Pope Francis assures sceptics: You don’t have to believe in God to go to heaven

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bubba_Switzler
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
einna said:
So are you telling me that because I fought to overcome a life threatening illness knowing I was meant to have a child. That I prayed about having artificial insemination and spoken to a priest, only to continue to feel God wanted me to have a child,and because I went through with it I should repent for having my son and if I don’t I will not be forgiven. I am just trying to understand your thinking.
Click to expand...
This is the issue for me also. I have tried it both ways. I have tried the way of just stifling my own intuition, thoughts and feelings and just going with whatever the Church says and I have also tried the way of going fully with my own intuitions and sincere prayers and deep thinking on things. I would say there are problems with both approaches so I now use a combination of them both which works better than either on their own.

I have to say however that hands down, without a doubt it, was far worse for the quality of my life, marriage, psychological and emotional health and spirituality, to stifle my own intuition and gut feelings and thoughts than it was to follow them.

Following the Church blindly shut me down it shut down joy, spontaneity, and the intensity of love, and turned me into a child- but not in the good way that jesus recommends. Following my own intuition and thoughts completely led to feeling ok about things that in the end were not ok but only in a few weak areas of self. Doing both but with my own conscience through my relationship with God having the final say has worked very very well and has produced much better fruit over time.
 
franklinstower said:
This is the issue for me also. I have tried it both ways. I have tried the way of just stifling my own intuition, thoughts and feelings and just going with whatever the Church says and I have also tried the way of going fully with my own intuitions and sincere prayers and deep thinking on things. I would say there are problems with both approaches so I now use a combination of them both which works better than either on their own.

I have to say however that hands down, without a doubt it, was far worse for the quality of my life, marriage, psychological and emotional health and spirituality, to stifle my own intuition and gut feelings and thoughts than it was to follow them.

Following the Church blindly shut me down it shut down joy, spontaneity, and the intensity of love, and turned me into a child- but not in the good way that jesus recommends. Following my own intuition and thoughts completely led to feeling ok about things that in the end were not ok but only in a few weak areas of self. Doing both but with my own conscience through my relationship with God having the final say has worked very very well and has produced much better fruit over time.
Click to expand...
 
40.png
einna:
Thank you so much for your open and honest reply. It meant a great deal to me. I hope to learn and earn God’s forgiveness with the time I have left. May God bless you.
 
Why are you people making this so darn difficult. It’s so easy that even a Franciscan understands it.

The highest moral authority that an atheist has is his conscience, because God is not in his equation.

You cannot speak to an atheist about a correctly formed conscience vs a malformed conscience, because it’s not part of his vocabulary. That’s Catholic vocabulary.

You cannot apply this rule to believers such as those who subscribe to same-sex marriage, abortion, contraception, etc, because of the fact that they are believers. If they’re believers they have a higher authority than conscience. That authority is God, who speaks through the Church. To allow them to “follow their conscience” without check in with the Church and the God that they claim to believe in is to give them a pass so they can sell themselves short.

At the end of the day, they may check in with the Church to see what God says and their conscience will not be able to embrace what the Church says. At least they made an honest attempt. That attempt is morally required of all believers. It is not required of non believers. You can’t ask a non believer to check in with a god whom he does not believe exists.

Therefore, the highest authority that the non believer can check in with is his conscience. His sin will be if he chooses that which his conscience tells him is a sin.

Before some of you go off on some whacko comparison between a serial killer and an atheist, there is no comparison. Psychiatry and psychology can tell you that a serial killer has no conscience. It’s numb. He’s not following his conscience. He’s not making a choice between right and wrong. That’s the problem. He is being driven by disordered thinking with no conscience to evaluate the rightness or wrongness of those thoughts.

I would put an abortionist in the same category as a serial killer. He’s a person whose conscience is numb. He’s acting on pure logic. The problem with cold logic is that two false premises and a false conclusion yields a valid syllogism. This would be where the conscience would then enter and say, “Wait a minute, this is bad, even though it’s logical. Rethink this again.” When there is no conscience or the conscience is numb, this safetynet it not there.

This person does not fit into the same class as the atheist either.

The atheist whose is honest, whose mind is clear and whose conscience is sober may not believe in God, but he certainly has a moral compass that tells him “This is good” and “This is bad”. That moral compass is actually the voice of the God whom he believes does not exist.

Since conscience is the highest authority that the atheist has, the pope can safely say that the atheist has to follow his conscience. We pray that he will hear the voice of God speaking to his conscience.
 
