So Wait....Pope Francis Was "Misquoted" and Atheists Can't Get To Heaven After All?

Incredibly, certain enclaves of Catholicism are asserting that the media got it all wrong about what Pope Francis said some months ago, that even atheists can get to heaven. According to the nabobs at CatholicVote.org ('What Pope Francis Really Said About Atheists'), citing a padre, "Father Longernecker"::

"The Pope is simply affirming certain truths that any somewhat knowledgable Catholic will uphold.

First, that Christ died to redeem the whole world. We can distinguish his redemptive work from the acceptance of salvation. He redeemed the whole world. However, many will reject that saving work. In affirming the universality of Christ’s redemptive work we are not universalists. To say that he redeemed the whole world is not to conclude that all will be saved.

Secondly, the Pope is also affirming that all humans are created in God’s image and are therefore created good. Yes, created good, but that goodness is wounded by original sin.

Thirdly, he is affirming that all men and women are obliged to pursue what is beautiful, good and true. Natural virtue is possible–even obligatory, but natural virtue on its own is not sufficient for salvation. Grace is necessary to advance beyond natural virtue to bring the soul to salvation. The Pope does not say atheists being good on their own will be saved. He says they, like all men, are redeemed by Christ’s death and their good works are the starting place where we can meet with them–the implication being “meet with them in an encounter that leads eventually to faith in Christ."


They then went on to cite a link from Catholicism.org’s Brian Kelly:

"Pope Francis did not say that an atheist who does naturally good things can be saved if he dies an atheist. Yet that is the impression given by Catholic Online’s half truth headline…

The Pope… simply reminded the faithful that there can be, and is, goodness, or natural virtue, outside the Church. And that Christ’s death on the Cross redeemed all men. He paid the price so that every man could come to God and be saved.

If Catholic Online is insinuating that Pope Francis has “reformed” the irreformable dogma, outside the Church there is no salvation, then that is shameful and disingenuous."

Now let's look at the actual words of Francis  delivering a homily at the Chapel of the Domus Santa Marta :  

"The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! 'Father, the atheists?' Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class. We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all. And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: We need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. 'But I don't believe, Father, I am an atheist!' But do good: We will meet one another there."


Hmmmmm.......now I'm looking really hard at these words, parsing them closely and NO where do I see anything remotely along the lines of atheists having to "convert to faith" to reach the pearly gates and especially - particularly  that they have to embrace the Catholic version.

Now, in the interest of honest and full disclosure,  let me say again: I do not believe there is any "heaven" or "hell". We each create our own heavens and hells on this Earth, in the here and now. Basically "salvation" is accomplished on one's own terms to redeem his life here on Earth to become the best human he can be...with the resources allotted him over a finite time.  In other words, there is no hereafter of the kind the orthodox religious types - including Catholics - believe. I have, however, allowed for the possibility of an impersonal "life after death" in the form of Stuart Hameroff's model, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/07/has-stuart-hameroff-explicated-way-out.html

But as I noted therein:

"This isn't really any kind of recognizable "after life". Indeed, it is impossible to even remotely describe what a nonlocal consciousness might perceive, if it perceives at all. It also leaves a decided negative slant on the question of preserving any sense of self. How can one, if the "self" is no longer separable? "

What the Catholic apologists for standard Vatican hogwash have asserted, however, hearkens back to the ancient Baltimore Catechism trope that "salvation can only come through the One, True Apostolic and Holy Church"..  Which is every bit as regressive as the fundamentalist asserting that one can only be saved by "believing on the Lord Jesus Christ" - when we know from actual textual analysis (hermeneutics)  that Jesus was NOT a God-man. He was a charismatic Rabbi and Jewish peasant Cynic who sought to expand human consciousness and the love for one another via appeal to a transcendent reality.

