# More Da Vinci Code backlash idiocy
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-da-vinci-code-backlash-idiocy/358861
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [May 31, 2006, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-da-vinci-code-backlash-idiocy/358861 "2006-05-31T12:17:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-da-vinci-code-backlash-idiocy/358861/41 "2006-05-31T18:30:39Z")
> [@Malacandra](#):
>
> No brouhaha started, but basic tolerance for other people’s beliefs includes not referring to their holy book as a work of fiction, **Wookie**.
😕 We’ve got book A where Jesus gets married and has kids, and we have book B where he is born of a virgin, gets resurrected, and where the “saints” rise from their graves and stomp around Jerusalem like an ancient George Romero movie. So what’s the work of fiction again?
And as far as tolerance goes, since I grew up Jewish, I could say that you claiming your book is true is intolerant of my old beliefs. But that would be wrong.
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### Author:  [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-da-vinci-code-backlash-idiocy/358861/42 "2006-05-31T18:50:53Z")
> [@Auntbeast](#):
>
> So, can I start using Christs Balls! as an exclamation?
How about Christ’s Brightly Lit Taint?
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### Author:  [@Daithi\_Lacha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daithi_Lacha)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-da-vinci-code-backlash-idiocy/358861/43 "2006-05-31T19:40:41Z")
> [@Cervaise](#):
>
> How about Christ’s Brightly Lit Taint?
… and in years to come, it will become a colorful, if not antiquated, British expression: **Staint!**
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### Author:  [@5que](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5que)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-da-vinci-code-backlash-idiocy/358861/44 "2006-05-31T19:47:19Z")
> [@jjimm](#):
>
> My favourite creation myth - of a god anyway - is the birth of Aphrodite, where (according to the people in Cyprus at the place it allegedly happened) Zeus got his cock chopped off by his jealous wife just as he was shagging someone else, and it fell into the sea, where the blood, sperm and seawater mixed together to make the goddess.
Well, another place to cross off of my skinny dipping list.
And I thought \*\*Eve’s \*\* comment was 100% Grade A **Eve**.
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### Author:  [@Faruiza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Faruiza)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-da-vinci-code-backlash-idiocy/358861/45 "2006-05-31T20:06:37Z")
> [@if6was9](#):
>
> What was the one from the Stephen King movie? (Thinner?)
> “One high-toned son of a bitch”
The Dark Half.
😃 I win!!
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-da-vinci-code-backlash-idiocy/358861/46 "2006-05-31T20:19:38Z")
> [@5que](#):
>
> Well, another place to cross off of my skinny dipping list.
Coincidentally, I did in fact go skinny dipping there, with a very pretty girl - to the amusement of some friends who’d climbed to the top of the [Mouila Rock](http://www.worldisround.com/articles/100874/photo14.html), aka Zeus’s knob.
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### Author:  [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-da-vinci-code-backlash-idiocy/358861/47 "2006-05-31T20:21:45Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#):
>
> No one has a problem saying that Xenu is a fiction or that African tribal myths are fictions. Much of the Bible IS fiction and quite demonstrably so. Tolerance does not mean that anyone has to ignore giant elephants in the room.
(speaking as an agnostic here…)
Except that “fiction” isn’t really the right word. People do not (in general) read The Bible in order to learn what happened in the past, with their primary concern being historical accuracy. They read The Bible in order to receive guidance concerning how to live their lives. It’s neither “fiction” nor “non-fiction”, but some other category instead.
There are plenty of people who read The Bible, and take it very seriously, for whom it plays an enormous part in their life, who do not at all view it as an accurate historical recounting. That’s not the point.
(And, for that matter, we don’t have any reason to think that large parts of the gospels are NOT true, at least the non-supernatural parts…)
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-da-vinci-code-backlash-idiocy/358861/48 "2006-05-31T20:25:07Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#):
>
> Except that “fiction” isn’t really the right word. People do not (in general) read The Bible in order to learn what happened in the past, with their primary concern being historical accuracy. They read The Bible in order to receive guidance concerning how to live their lives. It’s neither “fiction” nor “non-fiction”, but some other category instead.
But do you apply that distinction equally to every single other belief system and mythos? I think that’s **Dio** ’s point, and if it isn’t, it certainly is mine.
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### Author:  [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-da-vinci-code-backlash-idiocy/358861/49 "2006-05-31T20:30:51Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#):
>
> (speaking as an agnostic here…)
>
> Except that “fiction” isn’t really the right word. People do not (in general) read The Bible in order to learn what happened in the past, with their primary concern being historical accuracy. They read The Bible in order to receive guidance concerning how to live their lives. It’s neither “fiction” nor “non-fiction”, but some other category instead.
