West Ham Online

"""The writing is on the wall"" https://www.facebook.com/valdinn66617 IRONS"

"It's not unfeasible that religions grew in parallel with advances in society as those advances gave people more ""spare"" time to just sit & chat about more than just survival. The taming of fire, advances in agriculture (and possibly hunting/gathering), even the industrial revolution and formal education could be thrown into the mix. More time to speculate and theorise; more time to embellish folk tales and fairy stories. More time for followers and the followed to come to the fore. I've no idea when my country was the ""most religious"", so have no real data to back those thoughts up; perhaps I'll give it a little more thought while my microwave is defrosting the joint of beef I plan to cook later."

I don’t know. Why not just call it curiosity? Or openness?

"To answer what Christian value you might favour and be given humility as an answer is actually appropriation. Humility is not confined to Christianity and it was a quality prized by such as the Jews, Egyptians and ancient Greeks. All of whom pre date Christianity."

"It's not that he believed something that was utter shit, but that belief in God didn't protect him from believing ""anything"". I wouldn't claim that atheism has this protective power either - that would a similar superstition posing as wisdom"

How very hospitable of you. You happy with that?

"Hammer and Pickle wrote... ""You seem well up on this Jesus tip, William. Mind if I ask - what’s your favourite Christian value?"" Humility. ""..and how does it work in the real world"" It works by entertaining the thought that we don't know it all."

Best evolution strategy is An eye for an eye Wins every time

"You seem well up on this Jesus tip, William. Mind if I ask - what’s your favourite Christian value and how does it work in the real world?"

"See, you can't use a quote from somebody that's germane, if any other quote from that author is disagreeable. Is there a person that is Geep approved that we are allowed to quote? I'd suggest CS Lewis would be most appropriate."

"Yeah. Love a building a painting a goblet and gargoyle. If you believe in god, god brought us everything. Good and bad. In my humble opinion god is a roll of the dice and we just see patterns in randomness."

"Believing in God doesn't protect you from believing utter crap, even if it's accepted that belief in God isn't utter crap. ""If there is one outstanding quality in Hitlerism it is its Hebraism"" G.K.Chesterton"

"Rio Similar for me. If you get chance have a read of Tom Holland's (from the Rest is History podcast) book, Dominion. He traces Christian influence in Western society by starting in antiquity and charting it's evolution through European history and it's affect on our culture. Might not sound like a page turner but it is quite a profound book which has even led to the conversion of one the new atheists, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to Christianity. She read the book and concluded that everything she values was actually a product of Christianity and she rethought her views. Interestingly Tom Holland isn't a believer himself. He just has a huge respect for Christianity and the profound effect it has had on shaping how we see the world today. I suspect is also aware and laments just how coarse and meaningless the modern - essentially pagan - culture that is replacing Christianity is."

"Wils It ties in with the general dumbing down of our people, and I have started to believe its deliberate. It all started for me travelling around different parts of Europe and looking at the difference in architecture, how more beautiful things seemed to be from a couple of hundred years ago and right up to the early 1900s, then I realised the same thing happened in art and music and I couldn't work out why. When we stopped creating things for form and grace and instead prostrated ourselves at the altar of instant gratification and lost all sense of delayed gratification, we lost our way. Its the difference between civilisation and barbarism, IMHO"

"Wils It ties in with the general dumbing down of our people, and I have started to believe its deliberate. It all started for me travelling around different parts of Europe and looking at the difference in architecture, how more beautiful things seemed to be from a couple of hundred years ago and right up to the early 1900s, then I realised the same thing happened in art and music and I couldn't work out why. When we stopped creating things for form and grace and instead prostrated ourselves at the altar of instant gratification and lost all sense of delayed gratification, we lost our way. Its the difference between civilisation and barbarism, IMHO"

"The Chesterton quote is one my favourites. I saw some chart somewhere showing the rise in belief in things like astrology as atheism gained in popularity. The idea that the decline in belief in God in western societies is a product of a more rational population is clearly untrue. It's cultural phenomena that people are following just as it was cultural phenomena when the west become more Christian. In a similar point, I remember Dawkins being interviewed about whether he thought his book, the God Delusion, would turn everyone atheist. His answer was he believed it would turn all the people who were, without thinking, regarding themselves as religious to atheism, but not the die hard ""faith heads"". Something I think he hadn't thought through. As if they were not the type of people to 'think' in the first place then all he would achieve create a bunch of atheists who are just atheists becuase everyone else is. The still don't think, just now they are atheists without thinking much about why other than trying to fit in with everyone else. That's not to say all atheists 'don't think' as clearly many do. Just that Dawkins' book recruited a lot of non thinkers to their ranks."

"Mike It was was one of the modern schisms in christianity; whether christians need to evangelise. The NT asked that Christians only spread the good news (gospel), some parts of the faith insisted we should evangelise/spread the faith rather than sharing it. Its where Islam has been successful but will lead to a downturn in western society in my opinion. These arguments are far removed from the more important concepts of belief and faith, as well as the philosophical elements of religion."

"If you believe in God (ANY God) that's fine by me - fill yer boots. However if you need (NEED) me (or anyone else) to also believe in that god then your belief must be pretty shallow & tenuous to begin with, and I'd want no truck with such vacuousness. No need to show anybody else how pious & faithful you are - all that matters is that you remain true to yourself."

SurfaceAgentX2Zero 8:38 Fri Mar 15 Blimey I thought you must have died? Have you been unwell?

"kearlay I would have agreed with you years ago, but then I met so many aitheists who having decided to not believe in God, and cited a lack of direct proof as their reason, who then go on to believe some of the most blatantly unprovable ridiculous tenets. Chesterton summed it up “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”"

riosleftsock 10:54 Fri Mar 15 Re: Do you believe in God?

I just think it's a bit weird when an adult believes in a God.

Seems you know all about what happens at Sunday School. Me? The very idea of going to school on Sunday was the stuff of pure nonsense.

"Tips I stopped wasting time searching for definitive proof of god when I realised it was counter-productive and that religion is faith-based, it does not require constant reassurance or existential proof. The faith is the part that provides the comfort and relief. There is no need for you to believe in God, its a personal choice for every one of us. Do true christians insult non-believers or belittle them? No, they pray for them."

Hammer and Pickle 10:25 Fri Mar 15 you 100% got fiddled with at Sunday school

What is it about politicians who claim to act according to the Bible that makes them more trustworthy fan those who do so according to the Koran? Or Das Capital? Or My Little Unicorn?