Yesterday, I did what any blogger or webmaster shouldn’t ever do: I clicked on an ad on my own site. Well, doing it once shouldn’t make a difference… and I had to click on it. 
I don’t remember the exact text of the ad (refreshing the page isn’t showing it anymore), but the destination page is this: The Bible reveals next and last Pope will be a devil impersonating John Paul II.
How could anyone resist that?
That page, which is actually very well written, shows how Revelation 17 “tells” us some curious facts. It starts with an historically interesting part, about how the Papacy lost temporal power in 1798, and several Popes were “prisoners in the Vatican” for several decades, until the Vatican City was given to the Papacy, to be a sovereign country. This has prompted me to read more about it in Wikipedia (start here if you’re curious) about it. I found it quite interesting… and just because I’m an atheist, it doesn’t mean that I don’t like to learn about religion and its history.
The authors go further, though, and “show” how Revelation (a book that shows every sign of having been written under the influence of some bad mushrooms) tells us that the current Pope is the 7th of a list, will reign only for a short while, and the next one will be… a devil impersonating John Paul II. They also say that the Church will regain temporal power, then, with the Pope being above presidents and kings.
Now, I can perfectly accept that Benedict XVI will be there only for a short time: he’s been elected Pope while already quite old. But the John Paul II doppleganger… somehow, I have a problem believing that.
I could write much more about how absurd all of this is, but I don’t think it deserves that much. I’ll say this, though: unlike many other “prophecies”, this one is actually testable, and has a limited date: indeed, the current Pope will almost surely die in less than 15 years. Most of us will still be here, then. When the next one doesn’t look, act and talk exactly like John Paul II, including saying he’s actually John Paul coming back from the dead (I’d be amazed to see such a character be elected Pope, anyway…), what will the authors of that page do?
Admit they were wrong about that, and that they are, quite likely, wrong about other things as well? Admit that the Bible can’t be taken literally, if it can be “taken” at all?
I doubt it. They’ll do what theists always do in these cases: say they were “misunderstood” and meant something completely different, or pretend that they never said anything like that at all. Remove all traces of that page from the web, and, if confronted, deny everything.
Oh well. It was an excuse for learning a little bit of history…
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You could always right click on the ad and select “save link location” or something to that effect to find out where the URL is going. Then just cut and paste the URL without all the google address stuff into your browser’s address bar. See the adsense Ad Filter instructions on exactly how to do it. Then you don’t ever have to click on them.
I’m Christian, and believe that God made the universe, as well as us. We see just a small scope of God’s work…but God sees the “big picture” in my bliefs. Nothing wrong with different opinions/beliefs or lack thereof, some people are more into science.
I dont care what religion you are this is all just plain dumb and crazy. We all know that the pope is dead so people will wonder why he is back so this is nuts.i read the bible and there is nothing in it about this. these people are just trying to scare you.plus even if this is true all you do is shoot satan and he dies just like that.simple.
How you know next pope in world is pope John Paul ll. I’m suprise to listen to that at atime.
You guys are way behind the times. We already have our last pope, according to revelations
http://www.aztlan.net/the_last_pope.htm
I just last night by chance came upon that wonderful website claiming that the next pope will be John Paul II reincarnated. I mentioned it to my class today (I’m a history professor), and thus thought I’d try to find it again, and hey, here I am. I am not an atheist; I could call myself a christian, but then most “christians” out there would have a very warped view of my beliefs, opinions, positions. The point is, I guess, that there are nut cases everywhere. I’m a medievalist, focusing on 14th-16th century religious, theological, political, and intellectual history. While I am probably a heretic in “everyone’s” book, I do believe that such sites of this one, i.e., the John Paul II “reincarnated”, not the present one to which I am replying, is rather unbelievable, and yet, somehow, someway, for some reason, there are people out there who believe this. There is such a complete lack of historical knowledge, not to mention perspective, in these folks who “know” the “truth”. For ages sincere Christians have proclaimed the end of the world as coming any time, but certainly “soon”. This, and all such unfathomable idiocy, is a fantastic insight into “popular culture” etc., but on the philosophical/theological/historical level, it is just depressing and aggrevating. The stupidity is huge, and whereas the “ignorance” of the “simple believe” is something I value very highly, when the “simple believer” starts pontificating about absolute, universal “truths” based on some uninformed, uneducated reading of an English translation of the bible, it becomes quaint at best. The problem is such folks give such a ridiculously wretched “name” to “Christians” and/or “Christianity”. In their “masterpiece”, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, in the song “Cathedral” posed an essential question: “Too many people have lied in the name of Christ for anyone to heed the call; so many people have died in the name of Christ that I can’t believe at all.” That is the challenge “Christians” must take up, must face up to, must deal with, for indeed it is a “truism”, as is