Commenter Reginald Selkirk alerted me to this news report in which ex-pope Benedict says that god told him to resign.
“God told me to do it,” the Zenith agency quoted Benedict as saying to a visitor to the convent in the Vatican gardens where he is living out his retirement in near isolation.
According to the agency, Benedict told his visitor, who asked to remain anonymous, that God did not speak to him in a vision but in what the former pope called “a mystical experience.”
We in the US always hear politicians talking about how they decided to run for us after careful prayer, implying that god told them to seek the office, even if for some reason he then ends up having them trounced. They never invoke god when they quit.
If more and more politicians announce that god actually asked them to leave office, it might give belief in god a boost.
God’s always telling folks to do crazy shit and then at the last minute saying “J/K! LOL!”
Gotta watch those mystical experiences; as sakyamuni once said “these effects are not the reason why we meditate”.
Actually, “god told me to quit” sounds better than “spend more time with my family”.
Yes, especially since the ‘family’ excuse now usually makes people suspect that there is a secret and damaging reason.