New report shows Code confirms religious views
Researcher George Barna has released a report saying that The Da Vinci Code confirms rather than changes people’s religious views.
- According to the nationwide survey, The Da Vinci Code has been read “cover to cover” by roughly 45 million adults in the U.S. ? that’s one out of every five adults (20%).
- Roughly 11 million adults consider The Da Vinci Code to have been a ?helpful spiritual document?.
- Among the 45 million who have read The Da Vinci Code, only 5% – which represents about two million adults ? said that they changed any of the beliefs or religious perspectives because of the book’s content.
If you have read the book “cover to cover”, do you considered it to be a “helpful spiritual document”? How were your beliefs changed or confirmed as a result of reading Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code?
28 Responses to “New report shows Code confirms religious views”
Leave a Reply
Start a Conversation
Media
What Do You Fear?
What do you fear, and why? Is it holding you back from realizing your full potential?
>Watch
Do you crave destiny? (Part 2)
Destiny? Is this really me? Was I really born for great things?
>Watch
Copyright © 2012 Power to Change Ministries. All rights reserved.
Oops. Sorry about that. This article talks about both the Old and New Testament.
I used to think the same thing about God in the Old vs. God in the New Testaments. But I read the Bible in chronological order and when I did, I saw a God who was loving and full of grace even in the ‘old days’.
I don’t necessarily think that if I were God that I’d pick a group of people to tell the world what I wanted them to know. But I’m not God.
But as I’ve thought about it, there does seem to be a method to it that makes sense. God chose a faithful man, Abraham, to begin to show the world His message. Through his son, Issac, He began to teach His people what it’s like to live in this world as a holy people. He gave them government, religion, and boundaries. But time and time again these people failed to fully grasp what God wanted them to understand: that God loves His people and wants to relate with them in love and they with others.
They didn’t fully get it and they knew they needed someone to come and redeem them. That’s where Jesus, literally, comes in.
As for bringing ‘dub-ya’ into the discussion, I don’t want to get into politics here. But yes, faith can be dangerous. But isn’t that kind of what you’re saying you trust? Is there a big difference in intuition and faith? One is faith in yourself, the other is faith in something (or Someone) else.
Hi-ay Rob!
The article you posted talks about the New Testament… I’m fully believe that Jesus walked on this earth. No denying that.
But it’s the Old Testament that concerns me. It’s funny that the bible has both the OT and NT. The angry God is shown in the OT and the merciful God (Jesus) is shown in the NT. Which one is it? Causes a lot of confusion in people, I think. But I guess the OT talks about a messiah coming… and that would be Jesus?
What solid evidence do we have that God inspired Moses to record the “beginning”? Are there any other books to support that… other than the bible? It also concerns me that God would choose a group of people to speak through. If God created the universe, wouldn’t everyone on the planet have equal chance to hear from Him? I would hope those living at that time could communicate with and draw energy from the Higher Source through some means, and not be killed for it.
I think faith can be very dangerous when one believes he/she is inspired by God. I mean, just take a look at George W Bush. Faith can be a lethal weapon!
Good perspective and insight, MJ. There are others who understand the histoacity of the Bible better than I, but what it comes down to for me is the starting point for belief in it. Here’s how I look at it:
What if there is a God? What if this God wanted to communicate with His people? How would He go about doing that? Seems there’s a couple of options for Him: 1. Communicate to chosen people to be His conduit either verbally or through writing, 2. Manifest Himself in bodily form to communicate face-to-face, 3. Create some other supernatural “voice in the sky” type of thing where everyone would hear Him, or 4. Some combo of those options.
So when I look at the Bible, I know it’s 66 books, 40 or so authors, written over 1500 years. If I looked at this from a humanistic point of view, I’d be a bit skeptical of it. But what if God did intend to take this time span to speak through individuals and have them record for us all we needed to know (not all we wanted to know) to understand God, our situation, and the world’s need for redemption?
So of course no one was there at the beginning of time to record what happened with Adam and Eve. But God was. And so what if He somehow inspired Moses to record accurately the stories that have been passed down over time about the creation? I think that’s what we have. Paul once told Timothy that all scripture is “God-breathed” or “God-inspired”.
On the humanistic side, I can see that Moses could record the stories that have been passed down and the stories could be correct or not. But from a spiritual side, what if God wanted to clear up the stories and so He helped Moses write what actually happened? Or at least had Moses record what we needed to understand?
John even wrote once that Jesus did so many things that there’s just not enough room to record it all.
MJ, I certainly respect your intuition. My wife is very intuitive and I’ve learned to trust her in lots of things. But I am also a person who needs more than just intuition. What do you see the Bible as? Do you see anything factual or real in it?
Hi Rob!
