Is there a place for religion in modern society?

In my honest opinion, i do not think there is a place for religion is the society of today. There are a number of reasons why i am of this opinion. 

Firstly, i think that a lot less people go to mass now, especially people that are my age. On the contrary, many more older people do go, and each week without fail in some cases. However, overall there has been a decline i would imagine as religion just is not something some people are deeply into. The majority of people in this world believe in God though and yet not all of these consider religion to be of great importance in this modern society. 

A big issue that may have helped in the decline of mass-goers may be the whole thing surrounding the scandal with the priests and what went on in this country in regards to sex abuse towards children. Many people were disgusted with this and lost trust in the priesthood. Okay, thats a fair reason but why would you decide to turn your back on religion when it is not about priests, but in fact, about the God above. There is no need to begin to not believe in God over what went in among these priests, at least this is my opinion.

So to say it again clearly, i really believe that people nowadays do not see religion as having as having a place in modern society and i feel that this is a sad thing and that without faith, how can we feel safe and feel that we are being guided through all we do each and every day? 

NAMA

This blog post will be about NAMA, which stand for National Asset Management Agency. It is a body that is due to be created by the Irish Government by the end of this year and it is going to acquire property development loans from Irish banks in return for government bonds. The banks concerned are AIB, Angle Irish Bank, Bank of Ireland, EBS Building Society, and Irish Nationwide. This is with a view of improving the availability of credit in the Irish economy. NAMA will buy bad loans from the banks at a reduced price maybe somewhere that it is between 50-70% of their original value. They won't be paying to much for these particular loans as the assets that are gauranteeing these loans have reduced in value. NAMA will pay 54 billion euro for 77 billion worth of loans advanced by 5 banks. 2,000 bank customers will have their loans transferred to NAMA. 

There has been many criticisms of the entire thing, both from politics and academia. I do not have an opinion because i don't fully understand everything about it so for now i am indifferent. I just hope it is for the benefit of our economy and that no silly decisions are going to be made in haste

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Asset_Management_Agency

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055644732

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0917/1224254726800.html

...and now for something completely different...

This week in e-Business we learned about the online adult industry. I was very shocked to see that this industry, the pornography industry is worth so much worldwide - $57 BILLION!!! That is astounding! There are 4.2 million pornographic websites and 372 million pages. That is a serious amount and i was really shocked. I knew it was a hugely profitable industry but i didnt think it was in the billions!


It was interesting to learn about the users of cybersex, which are recreational, sexually compulsive and at risk.


Sex has hugely shaped the internet as it exists now. Lots of advances were made. These things exist now only because they were first used in this industry. These include: streaming video, live chats, payment systems, fee based subscriptions, web cam, pay per click viewing, ad's associated with words, video on demand billing, web analysis software, and focus on usability


The ultimate question is whether porn adult content websites and pages should be made illegal. in my opinion i do not think so at all because each individual has the choice to watch this content or not. Nobody forces anyone to go onto these websites. It is already banned in certain countries but this is for reasons depending on each country, although i would suggest religion is is a big reason why. In Ireland i would say no to a ban for sure based on the reason i said, that at the end of the day it is a choice.

The whole social networking end of things...

Let's face it, the majority of people who participate in social networking are concerned with Facebook. It currently has more than 300 million users worldwide which in my opinion, is HUGE. That shows how much of a craze it is. So many people are addicted to it and i am probably included in this too as i check my profile several times a day!!! I mean, it hit the world at some speed, it was an instant success! I would reckon it is the most recognised social networking website worldwide currently. Practically everyone knows the name and that is amazing. It is a great thing for boredom (and everything in between...) with its endless list of things you can do on it. Personally i dont know what i would do without it, and that is the honest truth.

Recently blogs have become popular too seeing as 34.5 million weblogs are being tracked. These include personal and corporate blogs. Now if you have an opinion on something you can immediately blog it in your own personal blog! It is great! I like how you can follow certain bloggers and read what they update each time. Businesses have taken on using blogs too and it is good because they can then update their blogs onto their own business websites so people can read them there. The number of blogs worldwide is massive and i love the idea of blogging so i wont be giving that up just yet haha