The Pope is infallible? Not according to actions of the current 'infallible' pope. From the NY Times of 24 Jan 2009:
Quote:
Pope Reinstates Four Excommunicated Bishops
The four reinstated men are members of the Society of St. Pius X, which was founded by a French archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre, in 1970 as a protest against the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council, also called Vatican II. Archbishop Lefebvre made the men bishops in unsanctioned consecrations in Switzerland in 1988, prompting the immediate excommunication of all five by Pope John Paul II.
Later that year, Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, sought to regularize the church’s relationship with the society. And as pope, he has made reinstating the Lefebvrists an important personal cause.
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Appreciate the statements that caused these bishops to be excommunicated by an infallible pope.
Quote:
Pope Benedict XVI, reaching out to the far-right of the Roman Catholic Church, revoked the excommunications of four schismatic bishops on Saturday, including one whose comments denying the Holocaust have provoked outrage. ...
Among the men reinstated Saturday was Richard Williamson, a British-born cleric who in an interview last week said he did not believe that six million Jews died in the Nazi gas chambers. He has also given interviews saying that the United States government staged the Sept. 11 attacks as a pretext to invade Afghanistan. ...
Indeed, even though the Society has given no public signs that it would reverse its rejection of Vatican II, one Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity on Saturday because talks were continuing, said that the Vatican was willing to discuss making the group a personal prelature. Pope John Paul II did the same with another conservative group, Opus Dei.
In a public statement Saturday, the Vatican said that the pope would reconsider whether to formally affirm the four men as full bishops, but it referred to the men by that title. It said talks would seek to resolve the “open questions” in the church’s relationship with the society.
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Either Pope John Paul or Pope Benedict is wrong. One was fallible. Religion's premise (that underpins that entire religion) is really speculation. Religion re-labels as theory what science defines as speculation - also called junk science. Religion's theory is even contradicted by experimental evidence: an infallible pope made a mistake.
There is no 'theory' of creationism. That speculation uses the same reasoning that says a pope is infallible. To have a theory, one must first have sufficient evidence that the theory even exists. Experimental evidence even suggests creationism is false.
Even the concept of a soul is nothing more than wild speculation. No different from the same logic that proved Saddam had WMDs. We feel Saddam had WMDs. Therefore that is a fact? We feel that god created woman from a man's rib. Therefore that is a fact? Hardly. It does not even meet the definition of theory.
The only man and only woman had two sons. So how did they have grandsons. Did Cain or Abel do their mother? Or did they do their unmentioned sisters? Or maybe religious 'facts' and 'theories' are really nothing more than parables or fairy tales?
Religion is full of beliefs that even contradict knowledge and reality – that even justified massacres. This is why religion is only a relationship between one man and his god(s). Nothing more. No wonder the fallible pope is somehow still infallible.