Secrets of the Vatican

If you believe everything you see and read, then you'd probably be up to your ears in conspiracy theories... and if you believe that the Illuminati is out there to expose the Catholic Church to the world as a ruthless organization, then you may as well just stop reading altogether. Hehe.

As much fun and entertainment these conspiracy theories are, they are still just works of fictions... or are they?

Here are some sites that try and unveil what goes on behind the walled city in Rome.

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Best source for Vatican Secrets is... from the Vatican itself! Awesome find here, the Vatican has their own website and a complete section on their Secret Archives.



Not so secret anymore eh?

Click here to see it.

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TheHarrowing.com is a pretty strange website, but you can find some interesting stuff in there about some of the Vatican's Secrets.

"Of all the vexing questions surrounding the widespread and on-going clergy sexual abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church, perhaps the ones involving the Pope are among those most begging for an answer. For such a centralized, authoritarian organization headed by one single man, the Pope, the key Watergate-type question of 'what did he know and when did he know it?' is crucial to any understanding of the full dimensions of the crisis..."

Interesting eh? Click here to read more.

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Of course Wikis are a great source for information like this. But someone actually posted an ENTIRE BOOK... I think it's the book being mentioned in the video I posted below... not sure though.

Click here to read it... if you can read something that long anyway.

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This video I found on YouTube is another one that seeks to uncover the Secrets of the Vatican... though if you ask me, it's just rubbish. Fun to watch anyway... what the poor editing didn't give it away? Watch out for their 'interview resource person' at the end, after The Church and UFOs. Hahaha!

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After reading Angels and Demons and after seeing the latest trailer, I'm pretty sure there are more fired up conspiracy theorists out there (whether serious, or, like our last link, 'interesting'), especially those with an interest in Catholicism and religion in general.

You think they'll be in line for the movie when it opens on May 15 as well?

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5 Thing to Know About Robert Langdon

In my first post about myself and this blog, I described a bit about Robert Langdon and his character. Fans of the book and of the movie will surely know what I'm talking about... but here's a bit of additional book and movie trivia for you folks to help you in your novel-surfing and movie-going experience:

1. Symbology is the fictional academic discipline pursued by the hero of Dan Brown's novels, The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. Robert Langdon, is supposed to be a professor of "symbology" at Harvard.
Karen L. King, Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard, called "symbology" a nonexistent field, and noted that the closest field, semiology, is unrepresented at Harvard.
(Source: FunTrivia.com)

2. Author Dan Brown named main character Robert Langdon after John Langdon, a close friend and typography master who worked with Brown on an ambigram logo for 'Angels And Demons'. (Source: IMDB.com)

3. In the story, Robert Langdon's publisher is called Jonas Faukman. Jonas Faukman is an anagram of Dan Brown's real life publisher, Jason Kaufman. (Source: IMDB.com)

4. Robert Langdon drives a Saab 900s. It's a really cool, kind of old school car, but classy and dependable nonetheless. Suits his personality... though I honestly don't know what it does for his claustrophobia. (Source: FunTrivia.com)

5. Ron Howard's first envisioned choice for the role of Robert Langdon was Bill Paxton. Paxton was interested but turned it down because of scheduling conflicts. 'Russell Crowe (I)' was then seriously considered for the role but ultimately Howard decided on long time friend Tom Hanks for the role. Other actors considered for the part were Ralph Fiennes, Hugh Jackman and George Clooney. (Source: IMDB.com)

(Kind of hard to imagine Hugh Jackman and George Clooney in the role of a Harvard professor... sorry but they're too 'pretty' for my tastes... hehe.)

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to add more trivia to the list once Angels and Demons shows in the Philippines on May 15, 2009. What about you? Got any trivia of Robert Langdon to share?

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Religion vs. Science

In that eternal quest for truth, man has always been at odds with what is and what can be.

How so? Mainly because there are those that choose to believe only what they can sense--see, hear, touch, taste... and there are those of us that choose to really leave our fate in the hands of things we cannot understand, hence the birth of religion and faith.

Science has always dealt with the empirical. Things that we can measure, describe, outwardly observe... science has given man the option to learn, to become more than just a mere thought. Science came about because of mans thirst for knowledge, his quest for the truth...

Religion on the other hand, has always been argued as something that was merely 'invented' to keep man in check. Because if in his quest for the truth, he cannot find the answers he seeks, he turns to something he cannot understand and then attempts to explain and rationalize that things happen as God's will.

So why then can we not find a balance between scientific rationalization and religious belief?

Today science allows us to actually find out if the DNA of Jesus Christ exists... and if any one of us is actually, genetically related. But religious fanatics cry foul and say you cannot even attempt to discover let alone break down the matter that makes up God. And this is only one aspect of the ever-changing argument that is Religion vs Science.

In the first Dan Brown novel turned Ron Howard movie, The Da Vinci Code, man attempted to put a science behind Catholicism... man tried to break down what really happened during Christ's time... and they tried to do so using interpretations of what happened at the time, not even the actual accounts themselves... paintings, old scrolls, unpublished biblical verse... all of which can be 'hidden truth' but is it empirical enough evidence to actually state a fact?

Remember, though, that the movie is based on a work of fiction... but it does strike a chord with all of us scientists... if we did try and assess and examine and break down what was written in the bible, and then cross check it with all of the other documents and eyewitness accounts of the time, could there actually be merit in the arguments that Dan Brown presented in his novel? could there be merit in the 'discoveries' that Tom Hanks' Robert Langdon uncovered?

If you were given a chance... would you want to seek the truth about Christ's humanity, or leave it to faith and just... believe? What would you do?

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