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Wednesday, May 31
View Article  Pope: How Could God 'Tolerate' Holocaust? Part II
by Daniel J. Shepard on Wed 31 May 2006 12:00 AM EDT

Pope: How Could God 'Tolerate' Holocaust?
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060528/D8HT21CO0.html

Part II

I don’t understand how the leader of the Catholic faith, the leader of one billion Christians, ‘the human voice of God’ can place the blame for the holocaust upon God.

 

Pope Benedict stated:

"In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can be only a dread silence, a silence which itself is a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this?..."

God did not perform the holocaust. God did not encourage the holocaust. God did not give His/Her/Its consent to men to initiate and carry out the holocaust.

What God did do was ‘create’ man in His image and that meant giving man free will, give man the gift or curse of being able to act as he/man decided. It was man who initiated the holocaust It was man who conducted the holocaust. It was man who watched as the holocaust was being carried out.

For shame on the Pope. I am a Catholic who does not believe in the infallibility of the Pope and this act of Pope Benedict clearly demonstrated the fallibility of the Pope for of all people the Pope should understand that had God interfered with the act of the holocaust God would have been retracting the very gift of free will He had bestowed upon man and demoted man to being nothing but a puppet. Such an act on the part of God would have relegated man to being nothing but God’s pawn and demonstrated both the insignificance of man and the validity of nihilism.

The Pope needs to pray for greater metaphysical wisdom and religious humility.

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Tuesday, May 30
View Article  Pope: How Could God 'Tolerate' Holocaust? Part I
by Daniel J. Shepard on Tue 30 May 2006 12:00 AM EDT

Pope: How Could God 'Tolerate' Holocaust?
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060528/D8HT21CO0.html

 

Part I:

 

I don’t understand how the leader of the Catholic faith, the leader of one billion Christians, ‘the human voice of God’ can place the blame for the holocaust upon God.

 

Pope Benedict stated:

…"To speak in this place of horror, in this place where unprecedented mass crimes were committed against God and man, is almost impossible - and it is particularly difficult and troubling for a Christian, for a pope from Germany,"

It was The Pope himself who served in the Hitler Youth which in its own unique way contributed to Hitler’s obsession to cleanse the human race of its Jewish  influence, cleanse the human race of its ‘misfits’, religious leaders, Gypsies, handicapped, ‘genetically malformed, politically incorrect, …

The Pope should have fallen on his knees before the gates of Auschwitz and prayed for forgiveness and mercy from both God and man. As a Hitler Youth, the Pope was a at the least a passive collaborator of the Nazi atrocities and should, as an example for our species, declared himself unworthy to enter into the hallowed grounds of Auschwitz.

Instead the Pope moves his speech into a dialogue questioning why God would allow such atrocities to occur rather than take responsibility for his own actions which emerged from the personal sphere of free will which encompassed him.

The Pope was/is in denial.

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Sunday, May 28
View Article  What significance does atheism have to offer other life forms in the universe? Part II of II
by Daniel J. Shepard on Sun 28 May 2006 12:00 AM EDT

What significance does atheism have to offer other life forms in the universe?

 

Part II of II

What does this have to do with other life forms?

 

Freedom to believe or not believe becomes a statement of acknowledgment that no individual, regardless of what life form it takes, has to lie about what it believes in order to please society.

 

The individual becomes the most significant entity in our universe. Integrity of the individual becomes respected regardless of its leanings.

 

•

 

If the Causative Force is so immense, She is truly omnipresent, then wouldn’t our universe and other universes be within Her?

 

As such, wouldn’t universes be a part of Her?

 

And if universes are a part of the Causative Force, wouldn’t things within the universes, being a part of the universes, also be a part of the Causative Force?

 

As such, not only would we be a part of the Causative Force, but so would all other life forms throughout the universe.

 

Therefore, wouldn’t a failure to meet our responsibility to protect all souls in this universe and others be another way of abusing ourselves if we were in fact a part of the Causative Force Herself?

 

Then the question becomes, who in their right mind would dare abuse the Causative Force?

 

End

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Saturday, May 27
View Article  What significance does atheism have to offer other life forms in the universe? Part I of II
by Daniel J. Shepard on Sat 27 May 2006 10:14 PM EDT

What significance does atheism have to offer other life forms in the universe?

 

 

Part I of II

 

Sidney Hook maintained that an “open-minded atheism” provides for a guaranteed freedom of religious belief.

 

•

 

Religious freedom is an idea, a fundamental of major significance, not just to us as humans, but to life as a whole.

 

Lack of freedom to explore one’s thoughts, one’s creative abilities, one’s perceptions, places boundaries upon journeys that we have no right to put into place.

 

Atheism is one of the warning posts for all of us.

 

But atheism holds the idea that there is no Causative Force.

 

True, but by doing so, atheism challenges our resolve to protect the right to journey uninhibited in life both for ourselves as well as others, earthlings or not.

 

We have the obligation, the duty, to see that this is honored for all.

 

To be continued: Part II of II: What does this have to do with...
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Wednesday, May 24
View Article  How do the concepts of philosophy, religion, and science reinforce the concept of symbiotic panentheism? Part II of II
by Daniel J. Shepard on Wed 24 May 2006 12:00 AM EDT

How do the concepts of philosophy, religion, and science reinforce the concept of symbiotic panentheism?

 

Part II of II

 

Whether or not this Reality itself is a closed or open system (see Entropy) is beyond our comprehension at this point.

 

However, understanding the concept of our reality lying within the greater Reality is not.

 

If the Causative Force is what we lie within, then it is the Causative Force we impact.

 

If we do not lie within the Causative Force, the entity within which both we and our Causative

 

Force lie within is truly ‘the’ Causative Force.

 

Whichever case, we lie within something.

 

Philosophy: symbiotic panentheism states that the union of science and religion is symbolized by the ring of reason.

 

The butterfly effect is alive and well and you and I are the butterflies.

 

•

 

Philosophy is not to repaint the pieces.

 

Rather, philosophy is to direct the assembly of the pieces using the advantage it has of being able to stand back and view the construction of the picture from a distance.

 

There should be a place for everyone.

 

The picture will not be complete if it throws away pieces of the puzzle science and religion have worked so arduously to discover.

 

 

No unified view should ignore blood spilled in the past that saturated the soil of our planet earth, discolored our rivers, lakes, and oceans, and fell from sky.

 

The picture we obtain of the Causative Force, Reality, will indubitably be painted upon a canvas of red that can only accentuate Her character.

 

End

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