Religion and the Da Vinci Code

I was reading over the shoulder of a fellow subway traveler this week when I caught a letter to the editor in one of the local rags. The editorialist was wondering what all the hype was about concerning the Da Vinci code movie -- why are people threatened, he wondered, by something that is clearly fiction. The movie and the book it's based on, after all, are all made up, so why's everyone getting their panties in a sticky bunch? The problem with this argument and others like it, constructed by same-minded children, is that it implies that religious stories are not ALSO fiction, that religion is not, in every instance, a bunch of made-up mythology designed to get folks, for the benefit of civilization (however good or bad), to behave one way or another (mostly another). Want to avoid disease? Tell em: Sex is bad. And so on... So I think it's right that folks have their underwear pinched tighter than a lobster's claw on this one, because isn't it about time human beings let go of this ancient crutch? Isn't the truth, as revealed by science, even more wondrous? I mentioned these thoughts to my Uncle Abe and he said, in between slurps of his Cinammon Raisin oatmeal, "At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols." Once again I looked up U.A.'s thoughts on the web and found that someone else -- in this case Aldous Huxley -- had spoken them first, which only proves that there are really no new ideas.

I haven't seen the Da Vinci Code and I haven't read the book, though I've read through several reviews of both and have discovered that intelligent people (assuming reviewers are intelligent, which is a dangerous presumption on par with the assumption that politicians are honest)... but I digress. Intelligent people seem to think the book and the movie kinda suck ass, and not in a good way. So I could understand those who would simply dismiss it as drivel and move on with their lives spent surfing things, like the web and the Pacific Ocean. But to them, I say: don't you see that's the point? What's the point? they would ask, exasperated by my inarticulateness. The point is: people are actually attracted to this kind of stupidity and it scares me more than hairless cats do. Yes, humans have always leaned rather heavily on superstitious claptrap to explain the universe and our seemingly super-important role in it, but that's because humans have always been scared, frightened, too-smart-for-their-own-good monkeys. So now, in the fabulous 21st Century, haven't we grown up enough to face that? Judging by events around the globe, clearly we haven't, but imagine what we could achieve if we did -- we've already walked on the moon, cured innumerable diseases, invented cool things like Ipods and pencil sharpeners. And we're just getting started, humans have only been around for a very short time -- dinosaurs were around for something like 200 million years and not one of them even invented a stapler!

Are you still imagining? Okay, stop, because you're drooling.

Hey, are the ethics provided by religion really all that great, necessarily? Aren't they kind of repressive? And don't they encourage blind obedience, rather than thought? I was discussing this with the now deceased poet, Anais Nin, during a seance last night and she said, "When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow." Yes, Anais, yes! And no, I didn't sleep with her.

I know I'm not exactly cutting any edges by condemning religion and superstition (wasn't that what the Enlightment was all about?), and I know there are probably good arguments on the side of religion and metaphysics generally that point to the disasterously bloody results of peoples abandoning morality (the French Revolution, anyone?). But geez, isn't there a place for a world devoid of god and make-pretend that also includes a well-constructed ethics? I suppose you could argue back and forth like this, with good arguments on both sides, about the question of how much good vs. evil religion does. Is it a force of good or evil, primarily? But the bottom line is: it's a fantasy, it's make-pretend, and ultimately we do harm to ourselves when we believe in such dreams.

Now, maybe someone has to step up and educate the masses, let 'em know that it's okay to let go of their belief in god, and an afterlife and ESP, although I think we're all capable of doing this for ourselves. Did you really need your mom to tell you Santa was a hoax? Didn't you begin to realize on your own? Of course, there was a period in there where you allowed yourself to believe anyway, maybe for one last winter or two, but you finally told yourself it was all just a hoax and you went on to obsessing about other things, like that cute girl in your gym class, was her name Lisa Hernandez (call me!)? People allow themselves to believe in religion for far too long. I'm guessing most people know it's a game, but they choose to play anyway: anything to avoid dealing with reality.

Maybe it's something deeper, a need to belong to something, a need to imagine a power beyond us. Look in the mirror one day and think the world begins and ends with choices, however, and you'll see a different world when you walk out the door. Now excuse me, but I have to catch a nap before the hockey game tonight. Those Oilers are gods, man...