There are more and more people turning away from religion as a source of their faith putting more faith in themselves. These groups: Atheists and Agnostics, are starting to grow as the number of religious followers decreases. I have a theory as to why this is but there are a lot of you that will immediately snub your noses at it and say it isn’t true. I think the reason more and more people are turning away from their respective branches of religion is because of the hipocracy and deceit in the churches these days. When I was a kid I went to a fire breathing baptist church (not to say all baptist churches are the same but this one was). The church forced the bible and everything else down your throat and if you questioned anything they said that you just had to have faith. I saw more people come and go from that church than I did at the local mall. Preaching fire and brimstone to everyone that is in the church is not going to inspire those that are not. The ones absent from your church can’t hear you anyway. After a while they started pointing fingers at their own members for not tithing enough and low and behold. The church fell apart at the seems. Come to find out the preacher was the most corrupt in the church and was stealing from the tithes.
After that little incident my family tried many churches and types but couldn’t find a churches that didn’t show shadows of the same corruption that was in our first church. Is it really any wonder that so many turn their backs on church when the ones telling others to come to church the loudest are the ones that have the most corruption? I was always told this little excerpt from the bible: “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” I’m sure there are a lot of good people among the non believers in the world. I have stopped judging them for not accepting religion and respect their choices so long as they continue to be good people. I think as believers we need to reexamine the belief that just because someone doesn’t go to church that he/she isn’t a good person. I’m starting to believe that the ones that don’t go to church and gossip about everyone else in the church, and they don’t steal from the church because they provide for themselves, and they don’t turn other toward or away from what they believe; they are the truly good people. Granted there are a lot of good religious people as well but they are constantly having stones thrown at them, yet continuing to be respectful either. It’s like shopping for a satellite tv provider. Some are going to be awesome, like Direct TV and cater to families with Direct TV Family Package Channels
The other day I asked a non believing friend how he felt about religion. He stated something that I wasn’t expecting. He said, “The world needs religion. Without a basis for morals and a code of ethics the world will fall into chaos. I respect religion and those that worship it. I just find that religion is not a place for me or what I think should be a priority. For those that need religion I can respect that decision. I just ask that they respect that I do not want religion in my life. That doesn’t mean I won’t strive to be a good person in life. Just that I, like many others, don’t care to be apart of everything you call religion.” That shocked me and made me think about things in a different way. I do respect his choices and I also respect him as a man. I wish him the best in all of his endeavors and hope that he attains the peace with religious people he is searching for.
