Government should ban the sponsorship of religious pilgrimage

Centuries ago, where our society has been deeply religious, the problem of funding in religious pilgrimages was never put in question? Why? Because we have to explore several points of humanity, and what religion is for humanity. Athiests call religion "irrational and immoral in this rational world", but is it? Is it really irrational and immoral? Ending sponsorship of pilgrimages would end centuries of irreplacable traditions. As this is my opening argument, I would like to start of with some definitions:1. Pilgrimage: A journey to a holy place2. Sponsorship: To support an action3. Religious: Relating to religion(All of this came from Webster-Merriam Dictionary)Therefore, I would like to start with my first point: that religion is the guiding light of humanity. For centuries, we have often look to religion for answers. We have often look to religion for guidance. We have often look for religion for joy and happiness; for the meaning of life. The meaning of life is different in many religions, but they mostly come to a same conclusion: 1. The meaning of life is to, in a words of a Satanist, have a happier after life2. The meaning of life is to act morally and to support conscience. However, through the many years of scientific development, the relevance of religion in contemporary society soon came into question. Is religion relevant to society? Doesn't scientific proof show that creationism is wrong? We may briefly ignore those questions, as there is a bigger phenomenom looming in our minds. That is, of the plethora of religious believers, who came from all over the world to pay their respects to their prophet. There arises a question: should the government support these religious believers, whose morality and conscience told them to come and pay their respect to the prophets that they, for so long, adored? I answer this question with another question: is it correct to end centuries of traditions? The answer would be no. Traditions provide the identity for a human person, and is the only reason why diversity exists. Traditions provide something for a human being to move back and study upon, and then say "ahhhhhhh, that's where I came from. " Religious pilgrimages are a part of this tradition, and in some places, like the Vatican and Israel, they have become an important part of life there. If the government stops sponsoring religious pilgrimages, centuries of traditions would go down the well of ignorance. This is not what we want the world to go. The opponent clearly states that the money that goes in the sponsoring of pilgramages goes to waste; it is not like that. In fact,the economical benefits of pilgrimages surely surpasses the negative effects of it. Pilgrimage is a form of religious tourism, where people come from everywhere to astonish at the gaze of a place that their faith has revered. Cities like Mecca, a common site of pilgrimages, has developed into a huge cosmopolitan city, because of the benefits and profits of pilgrimages. In Israel, 450,000 visitors come on a pilgrimage their, and the profits that religious tourism gave to Israel that year was US$ 432 million. Boris Vukonic, a Professor of Economics at the Faculty of Economics, Zagreb, has stated that "How else can we account for Mina, a village that grew into a town, costs US$100 at the peak period? " These benefits of religious tourism surely surpasses the opponent baseless claims.