If what you believe helps you understand life better, all the power to ya! I just can’t see how the bible is considered God-based fact. If it is, why are there so many unanswered questions? How can we really prove that Adam was the first man God ever made? Who was there to document that event? Moses? It sounds so far-fetched… so fabricated. I was simply conditioned to believe all the bible stories were fact. But luckily, I awoke from the slumber of ignorance.
Peace.
MJ, God-given intuition is good, but isn’t God-based fact even better to trust?
I think you’re right in that many Christians focus on eternal life rather than the life Jesus offers now. That’s where I lived for several years. Honestly, I still struggle with the life Jesus has given me. But ultimately I’m trusting in the facts He’s told me in His Word.
In fact, I think my intuition sometimes gets in the way of what is really true from God’s perspective.
I’m so glad that your heart is full of love, hope and faith as you’ve said. May God continue to build that into you.
I’m not sure how Paul defines Christ Consciousness, but for me, it’s about the message Christ gave while on the earth. His words about love, hope and faith have taken deep root in my heart and in my mind. I believe His words are set so deeply in my mind that my actions are simply the result. Now the question remains… who receives the glory? I see many Christians giving Jesus the praise, but don’t you think He’s giving praise back to us when we become aware that His words have taken root in our minds and the way we live our lives shows we really believe what He said on earth?
This is only an observation: I see many Christians put their trust in Jesus for their eternal life, but are completely ineffective in this life. They show no love. They concentrate on his death and resurrection, but miss the point of why He was here on earth in the first place. To help us evolve.
I base my peace on my God-given intuition.
I won’t get into The Celestine Prophecy, but I encourage you to read it just to see where I’m coming from.
Peace out.
MJ, thanks for calling me nice! :-)
Thanks for sharing more of your story. Before I share some of mine, I’m curious about what you said re: a “Christ Consciousness” and not identifying with Paul anymore. Could you elaborate on what this means to you? Also, I’m not familiar with The Celestine Prophecy.
Anyway, I grew up in a “proper” southern home. That is, in the Bible-belt South, we went to church all the time. That’s how it was. That was my ticket to heaven. Not until High School did I realize I wasn’t “born into” heaven like that. It’s not based on geography, it’s based on my decision to trust Jesus with my after-life and current-life. Well, actually, I didn’t get that He wanted to help me currently. I only really understood that it was an individual, not corporate decision. As I’ve studied it more, I’ve realized it’s as much as Jesus choosing me as it is me choosing Him…actually more His choice!
Anyway, in college is when I learned more about how God wanted to help my current-life also. I trusted God with my life after death, but not with my life before it! It was the understanding that God’s Holy Spirit wanted to be involved in my life daily. I stalled on that decision for a few weeks because I knew it’d be life changing.
It was. At that point I got more involved with a group of people who trusted Jesus for both the future and current life. Together we grew.
But I still struggle with lots of things. I know, too, God loves me unconditionally based on the promise He made that for all who trust His Son Jesus, He will not lose us. I believe I’m guaranteed an after-life with God in heaven because I believe God to be trustworthy. Ultimately I believe God will direct my path. Practically I do my self-directing. It usually leads to frustration, but like you said, God allows us to walk through crap. Well, you didn’t say exactly that! ;-)
So tell me, when you talk about God’s unconditional love for you, what do you base your peace on? I think it’s fantastic you feel it, don’t get me wrong. Just wanting to continue the dialogue!
Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t know what to do with my life, fully. But as long as I am living in the moment and allowing God’s love to flow through me to touch others, I think I’ll be okay.
Hi Rob. First of all, thank you for being nice to me. I like nice people.
I’ll reveal to you (and those reading) a little of my own experience with the faith. I grew up in a very religious Christian home, accepted Jesus at 4, etc, etc. At the age of 17, I opened up the bible and discovered, for the first time, that the Word had come alive. I spent as much time as possible reading the bible. I couldn’t get enough of what the Holy Spirit was showing me. It was fun! At night, before I’d fall asleep, God’s energy would blanket my body and fill my room up with love. I guess you’d call that being filled with the Holy Spirit?
But eventually reality hit me and I had to find out what I really wanted to do with my life. I didn’t trust God anymore because nothing was happening. My early 20′s were hell, trying to figure out who I was and what the hell I’m supposed to do with my life. I dove head first into the “evils of the world”. I jumped from job to job, trying to find purpose. But looking back now, I see that I needed to go through hell to find out who I was. And God let me.
I received a total heart transformation. Christ Consciousness… those words ring true to me. God has freed me from condemnation. I can no longer identify with the Apostle Paul. My spiritual journey is neverending and I now know God’s unconditional love is with me wherever I go.
Right now, I can totally identify with the book The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield. I know, it’s just a book, but I see truth in it. Just like I saw truth in the bible.
Care to share your story? Peace brother.
