If a site is anti catholic, does that nagate everything else on it?

[SueKrum]

We did a Bible study several weeks back and our teacher brought in some symboles of things that are seen commonly around (on money, on brand logos, mason stuff, etc). we were talking about how satan is hiding in a lot of things in our couture. it was interesting, but that being aside, I wanted to check out one of the sites she got the symbols off of, so she gave me the paper. one site was exposingsatanism.org they have some intersting things on there about masons and some wacky stuff about some of our government officials. now, it’s hard sometimes to descearn what’s true and what’s not, but of course, lo and behold, I go to the “fals beliefs” link and there’s the “evil catholic church”. it made me really mad for a while, but after calming down, I began to wonder; how do you sort out the truth from the lies on a site like this. our bible study teacher was using the site to show us some of the symbols, but how accurate can such a site be? are we forbidden to look at such a site? What about all the stuff they say about the government? Satan is great at confusion and doesn’t want anyone to find the truth.

To be honest, I’ve wondered certain things about people in our government for a while, but I Just really don’t know. can anyone help shed some light on this for me?

I"m not trying to make any one mad by this site, I’m just wondering what to think of the stuff they say that’s not related to the Church.

thanks

 

[puzzleannie]

if a site is anti-Catholic its constructors are operating under a bias, and that is never a basis for good research or reporting (or bible translation and interpretation). Find a good Catholic bible study and stop wasting your time.

 

[Pug]

Sometimes you will find someone making all sorts of ridiculous claims about the Catholic Church. If they are that off about the Catholic Church, I have every reason to expect they will be that off about, say, the Mormon Church as well. So I wouldn’t trust that source for facts, no matter the topic, unless I had a real reason to think they would be right in the one instance among so many wrong instances. Just a matter of practicality. I’ve got to go to work, so this is my quickie answer!

 

[SueKrum]

Our Bible study is a Cathlic one. we were discussing New Age stuff. we’re going to be doing Jeanette Bankavick (probably butchered the spelling of her name, sorry for that) But she had done the research on the symbols and most of that seemed accurate to me. So I was just wondering. I feel like it’s hard to find the truth sometimes. not abut scripture, we’ve got the church for that. but what about other matters? there are people who believe that some people in our government are up to all sorts of nasty satanic things. and a government the kills thousands of children a year, can’t be all the God fearing. Do you know anywhere I might be able to read about this topic on a non catholic hating site? jsut curious. maybe there’s nothing to it, but I do get a little disturbed sometimes by our leaders (government leaders, not church leaders)

 

[martino]

It certainly would mean that everything else on the site would be suspect. If we know for sure that they deny the truth in one place we know they would also do it in other places. Personally I would not trust any information from a site that I knew for sure misrepresented or flat out denied certain truth.

 

[ComradeAndrei]

Truth is truth no matter who says it, but I would steer clear from sites like that because there is so much other stuff to sift through to get any truth.

Anyone who puts forth wild conspiracy theories and the same lame arguments against the Church (like the “call no man father” or "catholics worship idols) stuff is way off in left field as a member of the Tinfoil Hat Brigade.

 

[Della]

To answer your last question about us being permitted to read such sites and material, I’d say that depends. Like many other things in life not everyone ought to expose themselves to certain things. For instance, police officers have to look at many a disgusting picture in order to arrest a child pornographer–it’s a part of their job, and one I’m sure they wish they didn’t have to do. They have a very good reason for exposing their eyes, hearts, minds and souls to such trash, but the average person on the street certainly wouldn’t.

Go by this criteria: If the material you are going to read will help your faith and teach you something good about God and your Church, then by all means go ahead and read it. But, if it is obvious that the material is meant to make everyone except the author(s) look bad, then avoid it because they have no intention of passing along the truth or uplifting anyone’s minds, souls, hearts, or spirits, but just the opposite. We call that using a red flag to determine if the material is worth our time–if it will aid us or make us into people who doubt everyone’s intentions and so lose faith in basic goodness of people, and more importantly, lose faith in our Church.

 

[Philthy]

SueKrum:

but how accurate can such a site be? are we forbidden to look at such a site? What about all the stuff they say about the government? Satan is great at confusion and doesn’t want anyone to find the truth.

can anyone help shed some light on this for me?

I’m just wondering what to think of the stuff they say that’s not related to the Church.

thanks

Its pretty simple - you can’t trust them. Avoid them. There is nothing they are providing you which you cannot get from another proCatholic site.

Phil

 

[David_Zampino]

martino:

It certainly would mean that everything else on the site would be suspect. If we know for sure that they deny the truth in one place we know they would also do it in other places. Personally I would not trust any information from a site that I knew for sure misrepresented or flat out denied certain truth.

A very good point. Just because a site is anti-Catholic does not ***automatically ***mean that ***nothing ***on it is of value – but one would have to exercise a healthy suspicion and caution. And considering the good sites that are out there, why bother?

 

[Madia]

I’d suggest avoiding anti-Catholic sites when looking for things you want to learn. There may be some things there that are truthful but if you’re going there looking for knowledge how will you be able to properly discern what is the truth and what is a lie?

For example, if you want to learn about the civil war would you want to use a textbook that contained both truth and lies with no differentiation between the two? How could you learn when you are presented with both the truth and lies? While some lies might pop right out at you (for example the South won the war), some you might not pick up (for example changing the date of a battle) because you don’t have adequete knowledge about the civil war. If you try to learn from that textbook you could end up with a very different idea of the civil war than what really happened.

 

[puzzleannie]

SueKrum:

Our Do you know anywhere I might be able to read about this topic on a non catholic hating site? jsut curious. maybe there’s nothing to it, but I do get a little disturbed sometimes by our leaders (government leaders, not church leaders)

as far as new age, Fr. Mitch Pacwa is an expert, try EWTN site for his books.

About the government, it is not Catholic practice to attack the government, so I don’t know what you would find on a Catholic site. If you want a Catholic site with a balanced pro-life stance across the board, by sincere, orthodox Catholics, who happen to be against the war in Iraq and who do give balanced Catholic teaching on just war doctrine, capital punishment, the culture of death and related issues, try www.tcrnews2.com
also a link for Catholic and secular news sources. You will find reasoned balance reporting on this site, but not the hysterical government bashing and unsubstantiated claims you find on some fundamentalist armageddon type sites.

if you are into the armageddon, imminent disaster, world is about to end stuff, try www.spiritdaily.com
which is news of the weird, Catholic style, it is valuable for a laugh, for some great links (some of which are extremely problematic, some of which are orthodox), and up to date news on apparitions, locutions, weeping statues, iconic tortillas et. al.

 

[AndyF]

puzzleannie:

Find a good Catholic bible study and stop wasting your time.

Whoooaaaa there, relax, he’s simply asking a valid question.

Andy