I think that many people find it comforting, while for others it may well be "the sigh of the oppressed". For others still, they like the spiritual aspect of religious belief/observance and for yet others, I think it's completely intertwined with how they perceive society and how they would like their ideal society to behave.

I've had debates on the [iTelegraph[/i forums with people bemoaning the death of Christianity in the UK, which they equate to the ruination of the country etc. Yet if you ask them which bits of the core Christian religion they accept as literal truth (virgin birth etc) they prove remarkably unwilling to say.

Which leads one to wonder whether that's the case with quite a number of congregants today, who may not actually believe all these things, but rather, they believe in the institution itself. And I suspect that's particularly the case with the CofE.

I was brought up going to church. I still go to church. God has nothing to do with it. My understanding of the bible as a book is that of many others that I know. I disregard the old testament as a Christian book. Christianity starts and ends with Jesus' teachings. Jesus wasn't the son of God, he, if anything, was a very intelligent man with the same ability as someone like Derren Brown. His teachings were about humanity treating each other fairly. That's it. The bible was written in a way to control the masses through fear.

I still go to church and take a Sunday school class to try and explain my version of understanding to the young people (without being too blunt).

When listening to a service, I look for moral teaching in the story. Sometimes there isn't any but most of the time there is. I usually disagree with the minister's theory but that is irrelevant. The main reason for most churches is nothing to do with religion but for a place for the community to meet and socialise. The congregation at my church is actually growing and is very healthy.

I can imagine that other churches are more formal and can't speak for them, but I know why I go.

I'll pop along to church at Christmas, as usual, and sing some festive hymms, although they should probably rotate the story a bit, maybe go with Elf this year, or The Grinch, even Dickens would make a change.

I have a friend who is heavily involved in the local CofE (I'm not sure of his exact function he might be a warden or a lay preacher or something along those lines), he admitted to me that he sometimes envys Catholics because there isn't the same sort of confusion over what it wants to be that there is in Anglicanism. It would be wrong to believe that the Catholic Church is unwavering in its dogma, even if that's how it likes to portray itself, but it doesn't have this kind of multiple personality disorder that Anglicanism currently suffers from. There is a bit of a joke in local politics around here that vicars tend to be Lib Dems as there's a sort of soft, woolly liberalism about a lot of them, but I don't think that really goes well with people who do religion, if they do formal religion they want a degree of certainty in their belief and if they are following "spiritual" or "neo-pagan" type beliefs then they want the sort of flexibility and individualism that doesn't work with mainstream organised religion.

I have an article from bbk magazine (Issue 27, Spring 2010) by a Birkbeck academic called Eric Kaufmann which suggests that "whilst secularism continues to dominate high culture, its demographich disadvantage means it must run to stand still", or in a nutshell the religious are multiplying faster than the non-religious, which is not neccessarily of concern to anyone, except that the fundamentalists are the ones who tend to have the biggest families. He points to London as an example where religious participation overall is actually experiencing a revival on the back of immigration (but in particular from those groups who tend to have larger families like fundamentalist Muslims who have on average one child more than moderate Muslim families).

You do realise mate that just as there is no God, there was nt a Jesus bloke either.
Are you happy knowing you are brain washing people into accepting your unfounded beliefs on others.
In my opinion, ALL preachers of ANY Religion should be jailed for at least spouting BS and at worse for brain washing.
Like smoking it should be banned for under 18s and then they can decide if they want to believe in your imaginary god/jesus/religion off their own back and not forced into it like those you preach to on sundays.

Here endeth the Sermon!!!

In all fairness, there is evidence that someone called Jesus existed. [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_JesusHistoricity of Jesus.[/url

Just to play, erm, Devil's advocate ...
To agree with the Christian philosophy, as purportedly preached by Jesus, doesn't require belief that he existed.
A bit similar to liking Shakespeare, regardless of whether the Stratford chap actually wrote it.

Oh, I appreciate that. But I was responding to a non-believer who claimed he didn't exist at all.

Which makes for certain amusing contrast.

I used to be a humanist, was brought up CofE but rejected it at a very young age, I was always a very inquisitive child and asked lots if questions at sunday school to a point were I was actually told I was a disruptive influence on the others. I've never thought that but I was always someone who strove for definitive answers which made religion a very hard sell for me. It's a similar reason I dropped psychology, to much theory not enough actual knowledge.

Now I'm not even a humanist, if we all disappeared off the earth it would be no bad thing.

The planet would then be over-run with chickens.
[iwith acknowledgement to Malcolm Lord[/i

Think of all the extraordinary things that would disappear too: for the universe never to hear a Beethoven symphony again or see once more a Turner landscape or listen to see Shakespeare on a stage or marvel at the curves of a Moore sculpture.

And that's sticking to Western classical culture.

It's easy to feel y about the state of the world, but there have been – and continue to be – magnificent achievements; amazing heights attained.

You are quite entitled to your opinion. In my opinion, there probably was a bloke. The message of love thy neighbour, non-retaliation and do to those as you would unto yourself if followed by all would make the world a better place.

I don't brain wash anyone. The kids at Sunday School are encouraged to think for themselves to draw their own conclusions. I encourage them to think of logical explanations to the 'miracles' and parables. What part of that is brain washing them?

Just out of interest, why do you have the flag of Israel in your signature?