I have been engrossed in the book The Da Vinci Code (buy it from amazon, or check out a teaser for it from the publisher if you have already read the book) for the last three days and have to say that my mom was correct, I do find it quite interesting. Although I have to admit, for a cryptologist, Sophie sucks at her job. Not being able to see that the Fibonacci sequence could be used to decode the anagram was really piss poor.

One thing that I am wondering, is why my mother (a devout Christian) would want me to read this book. I am thinking that it is either due to a twist that validates Christianity in the end, or she believes it to be a complete work of fiction.

I have always had trouble with my faith once I came to the realization that the Bible was simple a work of literature, based on reality, put together by man. I have not yet done the research that Dan Brown claims, regarding the history of the Bible, but it makes since to me. And if you I believe the Bible, and therefore the basis of Christianity, to be a product of man and not something divine, full of man-made stories, how could I call myself a Christian.

One of the answers I have found, one that defines my personal faith, is that I believe much of the Bible's stories to be analogies and fables. But I do believe in two essential, basic entities. That of good and evil. Whatever you choose to call those entities, matters not to me. Christians call them God and the Devil. I do find it interesting that by removing one letter from "good", you get "god". And of course, either out of respect, or to further personify this entity with grammatical emphasis (since proper names, or words that are used to refer to an individual, are capitalized), we would capitalize the first letter, giving us "God". It is also interesting to note that be removing the first letter of "Devil" we get "evil".

Now, I do believe that there was a man named Jesus and that he was a very impressive and influential man (call me Captain Obvious) but I have a very hard time believing that he was conceived by the holy spirit, and that his mother Mary could have given birth without help from the only type of impregnation available at the time, intercourse. The problem is, this contradicts an oath I took at my confirmation when I was 15, which looking back on, makes me realize that my mental capacity was not in place to have come to a definitive decision. To be honest, I have yet to finish my struggle on much of these issues. It also contradicts a creed that I take any Sunday I go to church, the Apostles Creed. Those contradictions have yet to be justified in my own mind and I my hypocrisies don't bother me too much, most likely because I enjoy the feeling of tradition and stability, and I enjoy feeling like a member of the good doers of the congregation, and that I am doing my part to help good overcome evil, but know that I have spent some thought on it, maybe I will stop saying the words that I do not believe.

I enjoy going to church, and learning about the stories in the bible, but the real reason for being a Christian to me is to instill good in my own life, and so doing spreading it to others, because life is not a solitary journey. Using fables and analogies to encourage other people to do good and forsaking evil is a noble cause, and that is how I can call myself a Christian. Religion is a deeply personal decision, and for most of us, our parents decide what our religion will be for the first decade and a half of our lives. But laziness, apathy, and lack of peer pressure (a.k.a college, unless you are a theology major) usually causes us to stop questioning where our morals come from and what we believe, that is until something like a child or another person comes into your life, bringing with them a realization that sharing the same morals and life lessons, would go a long way in helping you understand each other, bringing you closer, and combine your efforts on a noble cause. To simply tell them why your morals are just, and that they should consider adopting them, would be condescending and questionably effective, therefore we leave it up to religion and its teachers / preachers to help us in this endeavor.

I have much more to say on this topic, and am glad that I have broken the ice on this, but for now I must get to work.

I would love feedback on this topic.