Da Vinci Code Update

This is Saturday mid day overcast May 27th. 2006. Last night as you know they again aired the Da Vinci Code special on Dateline. Basically if you're going to deny all of the evidence you almost have to believe in a "vast conspiracy" of your own. Detractors say the Pierre De Sion never really existed; that it was "invented" in the 1950's. You have to forget about the whole history of the south of France dating from 1100 AD or so. You have to forget that recounting of the family of Jesus, ie. Mary Magdolane and her twelve year old daughter, Sarah, coming ashore on a boat in the year AD 44. And you have to assume all those "lists" that appeared in that French library were all bogus. You have to believe all those geniologies of obscure people mixed in with a few famous people was just made up. Of course you also have to come up with another version of all the Holy Grail stories. Perhaps you think there was a magic golden challice that had supernatural powers. You see, I have it on authority that in the case of that Priest in Renes le Chateau, Sonierre- - that his money that he mysteriously acquired was not through "Simony" of the selling of a mass. It's possible that all the major "clues" might be bogus, but you have to admit the more evidence there is, the more you have to "deny".

Here are a couple more clues. In the story of the death of Lazarus there is a reference to Mary and Martha, Lazarus's sisters, being in mourning and Martha came out and met Jesus but Mary continued in mourning in the house. It's called "sitting Shiva" and is something Jews do. And the only legitamate reason for breaking the "sitting Shiva" is if you are commanded to do so by your husband. So I believe Jesus as her husband commanded her to desist. There is another clue in the book of Jeremiah somewhere about Isrial being preserved by a "tender young shoot" (from a Cypress or other evergreen tree) being transported to a far land. The person I heard this from said "shoot" was in the feminine gender meaning we were talking about a female. We have a twelve year old girl named Sarah. There is also a Historian in the early 2nd. century who mentions that "relatives of Jesus" were threatened by some new anti religious law, but then they appealed to Emperor dometian, who, after hearing who they were, give them liberty to go. So this whole "Jesus line" has links to Rome. Of course many say that Jesus himself was the child of Mary and a Roman centurian named Pantera. There is also that line in John chapter eight, I believe, where the priests out of the blue say "We were not born of fornacation" in an argument with Jesus. They seem to be hinting maybe Jesus was. There is that mysterious document that states that Pilate made a secret deal with Joseph of Arithmea and Nicodimus- to take Jesus' body down from the cross early. We have discussed this one before. What we do know was that Pilate's wife and perhaps Pilate himself became a Christian soon after his crusi-fiction. We know Pilate inscribed "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" over the cross. This is the "crime" that he was being put to death for, being "King of the Jews". (Selah)

In all probability the United States will reject the premise of both Holy Blood Holy Grail and also the Da Vinci Code. But what about the rest of the world? There are a lot of superstitious Catholics in the rest of the world looking for any form of "signs". We in this country were raised with a certain kind of liberal Protestantism. What this means is that it's our mindset that if he claims that it can be proved it has to be bogus. You might reduce it to "The more lacking in actual provability or substance it is- - the more credibility it has. It comes from this liberal protestant belief that "God can't be proved" and it's a matter of "faith". Because of this if you come up with any physical manifestation or "evidence" to make your point it has to be wrong because it's a matter of "Faith" that "things of the Spirit" cannot be proved. Basically, you're supposed to live your whole life never knowing whether your religion is valid or not. You get your "payoff" for your "faith" after you Die. And then and only then will "it all make sense". Any religion that perports to offer "proofs" is called a "radical" religion. Any religion that says you should alter your life style is also branded as a "radical" religion. The only "tried and true" and "main stream" (hence- "safe") religion is one where you believe certain things about the trinity and go to church and pray- - as long as it's not about anything important.

I don't want to beat a dead horse. We've covered much of this material before but I thought it appropiate that I re-state it, combined with the things we haven't mentioned before. In other news Microsoft is doing Beta II tests on Vista and Office 2007. It seems the previous tests haven't gone very well and it may be some time before either product is released. We've been making these blog posts shorter because there seem to be fewer things to say.

Leo Le Port says if you put electronic information in a fifty year time capsule that won't be opened till the year 2056 you won't be able to count on anything being compatable. Fifty years ago in 1956 we did not have CD's, we did not have cassettes, we did not have eight tracks. In this day and age even CD's are becomming out-moded. I guess many people are complaining they have to keep transferring their favorite albums from LP, to tape, to CD, to MP3. Of course some in the record industry would love it if you paid them each time you did that.