Hmm, read the book long ago, cannot remember much by now, but since the topic of religion was brought up 3 times today by some funny coincidence, it would perhaps be a good idea to record my thoughts.

The first time and in my opinion, the most inspiring question was raised by a student:"Why do the Egyptians believe in the Egyptian Gods?", well, as a lazy gal, I answered " the same reason Christian believe in the God". To my utter dismay, this student was not a Christian and obviously was unsatisfied with my answer:" then why did Christian believe in the God?" Why? I seriously don't know. I'm not a Christian, neither do I believe in any form of religion, It seems simply inexplanable why ppl believe so firmly in something they only heard from other ppl :) Personally, I am not against the possibility of an almighty existence, but anything that has passed (from God or from madn) throught human ears, mouths and hands would have gone through some kind of modification according to one's individual interpretation, so who can guarantee the origniality of something that has passed through hundreds or thousands of ppl?

Back to the book. No idea if it's coming back as a hot topic, but to get the book mentioned to twice in a day is enough to raise some thought. It's a nice book, with tight plot, sufficient twists, deep cultural background and most importantly, really good codes, which was not dampened by the typical American-hero-save-the-day cliche. Though there are a lot of referrences to and interpretations of Renaissence and history of Christianity that I cannot understand, but what buffled me most was the fact that the book was termed anti-Christianity and protested upon. :P From secular point of view, the book's story, or rather, the main character's theory, about Jesus Christ being a man who found the religion of Christianity sounds much more plausible than that he was born a god; though the later part about Magdlene and descendants of Christ was obviously tailoured to the popular demand for conspiracy, but it does seem reasonable that Jesus would have had a wife if he was a normal man. Well, all in all, it's just a fiction that gave a more realistic, more secular interpretation to the origin of Christianity, and I can't see what's so offensive about it. Anyway, Mohhamad of Islam was a man enlightened by a God, Budha was a man who became God, and that did not undermine their greatness.

Perhaps to hard-core Christians, it is simply unacceptable to the saying that Jesus was a man; similar to that muslims felt offended for anything against the teaching of Koran. But for a non-religious people like me, the book was just a nice history and arts exhibition-book, a nice detective story, an inspiration for me to take French, and perhaps also a nice demonstration of the power of beliefs. :)