Amy person really serious about investigating this - beyond the realm of cartoon theology- is invited to read:

The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant - by John Dominic Crossan

The Authentic Gospel of Jesus: Geza Vermes

The serious investigator, not prepared to simply imbibe and regurgitate theological canards, i.e. that the New Testament represents actual history, is also invited to access one of the best available  courses, entitled: Introduction to New Testament History and Literature, by Prof. Dale B. Martin of Yale University. It is roughly on a par with my 'Introduction to the New Testament' course taken at Loyola in 1964-65. (The Loyola course was somewhat more difficult)

The compilation of course sessions, all on video, can be accessed via this link:

http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152#sessions

And the one I recommend most for those short on time is No.13, dealing with the "Historical Jesus" (link below):

http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152/lecture-13

The point of all the above is that if Jesus is merely a good man, not a God-man, then the entire Christian notion of expiation of sins and "salvation" collapses, as well as both the Catholic and fundie concepts of special salvation (i.e. it can only come via those specific belief vehicles).   Note, this does not "deny God" only that Jesus was a God man. If people take the time to investigate they will see this falsehood came by way of Paul of Tarsus - otherwise known as "St. Paul" - because he feared the nonlocal Christhood concept of the Gnostics (i.e. we are all "Christs" unto ourselves, see Elaine Pagels'  The Gnostic Gospels.)

The "salvation" trope can also be shown to be nonsense by application of logic, and strictly adhering to religionists' own definitions of God. Thus, IF God as infinite is taken literally, this can only mean there is no place where he isn't. Either he is infinite or not infinite. If he is infinite, then any Hell must be excluded as part of the same divine Being. But if it is still proposed to exist (independently)  then we have a condition where Hell is apart from God's Being. But if this be so, then there exists a domain ("Hell") where God isn't, so he can't be infinite! In other words, God is actually a limited being and not infinite after all.

The bottom line in the logical case is that rigorous orthodox Christians (such as quoted by CatholicVote,org)  are not allowed to "have their cake and eat it".  If they demand "Hell" as a component of their salvation doctrine, they must forego an infinite God. If they accept an Infinite God, they must forego Hell, and in so doing, the whole concept of salvation. (Unless, of course, it is one of Universal Salvation)

In either case, Pope Francis' words are then seen to be accurate as they have been stated - no re-interpretations needed. Then  ALL persons, atheists included,  are equal in terms of aspiring to the good and no spiritual "apartheid" need be invoked in a presumed afterlife,

More important than opening an avenue to "heaven" for atheists,  Francis' words are about humans ceasing their endless hatred and divisions:  theological, cultural, economic, political and other.  By their attempted revision of Francis' meaning, however, the Catholic salvation dogma defenders have sought to renew those divisions by appeal to Catholic spiritual supremacy: i.e. that Church being the "one and only path" to salvation.

Make no mistake that nothing good can come of this, nothing at all, not the least is reviving atheist animus toward the Catholic Church. Beyond the atheist domain, it subverts humanity to artificial dogma and that way true hell on Earth resides.  From this the perceptive reader will see that my interest in Francis' words to do with atheists and "heaven" isn't literal, but rather in the broader schema of humans not seeking another fictitious belief to fight over. We have quite enough to divide us, over just about everything including politics and economics, we don't need artificial theological nonsense added to the mix to enhance internecine hatreds.....and more reasons to kill each other.

Is Pope Francis an Atheist? Nope - But He Is a Universal Salvationist

Bill Maher suggested Pope Francis is really an atheist after his recent remarks about atheists also being saved

 This past week Pope Francis I made headlines around the world (we saw them in 50 pt. font in German papers) when on delivering a homily at the Chapel of the Domus Santa Marta he said:  

"The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! 'Father, the atheists?' Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class. We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all. And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: We need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. 'But I don't believe, Father, I am an atheist!' But do good: We will meet one another there."

Headlines across the world immediately proclaimed, "Even Atheists Can Go To Heaven.".
 
