Alain Guillot

Life, Leadership, and Money Matters

Religion is in decline, and that’s a good thing

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I was born into a Christian family.

As a boy, I didn’t like going to church because I had to sit still and quiet for about an hour while the adults did their thing.

Since I was forced to sit, I decided to ask questions:

  • Who wrote the Bible, and how do you know that what it says is true?
  • If God is all-powerful, why do people die, regardless of how much you pray?
  • If Christians will go to heaven, what will happen to the millions of non-Christians?

I wasn’t given any answers, or I was told to shut up.

Then I started to study history and learned about all the assassinations in the name of God that have occurred from the beginning of Christianity to the colonization of America and Africa.

Later on, I read the news and learned about all the child molestation cases perpetrated by priests on little kids. To this day, I still don’t understand how people can follow a religious organization that has thousands of child abuse cases.

Everyone in my family is deeply religious and my mother goes to church every day. It blows my mind.

Religion is on decline

I live in Canada, and I have the impression that religion is in decline. According to Wikipedia, Christianity is in decline in the Western world.

I see how old churches are being demolished and/or being converted into luxury condominiums, office spaces, or gyms.

Religious institutions should NOT be tax-exempt.

It really bothers me that religious institutions are tax-exempt. The citizens of the city pay higher and higher taxes every year, yet the Catholic Church, with all its billions of dollars, doesn’t pay any tax. This is one more example of taking from the poor to give to the rich.

The younger generation is smartening up; they are drifting away from religion.

Humans have a tendency to believe in supernatural stuff, miracles, ghosts, and spirits. Many people are fulfilling their superstitious needs with practices other than the antiquated and stuffy Catholic religion. Many people are turning to yoga, meditation, or other beliefs that don’t require killing or converting other people to their beliefs.

I think that it’s healthy to look at religious organizations with skepticism and ask ourselves if those archaic rituals should be abandoned completely and left to rest in the history books.

“An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell? No, said the priest, not if you did not know. Then why, asked the Inuit earnestly, did you tell me?”

~Annie Dillard

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