Will religion ever end?

Madam,

%eing religious is endemic to our cul ture and ways of thinking. This is in part due to the fact that our natural curiosity and urge to find meaning in life leads us to it inexorably. There is an increasing number of people who don’t bother attending church on 6undays, because they believe that church plays no part in their lives or their thinking. This is Tuite pu]]ling since in the developing world religion is strong and apparently unassailable.

6eeing people in great crowds pas sionately defending their beliefs from criticism or attending weekly services are common sights in developing coun tries, including Eswatini. This proves how strong the religious meme is in Africa and other developing worlds that it is inescapable. At the moment it overrides the slow manifesting new phenomenon of unreligious people in African communities. Though this is the case, the tides are turning in western countries and those that are developed world over.

6ome people claim that one does not business and individual that contrib utes money to its purse and spend that money with the utmost care and responsibility to make Eswatini the great country that it can be.

IMPORTS

For the last time, the 6outhern Afri can &ustoms 8nion 6A&8 revenue is no longer enough as a source of revenue for our government. 6A&8 revenues have been a significant, but volatile source of revenue, where customs duties on imports and excise proceeds between %otswana, Lesotho, 1amibia, 6outh Africa and Eswatini are pooled and shared between these member countries. 6A&8 revenues have also been an important source of foreign inflows and contribute to stock of international reserves within these countries. ,n the past years, the country has faced serious revenue volatility due to the highly unstable 6A&8 receipts. have to go to church to believe in God. This is a religious illness that is likely result in the demise of religion, if it has not already done that because it is a polite way of escaping from the church teachings without feeling the guilty of this act.

RESULT

4uite a number of people identify with this mantra which the result of is what one biblical scholar termed µalienated &hristians’.

These are &hristians who cannot fully affirm the teachings and traditions of the church wholly and yet still, do not leave the church because they draw spiritual sustenance from it. , think this is ex actly what keeps us in the developing countries so strongly religious because religion gives us hope and the urge to hang on no matter what the challenges we are faced with. However, this is not the case in developed countries because many people there are less exposed to the sufferings we personally face in Af rica and so, church has little or no place in their lives. 6o, if religion is going to ever end, , will not be around to witness its demise.

KM

The reason we should keep badger ing on and on about 6A&8 revenues is that, it is already clear that the 6A&8 pool of money is becoming smaller and smaller and our government has no other significant source of funds to keep the economy going here.

Government will at some point be forced to look for alternative sources of income and the easiest source of money will most likely be your pock et, including businesses. Every bit of activity in the economy will most likely come under the tax hammer, and even when that happens, government will continue to bleed money on things that do not add value to the economy. With such limited financial resourc es, every cent of the government purse counts, and government has to appreciate this new reality and start spending money where more money will be generated

Thabiso