This prompted comedian Bill Maher-  a self-proclaimed atheist - on his 'Real Time' show last night to opine the new Pope "is really an atheist".  Actually, I wouldn't go so far. But the text and words do pretty well confirm to me that Francis accepts the doctrine of Universal Salvation. According to Wikipedia, Universal Reconciliation or Salvation is:

“the doctrine that all sinful and alienated human souls—because of divine love and mercy—will ultimately be reconciled to God."

I first became acquainted with Universal Salvation while debating an Anglican Priest in Barbados in 1982. At one point I mocked the concept of “Hell” as infantile, and basically “apartheid theology” based on gloating over the suffering of those unlike you, who don’t subscribe to your special beliefs- but whom you condemn to everlasting perdition. I also mocked the notion that the presumption of Hell meant every sect or Christian denomination could, in effect, pass judgment on every other sect or denomination. Fundies could hell bind Catholics, Catholics could hell bind Fundies, both could also consign Jews and Muslims to the everlasting pits as the Muslims could return the favor to Christians! It was an afterlife MUTUAL ANNIHILATION PACT!


The priest laughed and conceded the point, and I won the debate – scored by objective observers – based on that line of attack. After the debate, however, the priest confided to me that in the upper echelons of the Anglican hierarchy (recall here that King James, of King James Bible fame was an Anglican too) no one took Hell seriously and there was no doctrine of Hell or of exceptional salvation for the few. Instead all Anglican seminaries taught Universal Reconciliation – Salvation. The priest told me he didn’t teach it himself nor did any other Anglican padres he knew. They had to instead teach Heaven or Hell because that is what their parishioners expected. He told me that if they attempted to teach the actual doctrine of universal salvation most of the faithful would leave that Church because their skewed sense of moral right and wrong dictated the “evil” receive the ultimate punishment. But he said this dichotomy troubled him no end!


Evidently, it didn't trouble Pope Francis who was prepared to go on record with his views, to the chagrin of the Vatican's usual sock puppet mouth pieces who then tried their damnedest to walk it back.  A Vatican propagandist.....errrrr....spokesman, quickly intervened and interjected his "correction",  as if the pontiff was an untutored child who needed to be steered in the right direction by his parent. Father Thomas Rosica said: "people who know the Catholic Church cannot be saved if they refuse to enter or remain in her."

Actually, a more profound truth is that - assuming salvation is a viable concept at all - it's more likely that if they really know the Catholic Church and how it has historically distorted the truth to its own ends, they can't be saved if they DO remain in her!

Though this Vatican stooge did try his best to dampen the media hubbub, few people paid much attention as the 'cow had already escaped the barn' while the little know-nothing,  hierarchy hireling tried to shut the door too late. Besides that, the Pope himself never retracted his remarks and in addition, he'd previously said atheists can be "precious allies" in the building of a peaceful coexistence between peoples and in the careful protection of creation.

This means we can take Rosica's bollocks with a grain of salt (not that I believe a 'heaven' exists anyway or that 'salvation' really is an objective, realistic concept).   The point is that Rosica and his Vatican clowns were revealed for the arch-hypocrites they really are because - make no mistake- they'd have no qualms accepting the thousands of priest pedophiles who raped and sodomized children into their precious holy and saved flock while those of us who left the Church (seeing that more truth resided outside her walls than in ) are condemned. (After all, the priest pedophiles can just go to confession and do a five rosary  'penance'!)

But to reinforce the point the Church hierarchy is largely made of hypocrites, it's only been in the last two days another one of these gowned twits (a Cardinal George Pell of Australia) has proclaimed that of course "abortion is a much worse crime than sex abuse of children by priests".  See: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/28/cardinal_abortion_is_worse_scandal_than_priest_abuse/


Out of the mouths of maggots!  And sincerely, if Pell  really truly believes this then this pest needs to flush his and his church's natural law doctrines and their so-called canon law right down the toilet. Or at least a Vatican sewer.

What is almost as unseemly is the odious second- guessing of the putative leader of the faith.  A person who from all outward appearances and indications displays more sincerity and adherence to genuine Christian principles than the whole Vatican amongst all its pointy headed hacks, hangers-on and hypocrites.

