I worked for an agency helping close a midwestern diocese. They branded it a positive thing but I was in the meetings with priests hearing the low down and how closings will go. It’s sad. Half the priests are old and just trying to get through. The other half want to help but are being told the cost of their renovations is more important. Let it crumble.
this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2024
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It's quite a bummer to not have anything planned to take its place as a more healthy alternative, not to mention how it will impact the livelihood of some people.
If you compare it to coal, which may have employed about the same set of people (?), at least talk of retraining was being made...
As problematic as religion is, at least a lot of it was completely outside the sphere of commerce. I could see the broligarchs thinking this kind of thing being a good thing for them, since if people have fewer and fewer options outside of commerce, they'll be forced to engage more and more with commerce, or else just be hermits.
Boardroom meme:
Boss: Church attendance is down. What can we do to turn this around?
Person 1: discreetly move pedophile pastors around to hide their proclivities?
Person 2: assure the congregation that we still hate gay people
Person 3: follow the teachings of Christ and show love and charity to our neighbors regardless of who they are
Person 3 is thrown out the stained glass window.
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I pray to God everyday that i can live long enough to witness the day humanity completely abandons religion. Inshallah🙏
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Good riddance.
Oh no! So, anyway...
Some churches repurpose their land to survive, like Atlanta’s First United Methodist Church, which is building affordable housing.
That's something more churches should do. They always preach about "helping the poor" but most don't give a fuck.
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From what it seems to me, the megachurches are doing okay. It's the more traditional denominations that are suffering. Overall religion might be on a decline, but certain sects are flourishing. One silver lining about some of the megachurches is that they're led by a strong personality and once they're gone, the whole organization putters out. They're more organized around an individual than a theology.
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Interesting that they can't stay afloat financially, because they don't pay taxes.
Sometimes parasites suck their hosts dry.
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The internet is killing God but giving birth to a new age of conspiracy theorists.
So, not much has changed.
They feed on gullibility and a craving to be pushed around by authority. Sadly, those aren't going away anytime soon.
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As churches decline we're losing what is, essentially, a free communal space. Church was a place where people built community.
We need to replace it with something, not just cheer because a shitty religion is dying.
I agree wholeheartedly. I don't know what the replacement would be, however. I keep thinking about that when I think about trying to bootstrap something in my community. Something that somehow (?) is supported to keep the heat and the lights on, and everything clean and very safe, the taxes paid, but provides a place to: 1) meet-up for book clubs 2) has a maker/hacker space 3) Has break-outs for hosting meetups along with projectors, etc. 4) provides open source training of various kinds. 5) Throws social functions, with food and modest amounts of alcohol.... 6) A place with trained staff that put on things for kids to do after school lets out or in the summers
Something with wifi, where access to snacks/coffee is also possible, where people can hang out all day and not feel any guilt for buying nothing or only one coffee and just being in the presence of others.
In some cases, I see libraries trying to serve some of these functions. In some cases, I have seen some "community centers" or the building owned by Elks/Masons also trying for a subset of this... if there is some nonprofit or b corp out there making something like this happen at scale, I'd love to hear it. I've been part of meetups that struggle to find/keep spaces they can use, often they have to rely on someone being employed at some company or another.
But yes, I'm no champion of churches. I also don't want every single public space to essentially dwindle to nothing. Malls are not that - and they are mostly dwindling, too. Starbucks is not that. If the only remaining public space is only trails and maybe the post office (if Musk et al don't kill that too) and the DMV, what a sad state of affairs...
So you're saying we should have more boardgaming conventions?
I'm all in on that proposal.
Or convert them to crack houses.
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No, don't close your damn doors, open them up to the homeless. Make these useless buildings good for something!
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Now the religious companies that remain are all merging together or being bought out by larger religious companies. They change their names to some douchey name that sounds like a shitty christian rock band and franchise. Somehow they're still allowed to be non-profits despite being so much for-profit.
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