Did my first exam of three, and I think it went pretty OK. Had a bit of a panic at first because we had to answer two questions and only one of the subjects I'd revised came up - which was abortion - but I did a question on divorce in Christianity because a lot of the marriage issues came up when I was researching my homosexuality essay. I ended up radically redefining what marriage means in a Christian sense, so here's hoping I get points for originality xD I went a bit wobbly on my abortion question though, because halfway through I suddenly got really, deeply angry about it and went off on one a bit. Still, day made because it's done now and my next one's not until next Friday, and because it was really alright. Big sigh of relief 
of interesting note... Early Roman christianity was fully ok with abortion, contraception and divorce....in fact on the contraception issue.....Rome drove a plant to extinction because of its morning after pill properties.....
Weeell, Roman culture was certainly more than OK with abortion, but early Christians were technically against it. They never recorded taking any actual action against anyone for having an abortion though, so I think the objection was more theoretical than practical. Then there was no official stance for Christianity on abortion until like the 12th century or so. Councils came and went that established Christian legal positions on various subjects, but all that was said about abortion was that it was condemned following sexual crimes like adultery and prostitution. 'Normal' abortion wasn't even mentioned. Then in 1100AD Ivo of Chartre wrote that abortion was wrong, but that aborting an "unformed" embryo didn't count, which was basically the official position for the next 700 years. A foetus was considered "unformed" officially for the first 40 days if it was male and 80 if it was female, and if there was doubt as to the sex then it was assumed to be female. But, back then, really the only certain test for pregnancy was the quickening, so it wasn't always clear when conception actually occurred. In practise, abortion wasn't considered a sin until the quickening, which developed into traditional canon. It's all very cool stuff, and it's really interesting how both sides have become completely convinced that abortion was always condemned throughout church history when it blatantly was not. It didn't really get seriously shitty until the 19th century, when American doctors..... OK, I just realised I'm rambling and this probably isn't that interesting! Sorry xD American doctors did stuff for reasons and that's why abortion is wrong.
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Topic: Shit that made your day (Read 560130 times)