Sexuality and Spirituality
and The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
In regards to the claims of The Da Vinci Code . . . there's a chance that Mr. Brown might have been on to something.
The idea that "intercourse was the act through which male and female experienced God" . . . that physical union with the female remained the sole means through which man could become spiritually complete and ultimately achieve gnosis - knowledge of the divine . . ." that "by communing with woman . . . man could achieve a climactic instant when his mind went totally blank and he could see God."
- we think that, as a most estimable doctor might say, "this dog can hunt."
But it's obviously not the whole picture.
People have been having plenty, plenty, plenty of sex for centuries, millenniums, eons. It's grossly, ridiculously apparent that there's no shortage of sex going on.
Yet - somehow, at the same time, we can say with some degree of confidence that everybody is not enlightened.
If Mr. Browns'/Teabing's statements were totally true and complete, then everybody would be seeing God every night - or even two or three times a night
(or in our cases, four or five times a night - but we digress).
It would seem like the more sex was going on, the more people would be seeing God, and the more enlightened folks would be.
And while we're not going to argue this point here . . . we can all look around and see that this world is definitely not in danger of overflowing with enlightened people.
(Sure, we may be overflowing with people who think they're enlightened, but that's not really what we're talking about.)
If this were the case, whorehouses would be places of spiritual enlightenment, and your average bar hussy would be more enlightened than Mother Theresa.
In regards to sex itself, as tempting as it is to define sex (what is it, after all?) as something that's entirely good, clean, fun, - wow, and holy too - we can't simply forget about or ignore the other side of things: rape, incest, molestation, abortions, STD's, pornography, stalkers, creepy guys in jails and bars . . .
- and everything else that reminds us
that the issue of sexuality
might not so simple after all . . .
Mr Brown, in a roundabout, fictional-kind of way, accuses Catholicism of claiming that "sex is all bad" for their own political reasons.
The truth or falsity of this claim is a different matter; for our purposes, in the most scientific examination of the facts, the possibility that the Catholic church might have had an ulterior motive in its message on sexuality - doesn't mean the opposite - that "sex is all good" - is necessarily true either. Or, for that matter, that their message is wrong, either. I might talk about Einstein's theory of relativity to a girl in a bar because I want to smooch her - but even if I have questionable motives, it doesn't automatically make Einstein's theory wrong.
Further, in regards to sex being "the sole means through which man could . . . achieve gnosis - knowledge of the divine" - hello, Mr. Teabing, but what about meditation?
So then, what is this bigger picture? What is Mr. Brown leaving out?
Well, we, your cuddly LiveReal Agents,
are on the case . . .