Pope says "God is alive"

Nevada (US), Oct 23 (ANI): "God is alive", His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI stated in a letter to seminarians dated October 18, published at "Vatican: the Holy See" website.

Pope also wrote: "...people will always have need of God, even in an age marked by technical mastery of the world and globalization... Where people no longer perceive God, life grows empty; nothing is ever enough."

Eminent religious statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, suggested that in order to keep people in religion's fold, religious organizations and their leaders should make religion more vibrant, attractive and engaging.

Zed, who is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, further said that we (religious leaders and organizations) were responsible for the alienation of many believers thus resulting in increase of the people with "no religion". Our efforts at social control, judgmentalism, stagnant approach, etc., might be turning them away resulting in many of them questioning belief in God, equating religion with fear, etc. Some of them, who still believed in God, were bypassing religion to reach God questioning the linkage between "man made religions" and God. "If I 'just do good', I should be fine", many of them argued.

Rajan Zed pointed out that life was getting complex and distractions were increasing, so religion was slipping away from the priority list of many. Conventional style of dealing with spirituality and religion did not appear to be effectively working, especially with today's youth. Make it more exciting and challenging, Zed suggested.

If religious leaders and organizations did not attend to this challenge more effectively in this consumerist society, we could lose our youth to the other marketplace players, which were more powerful, attractive and vocal than religion and spirituality, Zed warned. (ANI)