When reading this topic it irritated me that some people suggest that you must be unintelligent if you still believe in God. They implicate that believing in God is ridiculous, because intelligent people realize that there can't be a God. The truth is that nobody knows for certain if there is a God or not. The Big Bang theory is just as far fetched as a the concept of a God. So, however smart you consider yourself to be, you just don't know if there is a God or not. What I also hate is that some people who say they don't believe in God, suddenly start to pray when something bad happens in their life. Then you are a hypocrite in my book.

With regard to the Pope, I'm hoping for reforms too and this new Pope made a good first impression on me. If that will lead to any real reforms, time will tell. Regardless, the Pope is a very powerful symbol for a lot of people, so I don't see why some people here feel they need to make fun of him.