MJ, you hit the nail right on the head! There are a lot of Christians who don’t live the way they know Jesus has called them to…starting with me. It’s sin. I can’t speak for everyone else, but for me, it’s because even though I want to do what Jesus has asked of me, it’s tough. He’s said that the most important thing to do in life is to love God, others, and myself. I struggle with all three at times.
Trouble is that just because I’ve trusted Christ for my after-life and current-life, my own selfishness gets in the way. I’ve found this explanation helpful for me as I work out life. Let me know what you think.
Bottom line: being “re-born” doesn’t mean everything works just right from then on. That’s one reason the analogy of being born again makes some sense. After that moment of re-birth, we have to grow. We screw it up, we know what we’re supposed to do and we don’t.
The Apostle Paul wreslted with this very problem himself.
Why are some Christians not practising what they preach?
James 3:17,18
“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure and full of quiet gentleness. Then it is peace-loving and courteous. It allows for discussion and is willing to yield to others; it is full of mercy and good deeds. It is wholehearted amd straightforward and sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of goodness.”
Frank Buck…Though I respect your outrage and the right to say it there is always more than one opinion. Mine is this….G-d does not care about what is written here. Free will…..Remember that? Meaning we as individuals have the right to read and write whatever we want. This right seperates us from many other countries in the world. Don’t be so afraid for the ones who differ from your belief we will be just fine. Because when it comes down to it if we live our lives without deliberately going out of our way to hurt anyone then there will be no need to worry much about the hereafter. Judgements will always get us into trouble. If we stay on the path of good imagine the possibilities for us all.
No doubt the Catholic Church had and still has many ritualistic problems that are not even close to biblical. As far as the evidence of who Christ was and is…there are far more interesting documents that movies should be made about than a fictional scrap of parchment supposedly written by Di Vinci. In the Old Testament of the Bible there are over 300 prophecies of exactly how and where Christ will be born and how he will be crucified. The oldest documents were only found in the last century…The Dead Sea Scrolls…written 200 yrs BC it completely blows out of the water any conjecture that what we know about Christ, born of a virgin, in Bethlahem, the Mesiah, crusified and risen, was written by Constantine or any other Di Vinci Code drivel. While folks make their earthly money through the satanic practice of taking the skin of the truth and wrapping it around a big fat lie, they should remember the words of Jesus, “If you denie me on earth, I will denie you before my Father in heaven.”
MJ, where’s the post on that? I’d like to read it. And no, nobody hogs the board, don’t worry about it. Sure, explain when you have time. :)
Melchizedek – what a beautiful name. What does it mean?
I read 2 Peter, cover to cover. I fully agree with 1 Peter 1:7… “This will make possible the next step, which is for you to enjoy other people and to like them, and finally you will grow to love them deeply.” Isn’t that the point? To truly love people?
2 Peter 2:7,8 “But at the same time the Lord rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a good man, sick of the terrible wickedness he saw everywhere around him day after day.” I consider wickedness as “the intent of destroying others, or exploiting others for selfish gain.” How do you define wickedness?
2 Peter 2:14 “No woman can escape their sinful stare, and of adultery they never have enough. They make a game of luring unstable women. They train themselves to be greedy; and are doomed and cursed.” Well, give me some credit here! I don’t consider myself as “unstable”. I believe God loves me unconditionally. I sense his love all around me. And as far as adultery, I’m not too certain if Dan Brown has committed adultery. I hope he hasn’t. I hope he’s happily married.
2 Peter 2:15, 16 “They have gone off the road and become lost like Balaam, the son of Beor, who fell in love with the money he could make by doing wrong; BUT Balaam was stopped from his mad course when his donkey spoke to him with a human voice, scolding and rebuking him.” If God sent a donkey to rebuke Balaam, why didn’t he send a donkey to stop Dan Brown? Or maybe a cow, a monkey… or I know, a parrot!
2 Peter 3:13 “But we are looking foward to God’s promise of new heavens and a new earth afterwards, where there will be only goodness.” I’m trying to make that my reality now, in this life.
I don’t want to hog this board… so I’ll leave. Laurie, I kind of touched on my experience with religion on the other page. But I think I’ve said enough now. I’ll explain later. Peace sista!
ps. Without love, you ain’t nothing, you ain’t nothing without love…. sung by Larry Norman.
Hey Francis…..that’s quite the response to the movie in Europe! I doubt that North American audiences will have the same kind of response though. In many ways we are more guillible and willing to accept things than Europeans who will think more about it before accepting it hook, line and sinker.
