May 9th, 2006
With all the hoopla over The Da Vinci Code movie coming out this month and the mainstream media and blogosphere reporting on the Teen “Virginity Pledges”, I have to admit I’ve been pondering the big questions about religion and faith and “The Christian Church”.
Mostly, I’ve been wondering what the big deal about virginity is. (As the World’s Oldest Virgin, I have the right to wonder.)
O.K. I get that Jesus’ birth was a miracle virgin birth signifying that only God himself could have actually impregnated Mary. I see where that is significant.
But what I don’t get is this big hang up by the Christian Church on Jesus’ virginity. Why is it so vital to their Faith that he be virginally chaste for 30+ years?
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Tags: Christian Church, Virginity Pledges, Jesus, Da Vinci Code, virgin, Faith, religion
April 7th, 2006
So, the good news for Dan Brown and Random House is that the judge in London’s High Court has ruled that Brown did not breach the copyright of Holy Blood and Holy Grail in his blockbuster The Da Vinci Code. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of the original nonfiction work must now pay Random House 85% of their almost £1.3m court costs.
the judge, Mr Justice Peter Smith, said The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail did not have a central theme.
“It was an artificial creation for the purposes of the litigation working back from the Da Vinci Code,” he ruled.
Dan Brown did use the previous book to write certain parts of his thriller, the judge decided, but did not substantially copy their work.
Mr Brown said he was “still astonished that these two authors chose to file their suit at all”.
A novelist must be free to “draw appropriately” from historical works without facing a court and having his integrity called into question, he said. [“Court reject Da Vinci copy claim” (BBC News)]
Really, this had been such a stupid lawsuit to begin with.
Tags: Da Vinci Code, lawsuit, BBC News, Conspiracy Theories, Dan Brown, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Random House
