West Ham Online

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

"Ah, I see what you mean. That works both ways though, a religious person as one half of a marriage might not push to have a baptism, because the other half and their family consider it outdated."

"swindon hammer wrote... ""you obviously haven’t taken notice of the many wars, fights in the world and even on this thread the arguments of Muslims taking over this country to understand that’s not the case."" This is not the argument you think it is. People fight for things they care about. How many people die because of who they fell in love with? How much pain does love cause and how many songs and films are about the pain of it all? By your logic the world would be better without love too. That's not a world I would want to live in either. ""The other comment about England being largely without Religion (Which is true for English people) and that’s why it’s become more violent, depressed and miserable. Well countries like Ireland & Italy are both still quite religious aren’t they?"" No they are not. Especially Ireland."

"Exeter, a convenience in making the family happy. A “I don’t believe in it but my other half’s side of the family want their grand kids baptised like them and their daughter” kind of thing. I have seen that quite a bit."

"swindon hammer 6:01 None of what I said in my last post is making the case for the existence of God or the veracity of the Christian religion. Just a reply to """"The world would be better without Religion."" That doesn't appear to be true. You may hold the view that God doesn't exist and religious claims are not true. But there is plenty of evidence that the world is not better in the absence of religion as we are living with the consequences of precisely that. Being an atheist is not as simple just to declare God dead and not go to church. You have to also abandon the Christian concepts that you inherit from the culture you are a product of. Nietzsche understood this well. The very idea of humans being equal regardless of wealth or race entered our culture from the teachings of Jesus. You can abandon a belief in the divine and the religion that goes with it but if you want to keep the idea that we are equal and every life is worth the same, you need to come up with a rationale for it. Nietzsche understood that if you weren't going to take Jesus's word for it there wasn't a rationale for it and you have abandon it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cbermensch"

"Swindon, why would getting baptised be done for ""convenience"". What conveniences does being baptised open up in the world? Bigger baggage allowance on Ryan Air? A super-market sweep on your 18th birthday?"

"i never took your post as any kind dig Swindon, it's just an alternative point of view, to point I get it, I recognised myself And as for those wars, those fuckers were fighting millennia ago, only with different coloured badges. it'll never change"

I don't believe in him but fuck me do I blame him for loads of shit

"swindon hammer 4:45 Thu Nov 30 ""The world would be better without Religion."" Always a fun one to look at historically from a purely secular view. The Renaissance (re-birth) and thereby the Western dominance we still enjoy the fruits of was possible because monks ferretted away and kept copying the Classical texts. Interesting to see what the world would look like scientifically if those breakthroughs had not happened 500 years ago. Maybe no WHO, because most of us couldn't read?"

"Oh dear, btw that wasn’t a direct shot at all Catholics as I think the same for all Religions/faiths. I’m just speaking from experience as I used to live near a Catholic school/area growing up and lots of my friends were baptised Catholic and went to that school and you tell they hated having to go to Church/Mass every Sunday and didn’t really believe in it. Even as adults many of them rarely practise. A lot of them are only Catholic when it’s convenient, ie getting their kids into a decent school or baptised etc. As far as your comment that “Believing in God of any faith doesn’t hurt anyone” then you obviously haven’t taken notice of the many wars, fights in the world and even on this thread the arguments of Muslims taking over this country to understand that’s not the case. The other comment about England being largely without Religion (Which is true for English people) and that’s why it’s become more violent, depressed and miserable. Well countries like Ireland & Italy are both still quite religious aren’t they? So what’s their excuse for being more violent, depressed and miserable?"

"Wils, hang on though, hasn't it been replaced by so much better, I don't know, ""STUFF"". it's incredible how much more enlightened every one is now, only got to step out the door and there it all is... well said btw"

"Christmas is for kids. Religion is for those that are about to die or who are getting old. In between it gives hope to the poor and needy. Religion has its flaws but it is not useless and serves a purpose. I don’t like those that force religion on others and in the same breath I don’t like those that try to deny religion to those that choose to believe. I would say in general Religion provides society a moral compass which is fundamentally a good thing unless it’s Islam, the religion of intolerance, misogyny, Pedophilia and hate. That is one religion we could all do without."

