Over spring break I went to New Orleans and in doing so I spent about 12 hours either in airports or flying. Over the course of the week I read several books that I hadn’t had time to read over the semester. One of the books that I had started over the summer but never finished was Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. It’s an interesting book and Brown does make you question the superiority that institutionalized practices of religion have over people. One dialogue from the book really sparked my interest though and I believe that it sums up what religion can be to different people.
Vittoria Vetra: Religion is like language or dress. We gravitate toward the practices with which we were raised. In the end, though we are all proclaiming the same thing. That life has meaning. That we are grateful for that created us.
Robert Langdon: So you’re saying that whether you are a Christian or a Muslim simply depends on where you were born?
Vittoria Vetra: Isn’t it obvious? Look at the diffusion of religion around the globe.
Robert Langdon: So faith is random?
Vittoria Vetra: Hardly. Faith is universal. Our specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary. Some of us pray to Jesus, some us go to Mecca, some of us study subatomic particles. In the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves
For those who haven’t seen this movie, Langdon is not what you would call a good Christian boy, he does believe that there is something out there, he just doesn’t know what. The way that Vittoria views religion is a way that people like me can understand what the big deal is. I have never been the most religious of people but viewing religion, no matter what practice, as a quest for truth makes it seem not easier, but more reasonable than searching for that one person who rules or guides our lives.
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