Dan Brown on religion and writing

For someone who grew up Episcopalian, Brown seems fixated, obsessed with the least important, peripheral parts of Catholicism. The center of Catholicism is the the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Would Dan please write a book about that, with his best-selling talents, to make up for all the folks who were confused about Catholicism by his other books, mistaking those minutiae for the real thing?

It sounds like Dan Brown may be a Deist. He doesn't buy into the Bible anymore but he sees the designs in Nature.

I was glad to see in his new book that he accurately represented America's founders as Deists. Too bad more people aren't aware of Deism. The Lost Symbol will help correct that!

Progress! Bob Johnson
www.deism.com

Hi MikeyP

ST: The H Bomb

In the early days of his life the H Bomb physicist Teller thought that there was no need for this archaic GOD principle.

At the end of his life in an Obit in the Globe Teller commented that he now understood the reason for GOD more than ever.

Now I never did read if he had any regrets about his testimony against Oppenheimer, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer

Yet those were really difficult times in the USA and a guy like Dick Cheney would have loved to be alive and scatter shooting..

Not all the Founders were Deists; however, many of the big names were, such as Jefferson, Franklin and Madison. Adams started out as a Congregationalist, but is buried in a Unitarian church. I don't think the Unitarians identify themselves as Deists. Washington, though not much of an orthodox Anglican, certainly believed in God as Providence, especially in the outcome of the revolution, and as far as I know, Deists do not believe in Providence. Most of the non big names were Bible believing Christians; weren't their votes necessary to pass the Declaration and Constitution?

Plus, it is good to remember that the few men who signed the Declaration and the Constitution were not the only Founders. The Bible believing Congregationalists, Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans, and a few Catholics
in the colonies/states were needed to back up the Declaration with their lives, and had to ratify the Constitution with their votes. They too are Founders.

So yes,there was a tiny claque of Deists at the top of the revolutionary pyramid, who had their Locke on their book shelf, but most of the pyramid was practicing orthodox Trinitarian Christians with one book on their shelf,
the Bible.

Maybe Dan Brown could learn that, and set the record straight? Nah, not as dramatic to hawk his books.

Well gaudete, and MikeyP

You did good..

Another interesting thing to add was how the early separatists were appealing to the UK and French audience. I mean you can be so called smart yet you need the masses. If you read the language in the Declaration you will see Jefferson was also appealing to higher purpose thinking Europeans.

Thanks for the Deism comment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism

I got a book out on that once I think called Trinitarian ism and practiced in Andover, MA. It was an Old Book

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, “Cantate Domino,” 1441, ex cathedra:

“The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the Church before the end of their lives; that the unity of this ecclesiastical body is of such importance that only those who abide in it do the Church’s sacraments contribute to salvation and do fasts, almsgiving and other works of piety and practices of the Christian militia productive of eternal rewards; and that nobody can be saved, no matter how much he has given away in alms and even if he has shed blood in the name of Christ, unless he has persevered in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.”

Pope Pius IX, Vatican Council I, Session 2, Profession of Faith, 1870, ex cathedra: “This true Catholic faith, outside of which none can be saved, which I now freely profess and truly hold…”

The Catholic Church not the false "church" under Antipope Benedict XVI.

Hi Rob,

ST: A Little lost on your GOD / Christian Purpose

I understand all those quotes. Most are pure politics and not of GOD or even my man Jesus, Paul, Peter.

So what is your point??

Yours in GOD, MA/NY MrDave

P.S. Erasmus a famous guy trained in the Church once commented on many things in "Praise of Folly" He was brutal to the popes for not following in the footsteps of Jesus our man from ??. He also had interesting comments on male and female relationships that makes a thinker think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderius_Erasmus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Praise_of_Folly

Dan Brown’s “Lost Symbol” leaves you with your hunger not filled and your thirst not quenched. If you are looking for an answer (the hidden meaning in the Bible), I recommend reading the "Bible Enlightened". But I have to warn you: it is not a novel, it is a reference book in two volumes (actually there is also a third one with about 1000 illustrations to the text of the other two volumes).

It's an oversimplification to say that Thomas Jefferson is a Deist. I've studied Jefferson's religion in great detail as research for a book I'm writing... now, many people argue as to whether Thomas Jefferson was a Deist, a Christian, a Unitarian... in reality, he was an amalgam of all of those things, and once said, "I am a sect of myself, as far as I know," indicating his very individualized theology. He was a Deist in the sense that he believed in a creator who is no longer actively involved in Creation, and applauded the views expressed by Deist Thomas Paine in "Age of Reason" But he was very much a disciple of Unitarian Joseph Priestley, and often pointed to Priestley's "History of the Corruptions of Christianity" as containing his beliefs. He read that book over and over again. With the Unitarians, he denied the Trinity but believed in the benevolence of the example of Jesus, and applauded Jesus' correction of what he viewed as the errors of the Jews in their interpretation of the nature of the Creator. With the Universalists, he denied that God punishes any person in eternal hell (Unitarian Adams shared this Universalist denial of hell--which was not the view of many Unitarians at that time) but both Jefferson and Adams believed in an afterlife where people would be united with loved ones in heaven. Jefferson also espoused a view called Materialism--not to be confused with the modern meaning of the word, it did not refer to a desire for material goods, but a belief that all things have substance, so there could be no God, no spirit, no soul, no angels, unless they had bodies that could be weighed and measured. Finally, despite his aversion to priestly church hierarchies, he was very devoted to the teachings of Jesus, and daily read from his extracts from the Bible (commonly called the Jefferson Bible--and there were actually two of them, one he compiled in 1803, the Philosophy of Jesus, and the second, he compiled in 1819, the Life and Morals of Jesus.)