'Don't read scriptures as fact, but as myth'

Busting Notions

One of the big problems with every religion today is that scriptures are treated as facts, said celebrated author Dan Brown on Monday, adding if everyone reads them as myths and metaphors, then many social issues will cease to exist reports IANS.

The American author, best known for The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons was delivering the 2014 Penguin Annual Lecture on the topic ‘Code, Science and Religion’ at the Siri Fort Auditorium where the audience turnout was massive, underscoring at the 50-year-old thriller writer’s major fan following in India.

“You are supposed to look at scriptures and don’t read them as history or as a fact, but as myths, as an analogy and metaphor,” said Brown.

“One of the big problems, I think, with all religions today is that we give so much importance to looking into our scripts and metaphorsa and say this is fact and if you don’t believe it, we say you have got a problem,” he added.

Admitting he was shocked with the level of controversies and backlash, The Da Vinci Code had generated among the Christian institutions, Brown said the hypothetical question he had risen in the fictional tale “meant more sense to him on a personal level.”  

The author, after the novel was released in 2003, was accused of misrepresenting core aspects of Christianity and the history of the Roman Catholic Church.

However, he said the difference in religion arises when we start using language. 

“All our world religions are formed on one basic truth: Kindness is better than cruelty, creation better than destruction, and love is better than hate. When I look at the world around us, I feel that human species needs to reach out to a point to abandon language and semantics for a better world,” he said.

Having being born in a family where two extreme exists: His mother a devoted believer in faith and his father an observer of science, Brown admitted he chose to look at the scriptures through the prism of science and objectivity.

“Science and religion are partners. They are two different languages attempting to tell two different stories. Both serve the quest to understand the divine,” he added.

Throughout this lecture, Brown entertained the audience with his quick wit and personal anecdotes and showed them the first ever story book he had authored at the age of five, with the help of his mother. 

He revealed licence plates of his mother's and father's cars that read “Kyriea (meaning God in Greek) and “Metric” respectively, pointed at their independent stances towards religion and science.