"Wils, If Churches were just purely about community, bringing people together and doing good then absolutely it would be a good thing. The Religious bollocks I could do without and as I said in my original post many people don’t really believe in it either even when they are dragged along and felt like it’s some obligation to go and say prayers etc. I think it’s cute though that you and the likes of goose still have an imaginary friend to believe in at your age."

"Swindon That’s sounds like me and my family and yes, we are Catholics. When I met my wife, also a Catholic, I found that her family were just like mine. We went to Mass when we needed to, we were always respectful to the Catholic faith and while believing in a God in a modern world can push the boundaries of belief, both of our families want to believe that it true. Believing in any God of any faith doesn’t hurt anyone, so why not. I think Wils has put my case better I can. You need to believe in something, otherwise you believe in nothing and then it is too easy to be made to believe anything."

bravo Wils. well said.

"""The world would be better without Religion."" England largely is without religion now. Has been for sometime. It has become more violent, depressed and miserable by most objective measures. It's lost its culture, family centred life and it's sense of community. Our public sphere has become vulgar and uncivil, Western civilisation was underpinned by it's Christian culture and the dignity it gave it the human condition allowed us to flourish. The modern non-religious culture we have now isn't valued by anyone and its fading away as no one will fight for it. We have become vulnerable to religious cultures that are fitter than what we now have, see Islam. Choose your fighter western man."

"""The world would be better without Religion."" England largely is without religion now. Has been for sometime. It has become more violent, depressed and miserable by most objective measures. It's lost its culture, family centred life and it's sense of community. Our public sphere has become vulgar and uncivil, Western civilisation was underpinned by it's Christian culture and the dignity it gave it the human condition allowed us to flourish. The modern non-religious culture we have now isn't valued by anyone and its fading away as no one will fight for it. We have become vulnerable to religious cultures that are fitter than what we now have, see Islam. Choose your fighter western man."

I find many people that were born with and brought up with a faith/religion don’t actually believe in God but just do it out of some sort of family tradition because their parents/grandparents did. From experience I find Catholics are the worst for this. They wear it as some sort of badge of honour but hardly ever go to Church or really believe in it. The world would be better without Religion.

And why Atheist parents don't have religious children. No one can escape from that. Atheistic believe is indoctrinated too.

"Not at all. All theistic belief has to be indoctrinated, which explains why Muslim parents don’t have Christian children and why Christian parents don’t have Hindu children."

"Coffee 2:00 Thu Nov 30 By definition, eternity needs no creator. The fact that everything we experience has a finite life need not apply here. Bit like assuming infinity is just a number like 45, 28, 655445 or whatever. There are an infinite number of infinities - they have a different number of elements making them up, but are all the same size - infinite. You don't believe me? Just take the everyday numbers; from 1 to, well, infinity. Now multiply each number by 2. You have the same number of entries in this ""new"" infinity, but it has not one single odd number in it, so it is the same, half and double the size of the original infinity at the same time. Yet it can't be any bigger or smaller that the original because that was, well, infinite to start with. Mindfuck doesn't even come close."

"Coffee The question isn't who or what, it's how? God is having to fit into ever decreasing gaps."

Don't believe in any deity. Religion still holds humanity back terribly.

Mike Oxsaw 1:42 Thu Nov 30 Who created those particles? Who or what created anything and everything? Rinse and repeat.

Mike Spocksaw…..very good!

"BRANDED 11:21 Thu Nov 30 It is possible that we do, indeed, come from nothing. Nothing as generally perceived is an empty space/vacuum, but that vacuum is actually seething with virtual particle pairs popping into and out of existence in less than the blink of an eye, under constraints such as Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. This is one of the possible candidates for the Dark Energy that appears to be acting like anti-gravity and speeding up the expansion of the universe. If such particles appear at the event horizon of a black hole, and one is trapped, there is a sudden imbalance in that universe - matter has, indeed come from nothing and it can't disappear because it's partner has been drawn into the black hole. It may then well enter a period of rapid expansion within which lies a completely new and totally isolated (possibly our) universe. Rinse and repeat. No need for a creator or supreme deity - just a need for eternity."