not possible.
So in response to this invitation, I sent the following reply:
"Bwahahhahaha... you are so great! God love ya! What a sense of humor!
It looks like the church is working to proactively provide followers with answers that'll be predominant once the film breaks.. but you'd be preaching to the wrong guy on this one. You can't argue with a dogmatically one sided viewpoint, and I have no interest in doing so when there's no chance of them giving me an equal benefit of the doubt/consideration when I point out all the reasons that the belief systems don't hold water against science and history. [Or should we really go into such discussion about Dinosaurs being conveniently lumped into 'beasts of the wild', the fact that Cain and Abel had only their mother to procreate with, or that the chronological lineage of the bible would have the human race be hundreds of thousands of years younger then science and archeology has proven it to be. Oh yeah... that's right... it's all the devils work trying to dissuade us from the truth. Bullshit. :-)
Don't get me wrong, i don't buy "the DaVinci Code as complete fact", but you can't reasonable dispute that the last supper has a woman besides Jesus and you can't argue with the possibility/probability that he may have been married.. there's enough real evidence to give even the most staunch believe cause to consider the possibilities, unless of course, theit only acceptable source of 'truth' is focused solely on what the church tells them. That kind of thinking is what makes Mormon's stay mormon, makes Jehovah's Witness's stay JWs, and Christians stay Christian.
Either way... have fun, and as always, beliefs won't stand between our friendship. It only makes for more dynamic conversations. :-)"
Receiving this email and writing my response sparked reminders of the movie 'Dogma'. I'd like to see it play as a double feature along side 'The DaVinci Code'. I'll probably have to wait a few years for AMC to roll it into a 'Dinner & A Movie' night, complete with fasting guidelines, bread breaking techniques, lentil soup, flat bread and lots of red wine. But no M&Ms. Definitely no M&Ms. But seriously, Not only is Dogma very funny, and it has a spectacularly stunning on screen appearance of Salma Hayak in a strip club, but the film opens with a great dialog by Matt Damon's Character, 'Loki':
"Leaving 'Alice in Wonderland' aside, look closely at 'Through the Looking Glass' - particularly 'The Walrus and the Carpenter' poem: what's the metaphorical meaning? It colorfully details the sham that is organized religion. The Walrus - with his girth and good-nature - obviously refers to either the Buddha, or - with his tusks - the lovable Hindu elephant god, Lord Ganesha. This takes care of the Eastern religions. The Carpenter is an Obvious reference to Jesus Christ, who was purportedly raised the son of a carpenter. He represents the Western religions. And in the poem, what do they do? They dupe all the oysters into following them. Then, when the oysters collective guard is down, the Walrus and the Carpenter shuck and devour the helpless creatures, en masse. I don't know what that says to you, but to me it says that following faiths based on these mythological figures insures the destruction of one's inner-being."