atheist blogs, davinci codes

amy, thanks for the tip... i'm having fun at nogodblog.com.

i'm halfway through 'the davinci code'. it's pretty good... not the best dialogue in the world, but chock full of action and suspense. great summer reading (listening in my case). they're just getting into all the BS about The Holy Grail and the mystery of who/what it is. Dan Brown is way off on early church history. Constantine invented the Divinity of Christ? Methinks not. The 'Hymn of Christ' in Philippians 2 is perhaps the earliest saying we have about the nature of Christ, and even there we have "[Jesus], being in very nature God". i'm still listening to it.

'beyond belief' by elaine pagels is decidedly less fun. she's basically going through and picking all the best verses out of the Gospel of Thomas, to create the impression that here we have a genuine alternative to the four canonicals. Okay, how about this verse from Thomas:

(114) Simon Peter sais to them, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life."
Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven."

Yikes! and that's just the tip of the iceberg.