Dan Brown being used as 'tool of Satan'

Dan Brown is back in the spotlight with a brand-new novel – but is this popular fiction writer doing the bidding of the Evil One? One nationally known pastor thinks so.

"Dan Brown has been used as a tool of Satan for many years," said Carl Gallups, a talk radio host and pastor of Hickory Hammock Baptist Church in Milton, Florida. "How could the matter be viewed otherwise by those who know the Word of God? A big chunk of his life has been dedicated to the task of minimizing and marginalizing the pure biblical message of salvation in Jesus Christ."

Brown is the author of the controversial 2003 book "The Da Vinci Code," which questioned the history of Christianity and suggested Jesus Christ may have fathered a child with Mary Magdalene.

Brown's newest, "Origin," was released Oct. 3. This time, Brown dives directly into the longstanding debate between religion and science. During a promotional appearance at the Frankfurt, Germany, Book Fair Thursday, Brown said his latest tome was inspired by the question, "Will God survive science?"

"Are we naïve today to believe that the gods of the present will survive and be here in a hundred years?" Brown asked a crowded news conference, according to Reuters.

The author expressed his belief that humanity may one day no longer need God. Rather, technology, specifically artificial intelligence, will help mankind create a new type of collective consciousness that will satisfy man's need for a divine being.

"We will start to find our spiritual experiences through our interconnections with each other," Brown predicted, suggesting the rise of "some form of global consciousness that we perceive and that becomes our divine."

WND vice president and managing editor David Kupelian, author of books such as "The Marketing of Evil" and "The Snapping of the American Mind," said Brown's prediction is "idiotic." He noted man aspiring to be God was the original sin of Adam and Eve.

"What's noteworthy, though, is that Brown has sold 200 million books, which I guess says something about the low state of 'consciousness' in today's world," Kupelian said. "I don't think syncing together the deluded consciousness of 200 million Dan Brown fans would make a very good God-substitute."

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Jan Markell, founder and director of Olive Tree Ministries, agreed that Brown's prediction is merely part of a long-running and fruitless plot.

"Since the beginning of time, mankind has tried to replace God," Markell told WND. "They tried in Noah’s generation and they tried at Babel. Throughout the Bible, pagans tried to act as though the God of the universe was irrelevant. Today humanists, atheists, communists, socialists, fascists and Satanists are all trying to replace God with their dogma.

"Just as God survived all of these, He will survive artificial intelligence. He created the intelligence that is trying to undo Him! Psalm 2 says He sits in the Heavens and laughs at these folks!"

Gallups, who authored "When the Lion Roars: Understanding the Implications of Ancient Prophecies for Our Time," offered: "The truth of the matter is that there already is a new form of collective conscience that fulfills the role of religion. It is called Universalism. It is as old as Satan's original lie. Sadly, Mr. Brown has taken Satan's bait and has swallowed the hook."

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Brown, who spent a lot of time speaking to futurists as part of his research for "Origin," told the crowd at the Frankfurt Book Fair, "Our need for that exterior god that sits up there and judges us … will diminish and eventually disappear."

Markell begs to differ.

"Brown mocks the God who 'sits up there and judges us,'" she said. "Someday Brown will be judged by that very same God and he won't be laughing – and he won't be mocking. He will have to say he was wrong, but it will be too late. The fires of hell will not be pleasant."

Kupelian pointed out many great scientists of the past were believers in God.

"Dan Brown asking 'Will God survive science?' is standard atheist code-language for: 'God is just a myth that ignorant, superstitious, dumb people need to provide meaning to their lives and order to their society, but as science and knowledge grow, the need for the supernatural will disappear,'" Kupelian said.

"But this belief, in the history of science, is just a momentary aberration in a confused age. Because most of the truly great visionary scientists of the past were strong believers in God, and the more they delved into the fabric of creation through their work, the more they were in awe of the Creator!

"The scientific giants of the past were of one accord, like Copernicus, who wrote, '[The world] has been built for us by the Best and Most Orderly Workman of all,' and Galileo, who said, 'God is known … by Nature in His works and by doctrine in His revealed word,' and Pasteur, who said, 'The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator.' And of course there was Isaac Newton, who wrote, 'When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.'

"How odd that arrogant atheists today fancy themselves as carrying forward the torch of true science," Kupelian said, "when in reality they are just sad, pathetic, proud little intellects, in embarrassing denial of the evidence of a Creator shouting at them from every direction."

Gallups concurred.

"Brown asks, 'Will God survive science?' The truth is that Yahweh is the inventor of science, and everything that comprises it," Gallups said. "From quantum particles and the physics that make them work to glue our universe together, to the galaxies of the expanse of the cosmos – it all started with the declaration of the Word spoken from Yahweh's throne. Mr. Brown will one day discover this truth in a very personal way – I fear, however, it will prove to be too late for him at that point."

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