>
> There are plenty of people who read The Bible, and take it very seriously, for whom it plays an enormous part in their life, who do not at all view it as an accurate historical recounting. That’s not the point.
>
> (And, for that matter, we don’t have any reason to think that large parts of the gospels are NOT true, at least the non-supernatural parts…)
So maybe put in in the self help section? It can go between Being You, Loving Me and Black Science;ancient and modern techniques of ninja mind manipulation. (both actual books in the self help section on amazon)
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-da-vinci-code-backlash-idiocy/358861/50 "2006-05-31T21:58:56Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#):
>
> Except that “fiction” isn’t really the right word. People do not (in general) read The Bible in order to learn what happened in the past, with their primary concern being historical accuracy. They read The Bible in order to receive guidance concerning how to live their lives. It’s neither “fiction” nor “non-fiction”, but some other category instead.
People read Jonathan Livingstone Seagull for the same reason. Examining how we should live our lives is one advantage of reading fiction.
> [@](#):
>
> There are plenty of people who read The Bible, and take it very seriously, for whom it plays an enormous part in their life, who do not at all view it as an accurate historical recounting. That’s not the point.
Right. So these people should not complain if the Bible is called fiction - they admit it isn’t factual. Calling it self-help has some appeal, but the Bible is full of stories told as if they were true, so at least part is fiction, part self-help.
> [@](#):
>
> (And, for that matter, we don’t have any reason to think that large parts of the gospels are NOT true, at least the non-supernatural parts…)
Not nearly as true as Gore Vidal’s historical fiction, say. Maybe a good match would be the Carlos Casteneda books - told as if they happened, full of baloney, but maybe of some spiritual value.
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### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-da-vinci-code-backlash-idiocy/358861/51 "2006-05-31T22:38:19Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> People read Jonathan Livingstone Seagull for the same reason. Examining how we should live our lives is one advantage of reading fiction.
> \
Jonathan Livingston Seagull was fiction? Say it isn’t so! 🙂
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### Author:  [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-da-vinci-code-backlash-idiocy/358861/52 "2006-05-31T22:48:11Z")
> [@jjimm](#):
>
> But do you apply that distinction equally to every single other belief system and mythos? I think that’s **Dio** ’s point, and if it isn’t, it certainly is mine.
In general, yes.
Calling The Bible “fiction” is a bit like calling God an “Invisible Sky Pixie”. Not really inaccurate, and useful in certainly rhetorical contexts where it’s clear what point you’re making, but in every dayusage, more inflammatory than useful.
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### Author:  [@5que](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5que)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2006, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-da-vinci-code-backlash-idiocy/358861/53 "2006-06-01T13:44:11Z")
> [@jjimm](#):
>
> Coincidentally, I did in fact go skinny dipping there, with a very pretty girl - to the amusement of some friends who’d climbed to the top of the [Mouila Rock](http://www.worldisround.com/articles/100874/photo14.html), aka Zeus’s knob.
Man, I gotta say, that’s one big penis.
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### Author:  [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2006, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-da-vinci-code-backlash-idiocy/358861/54 "2006-06-01T14:35:35Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#):
>
> Calling The Bible “fiction” is a bit like calling God an “Invisible Sky Pixie”. Not really inaccurate, and useful in certainly rhetorical contexts where it’s clear what point you’re making, but in every dayusage, more inflammatory than useful.
For what it’s worth, I think of the Bible — and the Qur’an, and the tales of Greek and Roman gods, and all other religious narratives involving gods and extranatural heroes — as being “mythology” rather than fiction. It’s a useful distinction, I think; the stories aren’t labeled as “obviously false” the way the word “fiction” connotes, but then they aren’t true, either. But really, with mythology, the truth or falsity is sort of beside the point; if the stories have staying power and cultural usefulness, they sort of transcend any prosaic notion of “being true” (and I say this as a stone atheist). Mythology is also separate from fiction in my mind in that it’s more of a group effort, a collection of lesson-stories that has evolved over time and under the influence of a number of people (or a culture as a whole), rather than the single-creator model implied by fiction. (From this point of view, “Star Trek” has become mythology, while Scientology is fiction.)
Which isn’t to say that fundies of any stripe will react positively to having their cherished beliefs labeled as mythology, but it’s a marginally preferable term compared to the direct frontal attack of calling the basis of their faith “fiction.”
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