Bro.,

Thank you so much for responding to this post. I was hoping you would. You have a wonderful gift for explaining things. I love the way this Pope expressed himself, some people just want to truly hear him.
 
einna said:
Bro.,

Thank you so much for responding to this post. I was hoping you would. You have a wonderful gift for explaining things. I love the way this Pope expressed himself, some people just want to truly hear him.
Click to expand...
I was trying to explain it as I had explained it to my novices, but it was late. I took this stupid medication that didn’t let me sleep. Fixes one thing and breaks another, just like an auto mechanic.

But I digress. Our Formation Director was trying to explain this to our secular novices. We have both consecrated and secular brothers. He was so frustrated, because they just didn’t get it. I was in the next room and volunteered to try. The above answer is what I gave them. Then they sat there and said, “Ahhhh . . . that makes sense.”

Sometimes it takes more than two people. One prepares the soil. The second plants the seed. And the third harvests the fruit. I got the be the third. 😃
 
JReducation said:
I was trying to explain it as I had explained it to my novices, but it was late. I took this stupid medication that didn’t let me sleep. Fixes one thing and breaks another, just like an auto mechanic.

But I digress. Our Formation Director was trying to explain this to our secular novices. We have both consecrated and secular brothers. He was so frustrated, because they just didn’t get it. I was in the next room and volunteered to try. The above answer is what I gave them. Then they sat there and said, “Ahhhh . . . that makes sense.”

Sometimes it takes more than two people. One prepares the soil. The second plants the seed. And the third harvests the fruit. I got the be the third. 😃
Click to expand...
Well Bro. you did a wonderful job; although I don’t know how many will truly listen. Am I wrong in believing that Pope Francis picked us words carefully and said exactly what he meant to say or was he mistake as other have suggested. And maybe that is one reason he was selected Pope so quickly in the first place.
 
McCall1981 said:
Though pretty much everytime I have thought I understood Francis, I have ended up being totally wrong, so who knows. I definitely don’t “get” him, at least not yet :confused:
Click to expand...
I know I’ve been a bit repetitive in this thread, but if one wants to understand Pope Francis the best way is by reading Pope Benedict. Francis is putting into plain language, many of the things Benedict has explained in a more erudite manner. Both of them are just trying to clear away beliefs and teachings which have come into the church through many well meaning individuals, but have never been part of dogma.

I am often jolted by what Pope Francis says. But when I read church teaching and meditate on it, I see he is just promoting what the church has always said, but in a more challenging manner.

Let us all think about it logically. He is a man who has devoted his life to the church. He has fought for Christian values. He believes in and preaches about the devil. He has a great devotion to Our Lady. He has faithfully lived and continues to live his Jesuit vow of poverty. I think he deserves our trust. So if he says something we think is wrong, let’s assume we are the ones mistaken.
 
