As a practising Catholic I have to warn you all that, even though most people THINK that they know what the church is on about everything, a lot of what is published is absolute rubbish, so I would be very careful when you guys write that your facts are checked, double checked, and even ask the opinion of friends etc. to ensure your material is correct.... I mean Dan Brown is an excellent example of authors being totally insensitive and utterly insulting to all Catholics, but his impression of Opus Dei is absolutely 100 percent lies
YET FOR ANOTHER EXAMPLE in an academic setting,
I am currently studying a Master's degree in Bioethics, and my lecturer (who is a professor in medicine, philosophy, ethics and the history of all three...) gave a lecture with regards to the history of the Church's position on the moral status of the embryo and abortion etc. -----I WILL NOT GO INTO THIS IN DETAIL, as this is not a philosophical or ethical forum...
This lecture contained a very popular belief that the Church's position had "Flip-flopped" over the centuries,
NOW.... in the lecture I thought that this actually went against everything I knew on the subject, after being taught that the Church never changes her mind with regards to Doctrines...
so I looked it up, and sure enough, I found enough evidence from TRUSTED sources to back MY claim...
for my sources go to Catholic Culture.org
This is the title of the article
The Roman Catholic Church and Abortion: An Historical Perspective - Part I
sorry, couldnt get httml-link/ thingy to work
the long and the short of it is.....
Make sure that if you do site a religious opinion that you check with sites affiliated to the hierarchy of that religion (the Vatican, or the Local Bishops Association etc.,.,,,
so that you are not promulgating lies and speculation such as Dan Brown and my lecturer -----the latter, who did so innocently enough, please don't persecute him or anything----
The promulgation of these sort of misrepresentations of the religions is very damaging to the world because it is essentially aiding the promulgation of ignorance and also very disrespectful to the religious people as when they try to explain themselves they come up against walls of preconceived notions that they have to fight tooth and nail to get the truth known and hence their opinions respected
