CBC News has examined 33 Canadian churches that burned to the ground since May 2021. Just two were ruled accidental.

Investigators have determined that 24 were deliberately set while others are still under investigation. Some researchers and community leaders suggest Canada’s colonial history and recent discoveries of potential burial sites at former residential schools may have lit the fuse.

Archive

    • Rosco
      link
      fedilink
      -410 months ago

      Christianity might not be very useful and a waste of money, but we shouldn’t defend dumbasses that go around burning buildings for fun.

        • Rosco
          link
          fedilink
          110 months ago

          This won’t help to give them reparations from the church, it only antagonizes them further.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            410 months ago

            This might be a bit of a mindblow for you, but some people don’t accept weregilds or, like, care about antagonizing criminal organizations.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      -59
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      The vast majority of churches are positive influences on their community and don’t deserve to be incinerated. I’m saying this as an atheist.

      Edit: I guess I should specify my experience is with Canadian churches. I’ve been to several near me over the years, I can remember a few that even had pride flags in the windows.

      • @Yamainwitch
        link
        4810 months ago

        Hmm are you thinking of libraries? Because libraries and books should definitely not be burned and are a monumentally positive influence on their communities. I would highly recommend checking one out near you and researching the historical relationship between the indigenous people and “the church” so you better understand the context here.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          -1310 months ago

          I didn’t realize that modern churches had time machines that allowed their congregations to go back in time and inflict horrors upon indigenous peoples

          • @Drivebyhaiku
            link
            510 months ago

            If your modern congregation starts in about how residential schools were a not so bad actually when another bunch of childrens graves is discovered there is admittedly a temptation to burn everything to the ground because God isn’t getting around to it fast enough.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        2410 months ago

        I understand why you say that, and I’d like to believe it too. I still wish there were stats on that…

        Especially considering they don’t pay taxes. If the value of their social efforts don’t reach the amount of money they’d be paying in taxes, then they’re actually a net negative.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          -2410 months ago

          The programs these churches run are typically filling in gaps in social programs that the government doesn’t have the political mandate to enact.

          If these churches were taxed you’d see their charities diminished while the funding went to some pork belly spending project, or at the very least not related to what services the church is suddenly not providing.

          Not all government spending is a net positive.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            810 months ago

            Like I said, I wish there were stats on that.

            You say “typically”. I think you mean “ideally”, or maybe even “traditionally”.

            I think churches should be required to prove their charity like other non-taxable organizations, or they should be taxed like businesses.

      • @TK420
        link
        2110 months ago

        Make no mistake, religion has no place in our society. I don’t give a shit how they appear on the outside, they are hateful places that harbor hateful people. They can all get fucked.

        I’m saying this as an atheist.

          • @Drivebyhaiku
            link
            13
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            Yeeeeaaaahhh no. The reason the churches are burning is because Canada is in the midst of coming to terms with a massive genocide that didn’t end until the 1990’s that was spearheaded by a joint effort of the Catholic Church and the Canadian government to rip Indigenous children from their families, remove them from their cultures and languages, forcefully indoctrinate them with the idea they were dirty barbaric and sinful while abusing them and then covering up the deaths of thousands of children many of whom were buried in unmarked graves and downplaying the intergenerational trauma caused to individuals and families.

            For more than a few years there have been a lot of memorials with very small shoes and a lot of people who are depressed when another grave site near a church run residential school is discovered with another couple hundred little bodies. It’s kind of a reap what you sow situation for Canadian churches at present. Some are completely unapologetic for the role they played and when there’s this much resentment and anger about how we were all made complict via our ignorance some are likely to feel that matches are more effective than arguements.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              -910 months ago

              The cultural genocide aspect of residential schools ended well before the 1990s, every uneducated virtue signaller like yourself should do some deeper reading into what the last school was actually like in its final years

              • @Drivebyhaiku
                link
                3
                edit-2
                10 months ago

                It isn’t about the last, it’s about the whole cultural impact since the beginning. The last gasp is just the final shameful icing on the cake. The effect of the schools is still very real and present in our modern day society and the rolling damages did not end with the closures.

                But then I don’t expect callous intolerance signallers who read history only to find ways to excuse themselves from personal responsibility in making anything better to care. You are too busy drowning in doxastic anxiety and attempting to self-soothe by lying to yourself that nobody is actually deeply perturbed by this, they just are pretending to care for appearance sake.