Did Pope Francis Really Say Atheists Are Going to Heaven?
Click to expand...
In a winning style that is reminiscent of Pope John Paul I’s charming letters to the various historical figures, Pope Francis has written a very personal letter to the founder of a major Italian newspaper. Over the summer, Eugenio Scalfari – an agnostic – wrote a series of editorials posing some theological questions. Pope Francis responded with a warm-hearted explanation of the Christian faith and the personal encounter with Christ that lies at the heart of it.
Click to expand...
Journalists ignored the strong gospel message of the Pope’s letter to focus on one paragraph in which Pope Francis addresses the question of whether God can forgive agnostics and atheists. The Daily Telegraph’s Nick Squires reports that the Pope says, “God forgives those who follow their conscience.” However, in the Zenit translation of the letter, these words do not appear. The Pope writes:
Click to expand...
First of all, you ask me if the God of Christians forgives one who doesn’t believe and doesn’t seek the faith. Premise that – and it’s the fundamental thing – the mercy of God has no limits if one turns to him with a sincere and contrite heart; the question for one who doesn’t believe in God lies in obeying one’s conscience. Sin, also for those who don’t have faith, exists when one goes against one’s conscience. To listen to and to obey it means, in fact, to decide in face of what is perceived as good or evil. And on this decision pivots the goodness or malice of our action.
Click to expand...
Nowhere does the Holy Father state that “God forgives those who follow their conscience.” What he does state is that “the mercy of God has no limits if one turns to him with a sincere and contrite heart.” Strange how Mr. Squires omitted that important word, “if,” and what came after it. God’s mercy is everlasting, and he does desire that no one should perish. But as the Pope teaches, we cannot receive God’s mercy if we do not ask for it, and we do this by turning to him “with a sincere and contrite heart.”
Click to expand...
Simply obeying one’s conscience is not enough, and the Pope never said it was. Instead, the Pope is teaching that without the light of faith and belief in God, the only thing left for the agnostic or atheist to follow is the light of their conscience. This limited light can help a person decide between good and evil, but the light of the human conscience alone, without divine grace and the acceptance of divine revelation, is very limited. Not only is one’s conscience on its own a limited light, but that light is shaded by the influences of the secular world and distorted by individual sin and ignorance. The light of individual conscience is like a match flame in the darkened cave. It is better than nothing, but it does not compare to the full strength searchlight of God’s enlightening grace.
Click to expand...
Once again, the secular writers have taken a snippet of the Pope’s comments out of context and distorted them to make Pope Francis fit into their “progressive” agenda. It is heartening that the journalists emphasize God’s mercy, but what Squires and others have missed are the Pope’s reminder that to find God’s forgiveness, one must turn to him with not only sincerity, but a contrite heart. A contrite heart is a penitent heart. It is a heart and mind that says first and foremost, “I am a sinner in need of God. I need assistance and forgiveness. I need the Divine Mercy.”
Click to expand...
As soon as any son or daughter of Adam turns to God with such a state of mind, the everlasting mercy overflows.
Click to expand...
Fr. Dwight Longenecker is the parish priest of Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Greenville, South Carolina. His latest book, The Romance of Religion, will be published by Thomas Nelson in February of 2014.
Click to expand...
 
Only God knows if somebody is invincibly ignorant. That’s why we have to do our best to convert others.
 
einna said:
Well Bro. you did a wonderful job; although I don’t know how many will truly listen. Am I wrong in believing that Pope Francis picked us words carefully and said exactly what he meant to say or was he mistake as other have suggested. And maybe that is one reason he was selected Pope so quickly in the first place.
Click to expand...
If one reads the letter itself, there is nothing that a good Catholic can be upset about in this letter.

zenit.org/en/articles/pope-francis-letter-to-the-founder-of-la-repubblica-italian-newspaper
 
There are two parts that I don’t see here.
  1. Anything that contradicts what the Church believes.
  2. Anything that affects most Catholics.
On the Internet, there is a tendency for people to get upset about things that don’t even apply to them. If the pope were saying that atheists can get to heaven if they wear sackcloth and ashes, it would not upset me, because I’m not an atheist. Therefore, I don’t have to wear sackcloth and ashes. 🤷
 
livingwordunity said:
I wasn’t talking about you. I was saying that the media deserves no respect when they twist the Popes words.
Click to expand...
I knew that you were not talking about me. I was confused, because I didn’t understand how prostitutes entered the equation.

As to the media, there are some that reported the content correctly, but the byline that they used was misleading. I can’t recall which of the many I saw. But several had bylines like “Atheists can go to heaven” or “You don’t have to believe in God go get to heaven” but when you read the actual article, they quoted the letter correctly. The problem is that if you take that one paragraph about the atheist and his conscience and just publish that, it does not sound right to the average Catholic. The reason is that it’s out of context.

The letter itself is all about Jesus from beginning to end. The one part where the pope addresses conscience is very consistent with Catholic doctrine. If the highest moral authority you have is conscience, you have a moral obligation to be faithful to it when it tells you “do this, because it’s good” and “don’t do that because it’s bad”.
 
JReducation said:
As to the media, there are some that reported the content correctly, but the byline that they used was misleading. I can’t recall which of the many I saw. But several had bylines like “Atheists can go to heaven” or “You don’t have to believe in God go get to heaven” but when you read the actual article, they quoted the letter correctly.
Click to expand...
They know most people only read the headline. Accurate content but with a false headline means they were probably deliberately deceptive.
 
JReducation said:
If the highest moral authority you have is conscience, you have a moral obligation to be faithful to it when it tells you “do this, because it’s good” and “don’t do that because it’s bad”.
Click to expand...
But what if you are raised to believe bad IS good? Example: killing the infidel is good because it is a way of honoring God. Or what if you don’t know the difference between right and wrong. Example: there is nothing wrong with sexual promiscuity or abortion. Does that make those things “acceptable” because they simply don’t know or weren’t taught correctly? Please help me to understand.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top