A lot who still hasn't recovered from being schooled on sexual ethics by a nun, Sister Margaret Farley. See e.g.

http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/06/nun-articulates-sexual-ethics-for.html

Universal Salvation Belief a One Way Trip to “Hell”? HELL NO!

Sign from a Fundie's blog warning any who accept universal salvation to watch out! Their final destination is HELL!

According to Wikipedia, Universal Reconciliation or Salvation is:


“the doctrine that all sinful and alienated human souls—because of divine love and mercy—will ultimately be reconciled to God.

Universal salvation may be related to the perception of a problem of Hell,, standing opposed to ideas such as endless conscious torment in Hell, but may also include a period of finite punishment similar to a state of purgatory.Believers in universal reconciliation may support the view that while there may be a real "Hell" of some kind, it is neither a place of endless suffering nor a place where the spirits of human beings are ultimately 'annihilated' after enduring the just amount of divine retribution”

I first became acquainted with universal salvation while debating an Anglican Priest in Barbados in 1982. At one point I mocked the concept of “Hell” as infantile, and basically “apartheid theology” based on gloating over the suffering of those unlike you, who don’t subscribe to your special beliefs- but whom you condemn to everlasting perdition. I also mocked the notion that the presumption of Hell meant every sect or Christian denomination could, in effect, pass judgment on every other sect or denomination. Fundies could hell bind Catholics, Catholics could hell bind Fundies, both could also consign Jews and Muslims to the everlasting pits as the Muslims could return the favor to Christians! It was an afterlife MUTUAL ANNIHILATION PACT!


The priest laughed and conceded the point, and I won the debate – scored by objective observers – based on that line of attack. After the debate, however, the priest confided to me that in the upper echelons of the Anglican hierarchy (recall here that King James, of King James Bible fame was an Anglican too) no one took Hell seriously and there was no doctrine of Hell or of exceptional salvation for the few. Instead all Anglican seminaries taught Universal Reconciliation – Salvation. The priest told me he didn’t teach it himself nor did any other Anglican padres he knew. They had to instead teach Heaven or Hell because that is what their parishioners expected. He told me that if they attempted to teach the actual doctrine of universal salvation most of the faithful would leave that Church because their skewed sense of moral right and wrong dictated the “evil” receive the ultimate punishment. But he said this dichotomy troubled him no end!


Well, no wonder! It had to be mentally pathological to know what your religion’s actual doctrine is on the one hand but not be able to openly teach it on the other. Schizoid personality disorder anyone?

But he has a point. Because most believers function at the level of children, and need a cosmic daddy to “take the rod” to the bad boys or girls, they cannot accept the conceptual notion of an afterlife wherein everyone is brought together. Even many Christian leaders who ought to know better buy into this codswallop. In a memorable final Phil Donahue show on MSNBC in 2002(still have it on videotape), he included people from five major religions, including the head of the Southern Baptists, and a leading Rabbi. When Donahue brought up the thorny issue (which most evangelicals prefer to sweep under the rug) of what happens to the Jews when ”Armageddon” is all over and the "Antichrist" (sic) is defeated, the Southern Baptist fundie didn’t mince words:

“Most will be bound for the fires of Hell, because it is appointed that only 144,000  Jews shall be saved. “

Donahue’s eyes rolled twice over then nearly popped out, as did the Rabbi’s who then entered into a furious exchange with this bigot, prefaced by the words:

“How DARE you! How dare you decide to dispatch Jews into afterlife fires when over six million have already been roasted in Hitler’s crematoria!”

The Southern Baptist didn’t blink, merely responding mechanically:

“I don’t decide that. It’s the word of the bible, not mine. Unless a man be born again and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ he cannot enter the gates of Heaven. Since nearly all Jews reject Jesus as Savior, they can’t enter the heavenly kingdom”.