                • @[email protected]
                  link
                  fedilink
                  -2
                  edit-2
                  10 months ago

                  Being precise about the dates when cultural genocide ended vs when the last residential school shut down does not imply that I think it was a non issue or that I think I shouldn’t care about what happened.

                  You should calm down and reflect on why you decided to automatically ascribe such extreme and awful viewpoints to a stranger in the internet who never mentioned them.

      • @Rooter
        link
        16
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        deleted by creator

          • @AFaithfulNihilist
            link
            1
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            If you don’t like churches burning, then you should target the leadership of the church which is being less than 1,000 million percent cooperative with any investigation into anybody in their institutions history that ever enabled or covered up for this shit. Either we hang some church officials for their inhumanity or the churches need to be burned to the ground to make sure nobody has to look at that shit anymore and be reminded of what they got away with.

            Somehow when you kidnap children, murder them in the backyard, bury them without funerals, And then hide all this information from the police, people seem to think that if you get away with it long enough the police shouldn’t investigate you and punish you the way that we would any other child murdering psychopaths. It’s probably best that Canada doesn’t have a death penalty, but then why not punish these people by locking them up?

          • @Rooter
            link
            0
            edit-2
            9 months ago

            deleted by creator

      • @totallynotarobot
        link
        1410 months ago

        I’ve lived on the same block as two Canadian churches and can assure you they are terrible neighbours and a terrible influence.

        Not hating gay people should be the default; no one gets points for that.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        110 months ago

        I won’t argue with any of the points you’ve tried to make. I’ll simply pointy out that you’re all over this thread, apologizing for churches. All fucking over.

        • @Mun_Walker
          link
          810 months ago

          If not for a humanist charity near me I would have starved. Didn’t get anything other than food shoved down my throat.

    • @EmpathicVagrant
      link
      2110 months ago

      How many children do you think were buried under these churches? Didn’t it all start when the one was discovered to have remains?

      • Flying Squid
        link
        1610 months ago

        They don’t generally bury people under churches and I doubt they were breaking through and digging up church floors to hide the dead children when there’s soft dirt right next to the church. But they were usually buried outside the residential school anyway.

      • Aniki 🌱🌿
        link
        fedilink
        English
        810 months ago

        I am not the person to speak with any authority on the subject but you should really look into the history of white imperialism in Canada. It’s as awful as it sounds.

      • Aniki 🌱🌿
        link
        fedilink
        English
        1810 months ago

        HARD disagree. Churches are a blight – a failure of government and community.

  • Flying Squid
    link
    4710 months ago

    Treat indigenous people like shit for centuries? Don’t be surprised if one day they decide to fight back.

  • Froyn
    link
    fedilink
    4310 months ago

    2 were accidents, so 31 were… Acts of God?

    I’ll see myself out.

  • Teon
    link
    fedilink
    2910 months ago

    When enough people stop believing in religion, churches will automatically self combust. Apparently Canada is doing well!

  • @Shotgun_Alice
    link
    1810 months ago

    Maybe they should look under residential schools for the culprit, I’m sure they’re hiding down there wink wink.

  • @ReverendIrreverence
    link
    1510 months ago

    “recent discoveries of potential burial sites at former residential schools may have lit the fuse” npi

  • @ours
    link
    English
    1310 months ago

    On a different topic: how’s the Norwegian-inspired black metal scene in Canada doing these days?

    • Aniki 🌱🌿
      link
      fedilink
      English
      910 months ago

      Yep! It’s good work! We should burn the rest. All of them. Religion is cancer.

      • Cris
        link
        English
        2
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        Seems like a good way to radicalize religious folks; surely wanton cruelty to those you disagree with has no downsides

        Like I get hating religion, there’s a lot there that’s understandable to hate, but its worth considering if being vindictive towards people who’s worldview you don’t like is actually a practical strategy to improving the world. You’re just gonna get new churches that are more dogmatic and convinced of their ‘righteousness in the face of unknown evil’

        Taking your anger out on the world is actually kinda bad for the world, who could have guessed

  • stevedidWHAT
    link
    710 months ago

    What’s wrong with this? Isn’t it “you’ll burn for your sins against gods creation”

    Seems fitting to me idk

  • Don Escobar
    link
    English
    210 months ago

    The lord works in mysterious ways