the pope has left the building

So the Pope is basically dying, some reports say he is dead? Does this have any effect on the state of the world right now? Could it somehow be a unifying factor for the world?

 

yep he's officailly gone to heaven. Bless his soul.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/fc?cid=34&tmpl=fc&in=World&cat=Pope_John_Paul_II

 

i just have a lil comment on the Pope..

first of all the Pope was supposed to be a messenger from God, right? no disrespect or anything, but why woulnd't God want him to stick around for longer?

and really, if he was helping out alot of people in this world, why couldn't God let him stay for longer to help even more people?

to me, i non-religious, non atheist person, doesn't make alot of sense that someoen that holy, or as claimed to be, can just die like that...

tommy

 

because eventually everyone dies, there's no eternal life on earth, but God does promise eternal life in heaven

 

if thats so, how come he didn't take the pope earlier, so he could have eternal life earlier, and therefore he would have to suffer less down here...

and to set a couple of things straight, i m not religious, also i m not atheist either... i do believe there is a God out but not one religion can prove that theirs is more right than the other ones.... therefore this is my question...

it could even start another topic:
one God, many religions.... which of them is right?

 

dude.. the pop was almost 90 years old...
the average age in the western world is about 80... so he was above average. Cant expect ppl to live to 100 its rare... altho it does happen from time to time.

Another thing... God in the christian sense, and similar view is shown by jews and muslims... Doesnt intervene for many reasons. He given us a choice for a reason, so we can choose whether to believe him or not.

 

perhaps he hadn't completed the duty given to him yet? *shrug*


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anyway i think it's good for him, he had been sick for a long time >_<

 

back to akademik, yes he gave us the free choice to choose, but is there one answer we can choose from?
no offense to any other religion out there, but the one of the reasons why i don't follow a religion because from what i heard if you are of one faith, then every other religion out there is fake, this came from talking to a christian freind of mine, he told me that he can rebuke any other religion out there is fake...

and i m pretty sure that if u ask someone from any other religion, they can say the same thing about other religions being fake... according to that same christian friend of mine, he thinks that pope is fake... and there is a whole history behind why he thinks so, and if u guys interested i'll tell u what he told me about the christian view on catholic religion..

so i only doubt religion because religion want me to doubt other religion... i grew up respecting all religions the same, but apprently, if u take on one religion, all the other one become automatically fake for you.

 

having faith is when you fully believe in that religion and you do not question it, therefore if you had faith in one religion, the other religions are automatically out of the picture

about the death of the pope, God has his reasons for everything
there's a reason why the pope died on that certain day

 

hmm... sometimes i wonder do ppl have faith in God, or do they just simply have faith in their religion? to me it's pretty much different. at least to me, religion is more like a society/community. if God exists, there should only be one, aren't all the God's from christianity, jewish and islam the same God according to their records? so why do ppl disgrace other religions when most of the religions are holding belief in the same God?

 

neither do i think religion is necessary. religion often ended up twisting what it was from the beginning. one good example would be buddhism, it wasn't meant to be religious but philosophical, somehow those after buddha eventually turned it into a religion :S

 

I think many of the religious have more to do with social issues than just the religion. The religion unifies a group of people under that title of christian, jew, muslim, etc. But as always one group has more power than the others and usually the group with less gets treated badly. there is so much more to the muslim vs jew vs the worls conflict that dates back to the crusades and eventually is caused by imperialism.

 

i sort of went off there sorry, but in regards to the pope dying, the pope was never meant to be an immortal figure. he is just meant to be the leadewr of the catholic church, and his role is based on the apostle peter who was the first leader of the followers of jesus. I think after 243 popes dying, the catholics would have become a little curious if their leader was supposed to be immortal.

 

ppl also turn to religion for comfort

 

immortal? even i know people arent immortal! if grown ups can't believe in santa claus then why do they people in immortality.

religion, the reason there is a big following is simply the fact that we have no where to turn to when we die. simply beliving in some kinda ending gives us great comfort subconsiously. almost everyone is born and fed religion into their minds which is 10 times harder to change when you've grown up with it.

 

Thats true... but there are some elements of buddhism that seem almost superstitious!

However in all realms of religion there are ways to interpret the best truth possible. :wiggle:

 

cant all religions be considered philosophies, what makes a religion a religion?