“A dictate of reason is the name we give to certain propositions which we hold true without investigation and of which we think ourselves so firmly convinced we should be incapable of seriously testing them even if we wanted to, since we should then have to call them provisionally in doubt. We credit these propositions so completely because when we first began to speak and think we continually had them recited to us and they were thus implanted in us; so that the habit of thinking them is as old as the habit of thinking as such and we can no longer separate the two.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer

From Citizen Soldiers: Stephen E. Ambrose, Chapter 7 The Ardennes

Inside the perimeter, casualties piled up in the aid stations. Most went untreated, because on December 19 a German party had captured the division’s medical supplies and doctors. Nevertheless, spirits stayed strong. Corp. Gorden Carson took some shrapnel in the leg and was brought into town.

At the aid station, “I looked around and never saw so many wounded men. I called a medic over and said, ‘Hey, how come you got so many wounded people around here? Aren’t we evacuating anybody?’ “

“Haven’t you heard?” the medic replied.

“I haven’t heard a damn thing.”

“They’ve got us surrounded – the poor bastards.”

Holy Blood, Holy Grail

“We are well aware, of course, that our scenario did not concur with established Christian teachings. But the more we researched, the more apparent it became that those teachings, as they have been passed down through the centuries, represent only a highly selective compilation of fragments subjected to stringent expurgation and revision. The New Testament, in other words, offers a portrait of Jesus and his age that conforms to the needs of certain vested interests – of certain groups and individuals who had, and to a significant degree still have, an important stake in the matter.

And anything that might compromise or embarrass these interest – like the “secret” Gospel of Mark, for example – has been duly excised. So much has been excised, as a matter of fact, that a sort of vacuum has been created. In this vacuum speculation becomes both justified and necessary.” -Holy Blood, Holy Grail

Is the traditional, accepted view of the life of Christ in some way incomplete? – Is it possible Christ did not die on the cross?- Is it possible Jesus was married, a father, and that his bloodline still exists?- Is it possible that parchments found in the South of France a century ago reveal one of the best-kept secrets of Christendom?- Is it possible that these parchments contain the very heart of the mystery of the Holy Grail? According to the authors of this extraordinarily provocative, meticulously researched book, not only are these things possible — they are probably true!