Nietzsche’s nice little quippe: “I have only known of one Christian–and he died on the cross.” The ignorance and stupidity of Christianity, in its amazingly varied manifestations, is the, bar none, biggest optacle to Christianity. There are intelligent, educated, well informed, etc., etc., Christians, somewhere, out there, or at least I certainly hope there are, but in the popular mind, intellectual Christianity, historically informed Christianity, etc., etc., is no Christianity at all. What it comes down to, in so many ways, is that the Church, whether Roman Catholic or some variant of “Protestantism” (and how many “protestants” know the origins or their own self-proclaimed designation, i.e., as a political protest against the emperor to enforce the Edict of Worms against Luther, i.e., not a theological issue as much as a political one, though one not devoid of theological issues; i.e., that the “protestants” were the political radicals standing against the political and religious status quo), is an “all too human” institution, and somehow “Christianity” has survived, exists, remains, above and beyond the stupidity of human creations, such as is the “Church”. It is really mind bloggling, how pathetically little “Christians” know of “Christianity” and/or of their own tradition(s) of Christianity. The biggest, most important, and most “unovercomeable” problem “Christianity” faces is its own ignorance and stupidity. Now, there are certainly stupid and ignorant atheists, but it is a sad state of affairs when in general, the atheists are more intellectual, more learned, more educated, more sophisticated, etc., etc., more knowledgable, than are the Christians, a said state of affairs, that is, for Christianity. Yet so is it. I would much rather proclaim myself an atheist, than to have to pretend in any way shape or form that I am somehow in the same category with the intriguing and comical, and dangerous defenders of the truth who call themselves Christians. This is the bane of Christianity. “Get behind me Satan” and/or “I know you not” can be the only reply of Christ to these Christians. As sad as it is, as terrifying as it is, Nietzsche was right: there has been only one Christian and he did die on the cross. I remain a heretic, by all counts, even that of the atheists. And what if Christ came today? Perhaps “they” should consider that question more deeply than asserting that the devil is coming tomorrow. The established religion, the middle class, the moral, outstanding members of society were those who crucified Jesus…..and they still are doing so, not to mention the radical fringe that is all too centrist. Jesus the radical…Jesus the contradiction of all that is right, and good, and sane, and respectible, and moral, and truth …. that is the biblical Jesus, despite the ignorant interpretations of ignorant interpreters of revisions of a literary English masterpiece, not to mention of the historical context in which it was written. But revelation transcends history, is not confined to historical analysis/interpretation, is direct and immediate, the revelation of absolute truth … thus spoke many a condemned heretic, and thus another paraphrased quotable quote from St. Nietzsche: “It is not their love of man, but the lack of their love of man, that keeps the Christians of today from–burning us.” “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” Such is my prayer, in dispair, and disgust, and some underlying, unyielding, hope and belief, not in the “truth”, or even “revelation”, but in the divine that is above and beyond us all, and of the divine that cannot be captured, or confined to the pages of a book, much less to the idolatry that makes such a book absolute truth in jot and tittle. There can still be miracles, let us hope, the miracle of overcoming our own ignorance and stupidity. What we still have not understood, is the god who is divine, the Jesus who is divine, the god/Jesus who is love … We should be preparing the way of the Lord, and not obscuring it, blocking it, preventing it, with stupidity and ignorance, and in this light, the “atheists” are far more “Christian” than most of the “Christians”. One can only be a Christian when one has the faith and the depth of belief to be able to say, “God damn it!” and mean it. Christianity is blasphemous, and the blasphemousness of Christianity must be recovered for it to survive, for that is what Jesus was crucified for: blasphemy. And thus I can only close here with the following: God damn it, God damn it, God damn it … in the name of the blasphemous, radical, and most likely radically liberal too, Jesus. Get behind me Satan! Thy will be done.
I have to say, I’ve done a bit of writing in my day, but I couldn’t have written that better Erik. Thanks.
What if the real Pope John Paul II is not dead, but just went under ground for a certain time to then reemerge 3 years later as a false resurrected Christ. After all the Antichrist mimics the real Christ in a false reversal way. I’ll explain: The real Christ ascends, the Antichrist decends(goes under ground for a time). Jesus & God functions as one, The dragon(the pope)& the beast(George W. Bush)are one. The dragon is god on earth for the satanists, as is The Son Of Man is God for the righteous etc… My point is that these master illusionist perpetuated a mock funeral of the pope. After all, who would question his death considering his age and his sickly looking appearence. But looks can be deceiving, the elites of the world have access to technology that the masses is to yet hear of. They have cures for cancer & aids but they wont let the masses know this(google “End Game” by Alex Jones to get a more in dept understanding of this). So don’t be so quick to dismiss this information as nonsense just because all the pieces of this puzzle haven’t been put together yet. The devil has his greatest trick to be played on the people up his sleeve, but the problem is most people don’t know how to identify him.