Lessons From an Unlit Candle.
30.08.2025
This piece was not written to hurt anyone. I wrote it because silence can cut deeper than words. For too long, I’ve watched how religion, meant to bring good, is used as a tool of violence, hypocrisy and exclusion.
I say this as someone who once believed, who loved people of faith, who tried to understand and forgive. And also as someone who lost a loved one because of religion, and who, after years, no longer sees a place for himself in religion.
I am not fighting anyone. I am not seeking agreement or validation. I’m simply sharing what lives inside me. It is the silence that hurts the most.
There was a time when I carried faith within me. Not blind faith, but one that sought support in people, in love, and in a sense of purpose. But the closer I looked, the more deception I saw. This is not about God. It’s about what people do in His name.
I saw the most devout, praying for show, treating rituals like actors playing a part, without real belief. And yet they lied, deceived and wounded without hesitation or shame. I heard stories of children harmed by the very people they trusted most. These were stories that should have shaken their conscience. But too often, they were met with silence, with indifference, and with words like, “It’s your fault.”
The deepest divide is not between believers and non-believers, but between words and actions. Words about mercy, values and love flow easily from pulpits, from screens, and from the mouths of those who claim righteousness. Yet those same people insult, mock, look away and even turn to violence. They stop loving their own child because they were told their child carried sin. They don’t even know the person in front of them, yet pass judgment as if they had the right.
Here’s another example: online fundraisers for children who need medical care. Neighbours help. Strangers help. Even people from the other side of the country step in. But where are those who pass the collection plate every Sunday? Where is the institution that preaches about breaking bread and sharing it?
All that remains is silence. A retreat into prayer before golden altars.
I once had a sister. She was very close to me. Warm-hearted, full of kindness. But she was taught to follow the path of “truth.” She believed God was guiding her, that her calling was sacred, and that a life free of sin required sacrifice. Instead of closeness, there were strict rules. Instead of conversation, prayer. Or at least not the kind of brother she could hug, love or accept. I became something she couldn’t understand. Something her religion called a sin. No longer a person. Just a problem.
Can you truly believe in God’s love while rejecting your own brother? Isn’t that a contradiction of love itself?
Religion didn’t just take my sister away. It took away my hope that blood could be stronger than dogma. But it didn’t take away my faith in love — not the kind you have to earn through prayer.
Since childhood, I was told not everything needed to be understood, only believed. But the more closely I looked, the more questions began to form. Questions no one dared to ask.
How could the entire world have come from Adam and Eve, a single pair of people? Their children would have had to be with one another to create the next generation. Yet that same religion says incest is a mortal sin. Did God make an exception?
Another example. A woman made from a man’s rib, created to be his helper. This story laid the foundations for a world where, for centuries, women were told to know their place. How can a religion rooted in love carry inequality at its core?
There are many such questions. And the Church doesn’t like them. In fact, it fears them. Because questions lead to thinking, and thinking leads to freedom.
You don’t need to go to church to be a good person. You don’t need to know prayers by heart to save someone. Love, tenderness, and respect don’t require kneeling before an altar.
I’ve met many people who didn’t believe in God, but believed in humanity. They helped without expecting anything in return. They listened when it hurt most, and loved not because they were told to, but because it came naturally from within.
It’s not religion that makes someone worthy. It’s the heart and the conscience. The courage to be yourself, even when others look at you with judgment.
Whether you believe or not, you can still love. No matter your skin colour, faith or orientation.
You can offer help, forgive, be a light, even if you don’t light it in a church.
Because true light never needed walls of stone to shine.
