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Let us follow the pope, part two
Dear readers, in this article, we are talking about the pope visit in Turkey. You see, today the Roman Catholic leader Pope Francis is visiting Turkey, so, let us follow the pope while he visits Turkey. Now, we have written and published this article in Hub Pages, at this address, Let us follow the pope, so, you can view it if you click on the link. Anyhow, this article is a long article, so, we have split it in two in Blogger, this blog is part two.
Let us follow the pope , part two
Now let us continue talking about early Christianity
The pope head of
the Christian Roman Catholic Church visiting Byzantium. So, let us go back to
Byzantium of the Roman times. We have mentioned that the Romans accepted all
religions, but has it happened Christianity was not accepted, and the belief
was that they were up to no good and were plotting against the state, it is
said that when Rome burned down it was the Christian that started the fire, and
other negative events that happened were blamed on the Christians, it was one
of those things that you have to blame somebody for something bad that had
happened, and this time was the turn of the Christians; so, the Christians were
persecuted.
So, Early Christian
suffered a lot because of their religious beliefs, we know about their
persecution and the martyr stories, but they never gave up their beliefs and
they kept growing in number, so, around the time when Emperor Constantine
reined 306-337 there were lots of Christians in Byzantium, in fact Constantine
mother is said to be a Christian; anyhow, for some reasons that today are not
clear; the Emperor Constantine ended the persecution of the Christians during
his reign. Then under Emperor Theodosius 379-395 Christianity became the
official state religion, and it lasted until the Roman Empire existed.
Anyhow, Byzantium,
became Constantinople and known as the city of Constantine and this name lasted
for a long time, but has been changed again recently to Istanbul, this is how
this city has had three names.
Now, at the
beginning Christianity was a bit loose but at the same time they were all known
as Christian, but by the end of the first millennium or there about
Christianity split and they became the Christian Orthodox, with one of their
leader known as the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Pope as head of the
Roman Catholic Church; after that other religious split have occurred. And they
will continue to occur.
We can say that in
this city many religions have changed during its history, and this is one of
the reasons why the pope went there to have his say, hoping to influence the
outcome. But that is hard to say, knowing that in Turkey today they are 99%
Muslim. We are going to say a few things that we know about this great
religion, and at the same time we want to point out that religions sometimes
change, as we have seen the change above, when Emperor Constantine changed from
Paganism to Christian religion, and who knows when it is going to be next
religious change?
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This pope is a true believer
There are no other
ways to explain what Pope Francis is doing in Turkey, except that he is a true
believer, because Pope Francis believes that what he is doing is the right
thing to do, he is trying too hard to do things that he believe need to be
done, even when what he is doing can be dangerous, he still goes ahead doing
it. Some of the wiser people ask, if that is the right thing to do in the face
of this danger? As the danger he is facing is real because the population of
Turkey are Muslims and they hate anyone that tries to middle in their religious
matters.
But this pope
believes that he can go there and tell them that they do wrong, well his
intentions are great, but it is too dangerous to do that. At this point of time
I ask myself, whether this pope has a dead wish and he wishes to become a
martyr; Or does he thing that because he is the pope, God will stop the bullet
to reach him.
I feel pretty sure
that God will not intervene in these earthly matters even when the pope is
involved, if God wanted to intervene in these earthly matter, God could have stopped
those cruel hands that kill the innocents, like the executions that the
terrorist of ISIL have carried out several times in Iraq; here our view are
that God must have intervened, because the entire world would have liked to see
that executioner struck down from God the moment he was going to carry out that
cruel deed, but God did nothing.
So, at this point of time, we could even ask; is there a God, or is it all our religious fantasy that we wish there were a God to turn to, in case we need help? This makes me thing about what great thinkers have said in the past, and I quote:
"It would be
very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent
providence, and if there were a moral order in the Universe and an after-life;
but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish
it to be."
"In the long run, nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the
contradiction religion offers to both is palpable."—Sigmund Freud[i]
So, we may even ask
if there is a god at all, because God never seems to come down to us and do
anything that we wish he would do, even when terrible things happen, like the
terrorists killing innocent people, so, there is not much to say about our God
willing to do anything for us, when we really need his help; but even after
this great disappointment we still believe in God and continue to pray God,
what else can we do? We need to believe in God, it is an inborn sense that will
never go away. Anyhow, let us follow the Pope visit in Turkey.
