If he smoked or other risk factors and genetics have a lot to do with health. Some are more at risk from genes, but bad lifestyle can make various illnesses sooner, worse and advance faster than those who live healthier. There is no supernatural reward for suffering now. We're all temporary conscious stardust in this time to exist, and all the elements in us will be recycled again. That's the truth that frees us from the damaging dogmas and conditional belonging. Enjoy being the universe observing itself for this short time, peace!
this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
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- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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I was just saying - as he's a Christian and pretty much won that whole game, he probably isn't worried about dying. And Christians, like other religions, think earthly suffering is unavoidable but human life is short and eternity is long. In their view, God gives you what you can handle, and it would make sense that he could handle more, right?
Earthly suffering, or earthly success, doesn't prove or disprove God. God could also be a villain, right? Or just not be able to perceive us as individuals. Nothing that happens here can prove or disprove God, short of a God coming here and proving themselves.
If God existed, I doubt he goes around with a magic cancer wand. That being said, Pope Leo isn't a good person, he just has a good media team.
What constitutes a "good" person?
I'd argue with how pathetically shitty the average person is, that Leo is, in fact, a good person, whether or not you believe in any sort of divine guidance.
Hell, he doesn't even have to be a good Christian (by teachings, not Christian acts) to never the less end up on the 'good' half of humanity!
He's JK Rowling level bad.
That's ... rather abstract. Besides, hating trans people is (sadly) still not a guarantee to find yourself on the 'bad' 50% of humanity. ... and that's assuming that only 50% of humanity is bad, which is rather forgiving!
Pope Leo isn't a good person
Why do you say that?
He doesn't support women in the ministry, vilified the LGBTQ community and most importantly, protected pedo priests.
He doesn't support women in the ministry
That's not entirely true. While he doesn't support women in the priesthood or as bishops (as set in Catholic dogma), he has placed women in high administrative positions within the Vatican, which is something other popes haven't done.
vilified the LGBTQ community
Also not true. He's pushed a policy of welcoming all people, and while it's true he doesn't support gay marriage, that is again due to established Catholic dogma and has been much more progressive than previous popes.
protected pedo priests.
I can't say whether or not that's true, I can't find any instances of him protecting pedo priests.
I mean... would he have even been allowed to be the Pope if he didn't do those things? (let's not pretend the Pope is actually a divine appointment)
I'd argue striving to be head of one of the most hateful orgs automatically makes you bad person. Protecting pedos comes with the territory but doesn't give him a pass so to speak.
Original sin baybeee!
🤣🤣🤣
People who face challenges learn and grow as individuals. They become better people. The best people usually have had the most to overcome. Lung cancer is a hell of a life lesson and teacher.
The people you don't respect or you dislike usually haven't earned it. They've had it the easiest.
I believe we set/choose paths that put our own obstacles in our way. Not because we are wrong or stupid, but because we choose to learn or gain strength (spiritual or physical).
And saying God can't be the light in the sky, a flower in a valley, an antique carbureted engine, or a lung cancer diagnosis is to limit God's ability to make us better people... and I am not willing to do that.
This always boils down to the Epicurean Paradox.
So, most religious mythology (including Christianity) defines its god as 3 absolutes:
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All good (not a shred of evil)
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All powerfull (its will is our reality, period)
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All knowing (it's fully conscious of literally everything that happens in its universe)
So how is it that evil can exist? Cuz we can see that clear as day, everywhere. God either...
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is aware of it, has the ability to stop it, and chooses not to, in which case it is not all good.
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is aware of it, wants to stop it, but doesn't have the ability to, in which case it isn't all powerful.
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Has the power and desire to stop it, but isn't aware it's happening, in which case it isn't all knowing.
Every single attempt to answer the Epicurean paradox does so by rugpulling one of the three pillars and presenting god as instead only being two of those absolutes. (and if anyone reading this takes that as a challenge, feel free to give it a go).
How can this be explained, other than God doesn’t exist?
Either Christianity and most other religions are being deliberately dishonest about the nature of their gods, or, as you said, god doesn't exist.
Ehhhhhhh. You're conflating this existence with all of eternity. Those are very different things.
Consider God as a parent. I used the example in an earlier response but my friend took her child to be vaccinated. For a baby, that's a very unpleasant day. In a week, she won't remember it.
Similarly, an all powerful, good God can be okay with someone suffering for a momentary blip because the end result is an eternity of paradise. (What is a lifetime of suffering against infinite years of happiness?)
"But wait!" you cry, "surely an all powerful God can skip the ANY suffering bit, right? He's just choosing not to because he's a prick!" Which misses the possibility of self imposed constraints on power. If I build a system and choose to work within that system, that's still me being all powerful. And if, as an all knowing being, I know that a half moment of unpleasantness means an eternity of bliss (so I can reward free will, instead of just creating a bunch of automatons), that's a tradeoff a good and all powerful God may make.
As an atheist: you get the concept wrong. All religions treat this life as a test and the nice part is yet to come. Children dying early or the Pope is them getting to heaven faster
The pope is God's favourite person, so obviously God wants him in heaven as soon as possible.