This pompous display of assholinity prompted Phil D. to quip:

“Yeah, but it’s all fine and dandy that Israel be used as the setting for Armageddon in the Valley of Megiddo. Once Israel fulfills its biblical prophecies, then I guess it’s perfectly okay to send all the Jews to Hell…..oh, except for the special 144,000. And by the way, what’s so special about them? Why do they get a heavenly pass and not the others?”


The Southern Baptist  (Albert Mohler) was speechless. Or rather, perhaps so dumbfounded he wasn’t able to respond. Just as well, as the Rabbi was about to lacerate him verbally!

Now, just so we are clear, as an atheist I lean toward the probability that when you’re dead, you’re dead. I am not dogmatic or absolutist about it, but that's my take. (And no, I've seen no convincing evidence for 'near death experiences' which in any case, have nada to do with actual death!) That’s it! Finito! However, in previous blogs I have left a minuscule probability that human consciousness can survive death but in a nonlocal form, embodied in quantum wave energy. See, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/07/has-stuart-hameroff-explicated-way-out.html

However, for the sake of this blog, let’s argue from the believers’ perspective that there is a conscious personal afterlife and a putative deity to preside over it. We assume the form of this deity is in line with the attribute most often declared by deity worshippers, i.e. "infinite".

IF God as infinite is taken literally, this can only mean there is no place where he isn't. Either he is infinite or not infinite. If he is infinite, and HELL also exists, then Hell must be part of the same infinity. It cannot be isolated from it or else we have a condition where Hell is apart from God's being. If this be so, then there exists a domain ("Hell") where God isn't, so he can't be infinite! In other words, God is actually a limited being.

Another way to put this is that something (Hell)  exists in addition to God's being  hence that being must be de facto delimited. If delimited it can't be infinite.

So, we have these ineffable logical conclusions:

1) EITHER - Hell exists but GOD is not infinite.

OR

2) GOD is infinite, and Hell must exist WITHIN God. (But Heaven does also)


Up to now, no fundie or evangelical  has been clever enough to resolve the Hell-God=infinite paradox. There could be two reasons: 1) none of them is smart enough to do it, or 2) they know deep down in their little atavistic pea -brains that the paradox is logically insoluble because their assumptions are in error. (Or, just as bad, they allow the blatherings in an ancient book to trump the importance of examining the assumptions.)

Thus, if they want to preserve their "Hell" they will have to admit their God isn't infinite. If they demand God to be infinite, they will have to jettison their "Hell'.

Beyond this, if modern quantum mechanics is taken seriously, then reality is one universal whole (called “nonlocal” in QM terminology) and there are no separates or localities – say wherein something can occur that doesn’t affect the rest of reality. Hence, concepts such as David Bohm’s Holomovement come front and center and these impersonal concepts can supersede that of an angry old white man in the skies that hurls unbelievers and do-badders into perdition.

In effect, it appears those sects and denominations that accept the Universalist perspective are more likely to be au fait with at least the basic underlying theme of the wholeness and unity of reality, as demonstrated for example in the Aspect experiment (1982). That set up is depicted below:

A1 ( ) <--------->( )A2


The idea being that twin photons appear interconnected (via their polarization detection) at the analyzers A1 and A2. Some have misconstrued this as violating Einsteinian relativity (e.g. fast than light signal propagation) but the superior interpretation by physicist David Bohm holds that the two photons were always connected in a higher dimensional reality, which he has called the “implicate order”.

If there is an implicate order, which is also holographic, then it very well means the Universalists have been right all along ….assuming there is a God inhabiting this implicate order, of course! Maybe the fundies and their ilk need to take more seriously the words of Philosopher Alan Watts ('Behold the Spirit', p. 244):

"Taken literally as a doctrine of everlasting torture, 'Hell' amounts to blasphemy itself- for if it were in the power of human freedom-choice to produce a consequence of this kind there must be something radically diabolical in the order created by God, and in God himself. Such an interpretation may vindicate human freedom but at the cost of demonizing God."