Did you know that the Pope is leaning towards atheism?

Question

On a recen visit to Auschwitz (the famed Nazi concentration camp, for the stupid who will answer this) His Holiness was quoted as saying "It does make one question how a fair and just God could allow this to go on."

HA! The seeds of doubt are planted!

Answer 1

The Pope is already a selective atheist, he doesn't believe in Zeus, or in Shiva, or KRSHNA, or Istar. I only believe in one less god then the pope and they call me an atheist

Answer 2

Everyone is taking this way out of context. This quote taken as it is without the rest of the words does the rest of the message no justice. All he is doing is setting up the rest of his speach which will supply hope to this physical entitiy of existance that is the genocide that took place. Now, let me back up. I haven't read the quote, and I'm only supposing what the rest of the speach is. Afterall, only the President is stupid enough to slip this bad, not the Pope. I am predicting that the rest of the speach draws people to the good things that exist under God in order to right the wrongs of the Holocoust, if that is even possible. But the point is the Pope isn't that stupid regardless of what people feel about religion. I personally teeter on the realm of being an agnostic, and embrace the ideologies of many religions.

Answer 3

The pope is not a true follower of God.
Until a pope completely revises the Catholic faith to be true Christian, it really doesn't matter what he says or claims.
The pope and all the priests and other catholic leaders are not even remotely part of my faith.
Think about this, the catholic faith requires it's followers to break one of the ten commandments. Idolatry. Anything you put before God in your life is an Idol. Anything. Do you call a catholic priest father? There is only one father, God himself. All those stained glass images of biblical events? Idols. Do you see an image of Jesus on the cross either behind the pulpit or hanging from someones necklace? Idol. No one knows what Jesus really looked like. If you try and create an image of Him and get just one minuscule thing wrong, it's NOT Him and I'm sure He is highly offended by it.
The three basic priorities of our lives should be,
God first above all things.
Family second above all other things.
Career/job third.

Answer 4

Again, as with all your other posts, you set down the newspaper much to early. Go ahead and read the rest. If your brain isn't fried by the end of the article then try to actually find other primary sources.

I know after one big sentence you think the period signifies a vacation for your mind, but remember that if you don't use it then you will lose it. And I think your mind is going the way of the Western Black Rhino. I won't even explain, because it would require too much thinking on your part.

Answer 5

Conceptions of God can vary widely, despite the use of the same term for them all. Theologians and philosophers have studied countless conceptions of God since the dawn of civilization.

The God of monotheism, pantheism or panentheism, or the supreme deity of henotheistic religions, may be conceived of in various degrees of abstraction:

as a powerful, human-like, supernatural being, or as the deification of an esoteric, mystical or philosophical category;
the Ultimate, the summum bonum, the Absolute Infinite, the Transcendent, or Existence or Being itself;
the ground of being, the monistic substrate, that which we cannot understand, etc.

Answer 6

I think any serious Christians who have a personal faith (rather than an inherited one) have already asked themselves the same question.

It's unavoidable: The problem of evil in the world SHOULD be troubling to ANYONE with a conscience. Some people cannot get past it and decide not to believe. And even with those who do believe, the idea of evil/suffering of innocent people is still painful to live with.

The basic gist in Christianity is this:

1. God can't keep evil from occurring without removing "free will." And changing the ramifications of people's actions (for good or ill) simply makes choices meaningless. So the gift of free will results inevitably in some injustice and suffering. Although God wants to remove suffering, he can't without destroying our autonomy and making us puppets.

2. Jesus experienced great suffering and even death. He put himself under the same constraints as the rest of humanity. He didn't ask us to bear anything that he wasn't willing to bear himself. In fact, he probably suffered a lot more than most of us will in our lifetimes.

3. God promises to "be with" those who are suffering, experiencing the pain along with them.

If you are going to enoble human beings with autonomy, and you're God, there isn't much more you could do to improve things -- you simply suffer along with them (like a parent who really loves his kids will not control them but allow them to make choices and not abandon them even when the choices are dumb ones).

Yeah, Auschwitz sucked. Most people don't think about it too much, because it's simply too painful if you truly try to imagine it. And it SHOULD hurt -- it was an atrocity and abuse of men's free will. I will simply note that it wasn't God's desire, and that human beings who felt the same as God did used their free will to stop it.

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In any case, I'd probably be wary of taking soundbites from anyone's comments on anything.

I doubt the pope (consider he was even one of the more conservative candidates) is planning a major faith shift any time soon -- it could also be bad for job security, you know. :)

Answer 7

That doesnt mean he is doubting God in anyway. He really feels for those poor victims of Facism and Nazism you twit!!!! Misunderstanding his statement is very dangerous. At least he has true feelings and as a human being...he can feel the pain of others. He has the right to say that even as Pope.

Answer 8

Wow. He's spent his whole life believing this one thing, then sees the atrocities of man.
Well, he probably thought about it for a little longer and decided they had it coming, because they weren’t of his faith, and so they must have deserved it... God is so loving that he lets things like that happen to people that don’t believe, while some of his followers ( not most, or all, just some) deny it ever happened.

Answer 9

I heard that quote too. Lets get one thing straight though, the Catholic church will never give up its power. That was an embarrassing slip of the tongue by the Pope, but it already confirms what we all knew to start with, an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving god would never let that happen.

Answer 10

Even Jesus cried out on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"

These are the first words of the 22nd psalm, one of the lamentation psalms. But the psalm ends on a positive note with, "And I will live for the LORD."

Both Jews and Christians believe a long tradition in asking God why He lets bad things happen.

We try to understand things mentally, but we are also emotional beings and we feel things deeply.

God understands this. He created us this way.

With love in Christ.

Answer 11

in that quote e isn't really questioning the existence of god he is just questioning whether he will intervene in the matter

however according to prophecy the next pope is supposed to leas us away from god JP2 knew the prophecy which was his main reason for choosing Benedict because Benedict is More Conservative