Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not

“Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.” – Bill Gates

In these pragmatic words, Bill Gates, the architect of the digital age, speaks not as a philosopher of faith, but as a man of efficiency — one whose mind was shaped by logic, invention, and the relentless pursuit of progress. His statement, at first glance, seems a dismissal of religion; yet beneath its practicality lies a profound reflection on the changing relationship between the sacred and the modern world. Gates, ever the engineer, views life through the lens of optimization: how best to use one’s time, one’s energy, one’s potential. And so he wonders — if time is the most precious of all human resources, should it be spent in the stillness of worship, or in the ceaseless movement of creation?

This question did not arise in a vacuum. Gates spoke as a child of the scientific revolution, an heir to centuries of human progress in which knowledge displaced superstition, and innovation became the new form of worship. For him, efficiency is not merely an ideal; it is a moral duty — the duty to make each hour productive, each day purposeful, each action measurable in its results. Thus his remark about “Sunday mornings” is more than humor; it is a reflection of an era that reveres utility above mystery, and sees divinity not in prayer, but in progress. His words embody the modern faith: that salvation lies not in ritual, but in reason.

Yet, like many truths of our age, this one cuts both ways. The ancients would have heard Gates’s words and smiled, for they knew what the modern mind often forgets: that not all value can be measured, and not all purpose lies in productivity. The Greeks spoke of two kinds of time — chronos, the time of tasks and motion, and kairos, the time of meaning and revelation. Religion, in its essence, belongs to kairos — it invites one to step outside the rush of doing, to dwell instead in being. To the modern worker, this seems inefficient. But to the ancient sage, it is sacred. For what does it profit a man to master all the hours of his life if he has never learned to be present within them?

Consider the story of Albert Einstein, who once said that the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. Though a man of science, he spoke often of a cosmic reverence that bordered on spirituality — a sense of awe that humbled his reason. Einstein did not attend church, nor did he pray in the traditional sense, but he understood what Gates’s words only question: that reflection is not idleness, and wonder is not waste. To pause, to contemplate, to surrender to mystery — these acts are not inefficiencies, but investments in the soul.

Gates’s insight is nonetheless valuable, for it reminds us that faith must not become complacent. Religion, when reduced to empty repetition, does risk inefficiency — not of time, but of spirit. When rituals lose their meaning and worship becomes habit, the soul stagnates. The challenge, then, is not to abandon faith for productivity, but to awaken faith from slumber — to make it alive, purposeful, and transformative. True religion, like true work, should refine the heart, not consume the hours. It should sharpen compassion, guide action, and remind us why we labor at all.

The lesson is this: time itself is holy. Whether one spends a Sunday morning in church or at the desk, what matters is not the activity, but the awareness behind it. Do not waste time, but do not worship efficiency so blindly that you forget to live. Let your labor be sacred and your rest intentional. If you seek God, find Him in both — in the stillness of prayer and in the motion of creation. For the wise understand that efficiency without meaning is emptiness, and meaning without motion is stagnation.

So hear the wisdom hidden in Gates’s pragmatic words: time is the currency of life — spend it well. But also remember what the ancients taught — that the highest purpose of time is not merely to build, but to become. Work diligently, yes, but also pause to breathe, to wonder, to feel gratitude for the miracle of being. For in that balance between progress and peace, between the human and the divine, you will discover the true art of living — the only efficiency that endures beyond all measure.