The pips are the part you are supposed to eat in a pomegranate - they are the bit which is good for you. When we were little, we used to pick them out and eat them one at a time with a cocktail stick.
I have a pomegranate tree that just self seeded in the garden. It's always a fight between me and the birds to get the ripe ones first. Brings to mind one of these romantic bodice ripper novels I once read. "She sensuously bit into the succulent flesh of a pomegranate ". I don't think the author had ever seen a pomegranate