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Following the pope
Now let us see the
pope and what he has been doing in turkey. The Turk authorities have received
the pope well, and for safety reasons they have kept the crowds of people well
away from the pope, so, there has not been any religious service, like the
religious services that the pope does when he visits Roman Catholic countries.
So, the pope was
received more as a head of government than a religious leader in Turkey, but he
still was able to say what he wanted to say, but not in a religious way or
service. See this link below.
Pope condemns
religious fanaticism on his arrival in Turkey
To make a long
story short we are not commenting on other things. Anyhow, in his tour in
Turkey he has visited many important places; he visited also the Blue Mosque,
where bowing his head and clasping his hands, Pope Francis prayed together with chief mufti,
Rahmi Yaran.
In Turkey because
the population is 98% Muslim, they want the Hagia Sophia turned into a Mosque
and that would be a bit of a blow to the Roman Christian religions and the
Orthodox Christian; but that remains to be seen.
Anyhow, beside
other things the pope met with the Patriarch of Constantinople, which voiced
his objection about turning this now museum into a mosque, and they would try
to do their best to stop it happening.
After all these
happenings the pope celebrated Mass at the Catholic Cathedral of the Holy
Spirit in Istanbul.
The only other
thing that we could add here is that the meeting between the pope and Bartholomew
I, the Patriarch of Constantinople, was to try to mend the breach between the
two churches, if that ever happens then this religious group will become the
largest single religious group in the world, at the moment it is the Muslim
group the largest in the world.
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Religious changes
Today we have talked
about the Pope visit in Turkey, and we have talked about all religions in this
part of the world. Now we have reached our last part and we want to talk the
present religion in Turkey. We must admit that we do not know much about this
religion, but we will say how we see it from our side.
Above we have talked
about the change of religions during the Roman Empire that ended up with the
Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius banning paganism and making the Christian
religion the state religion. We guess that the Christian religion should have
looked like the true religion that would last forever. But even this religion
is not lasting forever, especially in this part of the Middle East, because
another religion follows. Today the Muslim religion is another religion that is
trying to say that it is the best religion to follow, of course, this is how
the Muslim believers see it. But we have reasons to believe that this religion
will end up like the other religions; it is a matter of time.
The Muslim religion
is believed to be formed from the offspring of Ishmael the son of Abraham and
Hagar the Egyptian maid of Sarah Abraham’s wife; some people still see Abraham
as the father of many nations as God had promised him. You see the reality is
that the entire Bible is written after this man Abraham, even though in the
Bible we talk mostly about Isaac son of Abraham and Sarah and their
descendants, there is enough in the Bible to link also Ishmael and the other
children of Abraham that he had later on.
Now, from what we
have learned in our religious studies, we believe that religions go through
changes, and these religious changes happen as the time goes on, because
religions need to change to reflect the need of the people. So, what we see
today that could never change, tomorrow because many things have changed
religions need also to change, just like to old religions have changed.
All what is
happening today in the world points to changes, the Christian religions are
trying to sort their differences out and if possible, become one single
religion, or at least cooperate fully with each other. This is also one of the
reasons why Pope Francis went to Turkey, besides going to Turkey to talk to the
government over there, in the hope of finding a way to stop the violence that is
happening, because of the extremist terrorist; whether the pope visit is going
to help, we do not know, only time can tell, but things do not seem well and we
hope is does not become worse.
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How we see Revelation
Today the world
seems to get ready to spill in two, with the Muslim on one side and the rest of
the world on the other side; so, we need to ask ourselves if the end of the
world is near, at least this is how most people feel like. But what about the
new system does it need to be run from God or is it just a way to say that we
need to install a new System. Perhaps this new system will happen like other
religious things have happened in the past, they became replaced with other
religious beliefs.
As you know, we
have been talking about this for a while in our religious theory, where we
describe in an imaginary way how the forces of heaven can exist. If people take
notes of what has been said there, then a new belief and a new system could
emerge, if our theory is accepted from the public.
I can say a few
more things here, but this article is too long. So, may God of the universe guide
us to accept the right religious things according to his will?
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Today the pope is
now back in Rome, so, we wonder whether his trip has been fruitful, or it is
going to infuriate the extremist Muslim community, only time will tell.
May God bless us
all.
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If you believe in god
Let us follow the pope, part two
Some of my personal links; because I believe that all my articles need to be connected
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