"Of course, sex, like everything else material, is evil. Therefore, once you are incapable of complete continence, it doesn't matter what you do: it's all sin."
Exactly. This Gnostic take on ethics -- that we are trapped in material (evil) bodies and therefore cannot really be accountable for the evil we do with them -- is a fantastic recipe for societal collapse.
We should not be surprised to see a ritualistic emphasis on sex within Gnosticism and in Dan Brown's book. And we certainly should not be surprised that Catholics (who fought Gnosticism and won) do not share Protestant sentiments concerning licit use of birth control.
Birth control is a long lost front in the war between Christianity and Secularism. It promotes the myth that sex can be taken out of context to just mean pleasure for either or both members of the couple (or group) taking part in the act. But it is not 100% hence the need for an "undo" button (abortion) in the event a human is conceived.
Which is why Planned Herodhood has been pushing so hard to evangelize its message of safe sex to ever younger generations of children. It wants to ingrain in the children and in the international community the myth of meaningless intercourse so that abortions and the right to have them will just be a universally accepted "given" among "civilized" nations.
This is what the EU and the UN are trying to do and America, with her outrageously liberal abortion laws, is not doing enough to stop them.

Amen, Bill Q! Want to get pro-choicers to reveal what they really are? Tell them: "I'm pro-choice, too; I choose life." After they say something like, "That's not pro-choice", thank them for admitting what "pro-choice" really means.

StubbleSpark wrote:
What a horrible thing it would be to be a doctor in Europe!
If enough doctors leave the pofession because they are unwilling to participate in the evil of abortion, it may be an even more horrible thing to be a sick person in Europe.
It seems to me I read something a few years ago about someone pressuring medical schools in the U.S. to require abortion training for all doctors, because too few doctors (in the pro-abortion crowd's view, anyway) want to do it.
The irony is that mother's get to choose what to do with their body, no matter how evil the act may be or how destructive to another body, but the doctors do not get to choose what to do with their bodies -- their minds, their hands and so forth. At least we can stop pretending that the people that pretend to be "pro-choice" care about choice even a little.

The thing that many people find odd about Gnostics, and many Gnostic-like sects down the ages, is that they are so far from being particularly chaste, they are particularly noted for unchastity.
Of course, sex, like everything else material, is evil. Therefore, once you are incapable of complete continence, it doesn't matter what you do: it's all sin.
Why I was thinking of this in connection with the UN. . . interesting question. 0:)

The simple basis for Gnostic beliefs is this: Material world bad, corrupt. Spiritual world good, perfect. It is a type of dualism that contrasts with the Catholic view of the sacramental universe and Thomistic (as in Thomas Aquinas) metaphysics.
Because of this pessimism concerning the created universe versus the spiritual universe, people who hold to Gnostic beliefs tend to come to a number of conclusions.
They may reject the divinity of Christ in the Incarnation. Dan Brown does this in his book and it is in the various books and online articles that refute this book that I have gleaned this understanding of Gnosticism. Tons of stuff out there, and considering the attack about to be unleashed against Christ by Hollywood, I think it behooves us all to find 'em and read 'em.
Protestants typically display their Gnostic distrust of matter in their disdain for Catholic veneration of relics, holy water, rosaries, an infallible majesterium and pope, and of course the teaching of the Eucharist.
This is an odd knee-jerk reaction considering that from the beginning, Scripture time and time again shows God choosing to work his grace through material objects: Fruit of the Tree, the Ark, the Staff of Moses, Manna, the bones of Elisha, animal sacrifices, bronze serpent, a potion made from a fish, using mud to heal the blind, Jesus' garment, loaves and fishes, scales on the eyes, plagues, monsters, and the sacrifice of the King of the Jews (who existed materially).
The Catholic beliefs that Protestants, in their flawed Gnostic understanding of the universe, find most spooky are actually the ones most consistent with God's modus operandi.
The reason why Brown's writing rings so true in the minds of people today is because the Gnosticism inherent in the predominant Protestant world view of American culture. It would be very good for Protestants to direct their special gift of private judgment and revelation against this pernicious foe of authentic and historic Christianity.

Jeb wrote:
...[b]which Gnostic writers [/b]you believe support such an interpretation.
I wasn't aware that it is possible to name any "Gnostic writers" (although if you can do it, please show me how). We know of the major Gnostic heretics (such as Valentinus or Marcion) from the writings of the apologists, but we don't really have their writings apart from a few anonymous scraps.