For any of you out there that have read the book and have serious questions about who Jesus himself claimed to be, check out the daily chats at 12:30 pm eastern time in http://www.thelife.com chat room. Friday we will be talking about the Death of Jesus and then on Monday, about His resurrection and what difference that makes…..come and chat!
haha, highfives MJ. Thanks for thinking I’m cool. Just wondering, so what makes you think Jesus is married? I think it’s okay to play with ideas sometimes, we can’t shut out all possibilities, so I’m wondering what you think. And what’s your background? My parents are both buddhist actually.
Protect the sacred feminine! hahaha, sounds like goodtimes where you work.
This is for MJ. MJ how would you like it if someone took the story of your life and portrayed it to be something that it’s not but claimed it to be true and 5% of the people at you work place believed it to be true. I don?t think you would just lighten up. Or maybe you would, after all it’s just an idea.
All of you who believe this Da Vinci stuff to be just for fun you should read
2peter 2:1-22 God knew this day would come so forewarned his people of such things
You said it Laurie! The book has made a huge impact on people…. and that people are lazy. HA!
To a “few” others: So what if I’m wrong in thinking Jesus was married. Who cares? It’s just an idea. Can’t we play with ideas? Is it really that horrible? Are we all comdemned to hell (if it even exists) for thinking something different?
“PROTECT THE SACRED FEMININE!” (it’s our motto where I work) It’s all for fun.
Lighten up people, don’t take yourselves too seriously… not you Laurie, you’s cool.
hahahaha, I think I’m going to have to go and see the damn movie just so I can laugh when Hanks claims himself to be descendant of Christ. Even if I am the only one lol.
To even suggest that this book helps people with religion is ….flabbergasting.
Yes, the book that says that the entire Christian Church, Catholic or not, has been built on lies and murders, really helped me as a Catholic in my daily life…
…or not….
I’m getting a little tired of people going head over heels for this stupid book.
http://crisismagazine.com/september2003/feature1.htm
^That’s a really great website that has a lot of good information about how Dan Brown is a liar.
Francis, why did Tommy Hanks declare himself a descendant of Jesus? What was the context?
Check out this article on MSN: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12815760/?GT1=8199 Apparently many believe Code claims.
?The British survey, released by a group of prominent Catholics, revealed that readers of Dan Brown?s blockbuster novel are twice as likely to believe Jesus Christ fathered children and four times as likely to think the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei is a murderous sect.?
Wonder what the stats for those who watch the movie will be eh?
It’s quite the counter to the Barna study. Though the stat that only 5% of people have changed their religious views may be true, I still think there is some impact on people, even those that haven’t necessarily changed their religious views. They might already have rejected Christianity, but the book can add to their rejection. So it’s like, well, this is more reason for me not to believe. For example, say I didn’t really like someone and my friend told me inaccurate gossip about them, I would naturally be like, well, even more reason for me to not like them. If I wanted to take the time and further step to actually find out if the gossip were true, then that would be better, but most of the time, I’m not going to lie to you, people are lazy. So though DVC may confirm people’s views and not change them, it still impacts them. Also, if we wanna look at this from a Christian point of view, it brings them further away.
I live in Europe and I just wanted to let everyone know that the film was booed by journalists at the Cannes Film Festival, thank God!
Also, when Tom Hanks declares himself a descendant of Jesus, the whole room broke out laughing… So let’s hope that America will follow suit.
Blacksmith, are you talking about Dan Brown being a shyster?
This idea has been around for a while and I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal now. When I was a kid, I played Gabriel Knight: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned, which was based on this premise. Holy Blood, Holy Grail is a fantastic non-fiction book that has researched into some of these ideas. The Da Vinci Code is an entertaining thriller that takes a few nuggets of the theory and expands it far into the realm of fiction. Of course it’s not a guide to anything, but it was a good read. And no, no one should take this fiction read as fact, but if you’re interested, go get Holy Blood, Holy Grail and see for yourself.
Man there are some gullible people out there! If I had no morals or scruples, I could fleece the bleating sheep out there too. But I just can’t bring myself to shoot fish in a barrel. And that, is what we’re talking about here. People, desperate to believe in something, ANYTHING will fork over thier hard earned cash to charlatans and shysters who give them that ‘something’. No matter how utterly brainless it is.
I have nothing but pity for you folks.
I think this is an outrage to even suggest such a thing about Jesus Christ. It’s nothing but the devil in people. Jesus Christ was the son of God and he said in the bible “To Be Ye Holy Even As I am Holy”. People better stop this nonsense. It’s nothing but Blasphemy. Against God to. Better wake up and give him the glory he deserves.
I think that the implications of this study are fascinating. I have read the book cover to cover, and I do consider it to be a helpful historical guide in the misinterpretation of secret societies. Dan Brown obviously had some knowledge of Veritas Exemplar and the group The Kraken, but he really didn’t have a handle on its scope, in my opinion.
There are many people who see more in this book because they’ve seen more of the reality it attempts to depict.