As you may or may not care, I am a very lapsed Catholic. In real terms, this mainly means that I profess no belief in god, and I have a sense of guilt about that.
The guilt is true, by the way. Everything you ever hear about guilt and Catholicism? True.
But the reports on the Pope's health (a banner ad on CNN just informed me that the last rites have been administered) make me think that there might be something to the Illuminatus! Trilogy's claims of a worldwide conspiracy.
I mean, I don't particularly care for the Pope's viewpoints as he has personally expressed them, and I certainly don't care for the Catholic Church's - one of many reasons they don't like American Catholics, our disagreement with them - but this is starting to resemble some kind of Catholic genetic experiment. I'm starting to think that the Pope would have been dead five years ago, but they somehow found the remains of a bunch of Nazi research (or possibly the remains of Mengele, I don't know) and created some kind of genetic super-crap that's being pumped into the Pope (because the Catholic church can't afford the finest in animatronics, even though Strom Thurmond's dead, so there's a really good team out there, unemployed, starving in the streets) to keep him physically alive.
From what I've heard about the Pope's health, if he had anything to do with that book recently published under his name, George Bush is a lot smarter than I give him credit for being, and wears Dr. Evil underroos. The man is dying, and has been for quite some time.
So I'm waiting for a revelation about the Vatican's Nazi Science Fair Project crap and I'm also wondering why they feel that this is any sort of dignified way of life for a man who, whether I like him or not, has influenced millions of people in a generally positive way.
God does not, apparently, treat his servants well. If God existed - and I think that while a birdie in a tree proves the miracle of God, the starving child standing under the tree proves that God doesn't exist - I can't imagine that he would think that this was any sort of dignified life.
So, ironically (and this is what I get for posting at work, I forget the original point of the post) I think that the Pope's artificially-extended lifespan proves the non-existence of God. Why would God let someone who is supposedly his most devoted servant in one faith of many suffer like he has? The assassination attempt, I can buy that as some sort of character building shit, but this sort of Parkinson's, pneumonia, feeding tube, etc, isn't character building, because there's no way to overcome these conditions and gain something by them.
Can't you see it if there were? "I really learned from that pneumonia! I won't go walking into those germs with my compromised immune system any more!"
Not bloody likely.
Therefore, God does not exist. I could justify God letting someone suffer for their appointed lot in life, but then again, I'm a lapsed Catholic, not an active Calvinist.
God can't be all knowing, all seeing, and all powerful and continue to let things like the Pope's clinging to life happen.
Can we just get over this fixation? Some percentage of the world believes in God, and some percentage of the world stares at the other part as if they're flinging poo around.
The most divisive force on earth: God!