The Field Marshal

Going Bananas over Da Vinci Code No, I am not the one going bananas over it. But many Singaporeans, especially from the Christian community, are. First, I would like to state upfront that I am a Catholic. That naturally puts me in the same broadstroke as one of those fanatics, be it Catholics or protestants, calling for a boycott and whatever actions to discourage the general public from watching a movie packed with lies. Perhaps being one of those so-called 'Christmas Catholics', Catholics who only attends Mass on Christmas, I don't feel strongly about this issue at all. I recall an article by ST's Andy Ho, who happens to be a christian, who talked about this brouhaha in the christian community. I agreed with him then, and I still do. Fact is, Christians, which I mean protestants, tend to look at issues, and I mean ALL issues, from a very religious centric perspective. This is not wrong per se since the faith requires them to place God above all else. I need to draw the line between 'them' and the Roman Catholic church since our doctrines are inherently different and that they are not keen on the ecumenical movement in Singapore (read Andy Ho's article if you can find it). You seldom see a Catholic going around telling people to believe in Christ, because if you don't, you burn in hell. I, for one, have been abused by such overzealous christians in their evangelical outreach. I can't presume what God would think about Dan Brown and his Da Vinci Code novel, or the film adaptation of his story. For me, the story is simply a story. That's why it is categorised in the fiction section of libraries and bookstores, not on the non-fiction shelves since it cannot stand on any academic finding. Simply put, Dan Brown just has a very creative way in pieceing together some facts with a whole load of imagination into a coherent story. Fact is, there are hundred of books with hypothesis on Jesus being an alien etc. Puzzling why I don't see any opposition to those. At least Jesus is depicted as a man in Dan Brown's story. Alien? Can't find any words to descrieb what I think about that. So what's my take on all this? Well, I am going to watch the movie. I would like to see how the church etc is portrayed. I am most likely going to be well entertained if the pacing is done well. Wait a minute! What about your Catholic faith?, you might ask. Well, to me, believing in something does not mean that I take offence everytime someone, or something depicts my faith wrongly. If I did that, I would have died of pent up anger. Instead of that, I believe that my role should be that of educating people to the inaccuracies in the movie, and that the movie is not a factual representation of my faith. Simple as that. Lastly, I find a somewhat double-standard attitude of christians when approaching this issue. Labelling the movie as lies and loads of falsehood, which essentially is quite true. What I cannot understand is the fact that these very christians go around telling people of other faiths that these are lies and falsehood. Guess things have a very weird way of coming a full circle, a vicious one that is in this case. And please be civil if you want to leave any comments here on this subject. I am not here to say who's write or wrong. I am here just to share my views. Being the highly evolved and intelligent species that we are, I am sure all of us can agree to disagree right?