Just some thoughts on Gnosticism.
GNOSTICISM from the Catholic Encyclopedia:
Although Gnosticism may at first sight appear a mere thoughtless syncretism of well nigh all religious systems in antiquity, it has in reality one deep root-principle, which assimilated in every soil what is needed for its life and growth; this principle is philosophical and religious pessimism.
MARCIONITES (Heretical sect founded in A.D. 144 at Rome by Marcion an apostate Gnostic)from the Catholic Encyclopedia:
The pure Pauline Gospel had become corrupted and Marcion, not obscurely, hinted that even the pillar Apostles, Peter, James, and John had betrayed their trust. He loves to speak of "false apostles", and lets his hearers infer who they were.
GNOSTICISM from the Catholic Dictionary:
Although extinct as an organized religion, Gnosticism is the invariable element in every major Christian heresy, by its denial of an objective revelation that was completed in the apostolic age and its disclaimer that Christ established in the Church a teaching authority to interpret decisively the meaning of the revealed word of God.
Take care and God bless.
J+M+J

StubbleSpark said:
"We need to start moving those beautiful traditional churches to the New World."
I've said this before...maybe soon we won't have to explain to anti-Caths why the Vatican is in Rome: it might not be there in the future.

Mr. Spark,
"Humans have a tendency to mess things up. The more time goes on, the more people have a hand in something, the more likely it ends up being corrupted."
Could you explain in detail why you consider this to be Gnostic and tell us which Gnostic writers you believe support such an interpretation.

Stubblespark,
One small thing, it isn't because people are material, but because people are sinful.
It was Lord Acton, a Roman Catholic who wrote that 'power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely'
So, while I don't find the papacy of the past quarter century that I've been aware of it, to be corrupt, it wasn't the protestant who was unconsciously being gnostic.
Maybe apophis really will hit us next time around.
one billion. kyrie eleison.

What a horrible thing it would be to be a doctor in Europe!
I think we should start making plans for when the Muslims replace the Secularists via the Rowe effect:
We need to start moving those beautiful traditional churches to the New World.

I think it was GK Chesterton who said the world wars were not possible before big, unified countries. In the past, when the lands were ruled by family clans, someone would proclaim wars, interest would die, and "peace would break out".
If that is the case, I think we can see in the future a type of war that would make the last two bigguns look like localized skirmishes.
Naturally, the idea of greater organization and cooperation is not intrinsically sinful. Done with the proper motivations, it can truly be an extension of the optimistic human desire to extend the sphere of human rights and protections to a wider range of peoples.
Hey, we are Catholic, at the end of the day, we cannot take the stance that large organizations are intrinsically evil. The only reason I bring this up is that the other day, a Protestant coworker of mine took a sort of sideways stab at the Church by saying "Humans have a tendency to mess things up. The more time goes on, the more people have a hand in something, the more likely it ends up being corrupted."
This is the kind of Gnostic heresy that many Protestants unconsciously hold -- material humans cannot cooperate in God's grace to the point that it would do any good. We however do not think a democratic or republican Church to be any sort of ideal.
So while naturally we cannot take a hardline stance against such organization per se, we can take issue with the same type of pessimism which seems to plague the thinking of "Progressives" who believe humans need to forced to cooperate in God's grace by large and powerful organizations which would take the place of the Church as the spiritual guide of all.
By the way, EWTN aired a special with Bishop Fulton Sheen recently in which he used his chalkboard to do a little visual play on words:
No room at them at the INN
Became:
Not room at them at the UN
My take on the UN situation is that the Church has always been critical and leery but at the same time hopeful. This would not be the first time her blind optimism led her into a trap, but I for one am grateful someone has hope in mankind.
Personally, though, I think the UN is evil.

Jeb-
I know the Vatican has been way too cozy with the UN in a number of ways, but not on abortion.

Jeb Protestant seems to have a point. There is historical precedent for positing a inverse correlation between the holiness and strength of teaching of a pope and said pope's political acumen. Alexander VI, widely held (for very good reason) to be the worst and most sinful pope in history was, IIRC, very sharp politically. If JPII was naïve about the EU, that would only confirm the inverse correlation.

Tim J.,
The Vatican has supported the UN and the EU. While the Vatican hasn't supported all that these two evil organizations have done, it has been a bit slow in realizing what the agenda of the one worlders is.

"Every year one in three pregnancies worldwide ends in an abortion. A total of 40 million abortions are performed each year, which means that since 1980 one billion children have not been allowed to be born."
How long, O Lord? How long?

Not that we don't have our own problems, but how far can Europe sink? It seems likely that, partly due to their horror of children, they will go out with a whimper beneath a Muslim population tide.
Considering the trajectory they're on, I'm not sure that would be such a bad thing.

Have any of the morons that run the EU stopped to consider that persons forced to cooperate in complex medical procedures are more likely to make mistakes therein? While they're at it, why not guarantee access to liver transplants by requiring any medical professional who is asked to particapte in one to do so. That will really improve the level of Europe's disinitegrating health care.

The EU is reverting to Europe's glorious past. Next, they'll be shouting: "Zieg heil!"

The UN has been trying to wedge that into international law for a while, with the Vatican leading the charge against it, and the US lending needed muscle.
Still, they chip away at it.
Not that we don't have our own problems, but how far can Europe sink? It seems likely that, partly due to their horror of children, they will go out with a whimper beneath a Muslim population tide.