(Just a thought.)

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John, if the concept of a father who plots, on behalf of and in the name of God, to put his own son to death (Abraham and Isaac) is presented to children as a beautiful story worthy of society’s admiration, then what types of human behavior can be represented as reprehensible? Apparently only really, really, really bad stuff like trimming the beard, or eating pork, or working on Sunday.

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Actually read the Bible sometime, not just listen to some preacher who picks and chooses the good and omits the bad. If you put a bad apple in a barrel of good ones you dont get a barrel of good apples, but a barrel of rotten apples - read the whole thing - good and bad. The murder, incest, rape, genocide, racism, intolerence, and hate that spews out is incredible.

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Try to base your world view and dealings with people based upon the golden rule, and not the hate and intolerence taught by religious bigots.

Anywayy. I’m getting off track.
The primary objective of MODERN Christianity may well be to bring ‘peace and love’ to this world (which, might I add, is failing miserably, as is any other attempt at ‘peace and love’), but the objective of medieval Christianity was to use shock-tactics to force others to believe something that would keep them toeing the line. Christianity, in my opinion, still tries to hurl itself down our throats and force us into belief, but with more subtle actions. Of course, religion functions primarily on evangelism anyway, so this is to be expected.

My personal beliefs state that a good act is not a good act unless it is performed without fear of a negative consequence i.e. Hell.

And, just as a side note, the Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction - like most people here have already stated.

RAmen, my pirate comrades. RAmen.

@ Mythos, is your comment beneficial for whatever you think is good in the world?

And by the way, next time you use the word “we”, could you please either explicitly exclude me, or concretely specify who you mean?

Thanks, Mopert

I’ll defend that to the death!

-religion makes it awfully easy to justify said atrocities by dividing the human race into the ‘pure’ and the ’sinful’ or the ‘enlightened’ and the ‘ignorant’ or just plain ‘us’ and ‘them’

It does and it doesn’t. Religious texts offer a moral guideline, but certainly Christianity has a get out clause there - that judgement is God’s alone, the whole first stone thing, meaning that those who do create those divisions, or who prey upon the misgivings of others, or even judge others for their mistakes or differences of opinion are not in fact following a religion, they are lying to your face, and to themselves.
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You can quote anything you like from the Bible- like this “And the Lord said ‘I do not exist’ ” Those words are written in the Bible, but taken from different sections and rolled into a convenient sentence for my own benefit. As you point out, it’s just too easy. It’s a shame too. The number of guys who can be made an asshole by one man.
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Pasta doesn’t judge you. It doesn’t even have opposable thumbs, making it hard to throw the first stone too. Pasta’s pretty shibby.