“Angels & Demons”

by Dan Brown; ISBN 0-671-02736-0

p. 21 In CERN at Geneva, Switzerland, there is an engraved bronze:

For Cultural Innovation in the Digital Age
Awarded to Tim Berners Lee and CERN
For the invention of the
WORLDWIDE WEB

*The web began at CERN as a network of in-house computer sites.
* CERN: Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire

p. 78 Portuguese man-of-wars trap fish between their tentacles using nematocystic charges.

p.111 U.S. one-dollar bill. In the back, the Great Seal on the left. There’s an eye inside a triangle, which is above a pyramid. The writing under the pyramid says “Novus Ordo Seclrum”, which means New Secular Order.

p.108
(Vittoria asked) “Do you believe in God, Mr. Langdon?”

“Do I believe in God?”

A spiritual conundrum, Langdon thought. … Although he studied religion for years, Langdon was not a religious man. He respected the power of faith, the benevolence of churches, the strength religion gave so many people … and yet, for him, the intellectual suspension of disbelief that was imperative if one were truly going to “believe” had always proved too big an obstacle for his academic mind.

“I wanted to believe,” he heard himself say.

Vittoria’s reply carried no judgment or challenge. “So why don’t you?”

He chuckled. “Well, it’s not that easy. Having faith requires leaps of faith, cerebral acceptance of miracle—immaculate conceptions and divine interventions. And then there are the codes of conduct. The Bible, the Koran, Buddhist scripture … they all carry similar requirements—and similar penalties. They claim that if I don’t live by a specific code I will go to hell. I can’t imagine a God who would rule that way.”

“I hope you don’t let your students dodge questions that shamelessly.”

The comment caught him off guard. “What?”

“Mr. Langdon, I did not ask if you believe what man says about God. I asked if you believed in God. There is a difference. Holy scriptures is stories … legends and history of man’s quest to understand his own need for meaning. I am not asking you to pass judgment on literature. I am asking if you believe in God. When you lie out under the stars, do you sense the divine? Do you feel in your gut that you are staring up at the work of God’s hand?”

“Yes. As a scientist and the daughter of a Catholic priest, what do you think of religion?”
Vittoria, …. “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 things. That life has meaning. That we are grateful for the power that created us.”

(Langdon) “So you’re saying that whether you are a Christian or a Muslim simply depends on where you were born?”

(Vittoria) “Isn’t is obvious? Look at the diffusion of religion around the globe.”

(Langdon) “So faith is random?”

(Vittoria) “Hardly. Faith is universal. Our specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary. Some of us pray to Jesus, some of 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.”

p.328 For Sylvie, the church has always been an innocuous entity … a place of fellowship and introspection … sometimes just a place to sing out loud without people starting at her. The church recorded the benchmarks of her life—funerals, weddings, baptisms, holidays—and it asked for nothing in return. Even the monetary dues were voluntary. Her children emerged from Sunday School every week uplifted, filled with ideas about helping others and being kinder. What could possible be wrong with that?
It never ceased to amaze her that so many of CERN’s so-called “brilliant minds” failed to comprehend the importance of the church. Did they really believe quarks and mesons inspired the average human being? Or that equations could replace someone’s need for faith in the divine?