Forking shirtballs, we're in the bad place!
We're in the only place, unfortunately.
Anyone whos actually read the bible knows the christian god is a violent genocidal sociopath. It only makes sense he would reward that behavior.
You're talking about the same god that let Satan torture Job to win a bet. Even in Christian doctrine, god doesn't give a fuck about people. He just wants obeisance.
He sent his own son to be tortured because he was too much of a coward to go himself, and that's supposed to be laudable!?
Yes, but also he is his own son so he did send himself. I will not be taking any further questions
The best explanation I've heard, as an agnostic, is this is our misperception of this life vs an eternal (infinite) afterlife.
Sure, bad people might live really fun lives for maybe 100 years while good people might suffer for the same. But then, for millions and millions and gazillions of millennia after that, both are punished or rewarded for how they chose to live those 100 years.
My friend's baby had a bunch of vaccinations the other day. Horrible day for the kid, unfun and stabby. But in a dozen years, will she remember it? Nope. But that day, that's all she could comprehend. Similarly, for this brief go around, yeah, what we can see and experience is all we can really comprehend. But the promise of at least Christianity, but I think many other religions, is that the next life is infinite and all that matters.
Conclusion: its use to keep the miserable good people placid while the bad guys have all the fun
If there's no God, then sure. If there is a God, there's a life of infinite paradise for those who deserve it.
That's the whole thing. The conclusion changes dramatically if there is or isn't a God.
At least as long as you believe in the right god. Because if you bet wrong, and the ownership rights to heaven and hell are not the Christian God's, but someone else's, you're fucked.
As an atheist. You create a straw man. You don't know what a god is looking for
A part of the problem is that you're misunderstanding fundamental parts of the religion you're referencing.
In this religion:
The God of Abraham does not answer your prayers because he made you to experience all the negatives so you can learn from them, it's part of "His Plan™". He made you as you are, to sin and fail and suffer. He then made a half human son, Jesus, who he allowed to be sacrificed in order to forgive you for the sins you have been made to commit. You simply need to give yourself to Jesus and accept him into your heart. According to the story.
The rest of the problem is all the logical failures that come as a part of this.
His plan is ineffable, it can't be effed
- good omens (I think)
Obviously it's to make room for the first gay pope.
Other than god not existing? God is malignant
With the way Christians and similar preach? Yea, God's a psychopath and so are they.
Though there are several theologically sound explanations, especially if you truly believe "God" is beyond or bigger than our universe.
Basic believer: "God works in mysterious ways". Sure, that Harlequin baby only ever had a miserable existence, but that's because their soul didn't need to experience a full life! Sure, your school teacher only ever did good works and then got ran over by a truck, but God thought it was her time!
More logical theology: God is bigger than the universe. He sees the whole thing. If something bad happens, then it is merely a wrinkle, or if you believe in divine guidance, it's a tragectory change to something better. Either way, God's not helping you, because what you want makes for a worse over-all universe. Or, if you want to be more literal about it, maybe God doesn't necessarily have the power to truly magic something. Maybe he cannot instantly change an exact, single detail about this universe, yet created it, could destroy it, and has enough control to drastically change things? Like a video game dev seeing how their Sims playthrough plays out.
Deeper theology: We're here to be tested/checked/validated/etc. God said he gave us the answers, not that he'll do the test for us. Besides, if we were instructed to take care of something (like Earth, or your personal life), why in the ever loving FUCK would you expect someone else to do the job you were told to do? Nobody is going to be happy to have to step in to fix something you fucked up, especially when they were the ones who put you on the job to take care of it in the first place.
Deeper science fiction: How would such a great being even begin to care about the individualities of creatures even lesser than ants to him as ants are to us? It's not hard to imagine someone caring deeply about their creation, but not really caring about exactly how the tiny details come out for every single detail. Like a single piece of glitter falling off your child's art piece, an individual life is meaningless so long as the whole picture remains.
Mix and match those views to your heart's content, and I've heard all of them and more growing up in a church. Bunch of intellectually weak clowns unwilling to admit religion is just Baby's First Philosophy...
Please keep going, that was great!
Not sure of too many other opinions I've directly heard, but what kind of belief do you want to hear more of? (I know I said I heard more dismissive/excusive beliefs, but I don't remember them in any representative fashion; it was thankfully years and years ago!)
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So, so many ways.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/ offers some good discussion.
Aww man. I tried getting Kagi's LLM to summarise the examples and refutations and even that's proving too much for my burnt out brains...
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Or god likes the pope too and wants to hang with him but to do that he has to kill him.
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The theological explanation from Catholic dogma would be along the lines of God doesn't really interfere with the day-to-day goings on of the world.
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Can be explained however you want. You can't prove a negative. God does not exist because that is what makes the most sense overall. Same reason santa does not exist and ghosts don't exist and superman does not exist.
"god works in mysterious ways"
"but that's all bullshit"
"god works in mysterious ways"
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