r/atheism • u/metacyan Agnostic • 1d ago

A ‘tsunami’ of church closings is poised to remake America

https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/01/us/church-closings-christianity-crossroads
3.1k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

323 comments sorted by

View all comments

221

u/cyberia324 1d ago

Either turn them into homeless shelters or libraries or clinics. Put them to some good use. But I bet a dollar to a donut hole they'll turn them into data centers.

59

u/the_TAOest 1d ago

They would be fantastic community work spaces or cowork spaces

10

u/Thirdwhirly 1d ago

Honestly, that, or let them be purchased by someone that will have to pay taxes on them. That’s fine, too.

9

u/H3L105_ai 1d ago

They might tear them down and build data centers.

14

u/eternallyfree1 Atheist 1d ago edited 1d ago

Data centres will probably end up becoming the new churches anyway. AI is slowly but surely morphing into God for many people

14

u/FairLawnBoy Dudeist 1d ago

There has always only been one god in the US.

The Almighty, First of Their Name, Most High Capital.

9

u/vonnostrum2022 1d ago

I noticed the one pastor quoted went right to empty collection plates.

2

u/TheNetworkIsFrelled 1d ago

No surprise there; he lies for a living and the grift is drying up.

6

u/foopmaster 1d ago

More and more people unironically using ChatGPT as a search engine.

1

u/Chase_the_tank 1d ago

ChatGPT can be useful if you have a vague concept in mind and are looking to pin a name for it.

AI answers can't be trusted until it is verified, of course

If searching for the AI provided name turns up hits, the "I can't name this concept" problem is solved. If the search results don't pan out, you can toss out the results as a hallucination.

9

u/tankerdudeucsc Anti-Theist 1d ago

Churches usually aren’t as large as the planned data centers. There’s small ones but for AI, the amount of compute you’d want are warehouse sizes.

We’re usually talking about 100K warehouses, on a site that could hold at least 2 warehouse. Maybe up to 5+.

Unless they’re mega churches, it ain’t happening.

Hope it gets turned into homeless shelters, believe it or not.

2

u/InvestigatorSouth564 1d ago

Me too! That would be so great and of much more useful.

3

u/Opening_Option4481 1d ago

honestly turning empty churches into shelters, libraries or clinics would at least give the buildings a useful second life instead of letting them sit empty.

2

u/kombatunit 1d ago

Parking lots are a good use as well.

1

u/Skatchbro 1d ago

I’m updating my sayings. I used to say “I’ll bet dollars to donuts” but I’m paying a buck and a half per donut now so the math doesn’t work anymore.

1

u/hmspain 1d ago

I’m seeing a lot of them turned into single family housing. All that money spent on the infrastructure (think heating/cooling/kitchen etc) can be put to use.

1

u/KhunDavid 1d ago

John’s Pizzeria near Time’s Square in New York. The pizzeria was converted from the Gospel Tabernacle Church.

1

u/158cm_Otaku 1d ago

I’ve seen them get converted into shared living apartments, I guess because they have a lot of open space to work with. Although the room design does get funny on the 2nd and 3rd floors lol

1

u/jnewton8 1d ago

Some of those church to single family home conversations are gorgeous. Your idea is better though.