Churches and sustainability problems.

[bloom]

One thing in J. Diamond's book "Collapse" is his discussion of why the Norse Greenland society collapsed. There were different factors - like the climate getting colder and things - but one huge factor was all of the resources that they were required to send as tithes to the Church in Europe - plus all of the resources that the bishops claimed for themselves - put a huge burden on the society and prevented them from living sustainably.

There have been hundreds or thousands of other societies where the church has gone in and taken a sustainable society and by imposing their morality have made it unsustainable - through not allowing birth control methods and whatnot. So you have societies that were quite balanced and the church unbalances the whole thing.

I've always been suspicious of any church with amazing buildings and expensive adornments for those in power. At what cost to the people are these things. Do the people benefit in their lives an equal amount? There must be a lot of people who think so - the way it has continued.


Looking to the future - I think people should examine objectively - what the various churches (and their policies and practices) are doing to help sustainability and to hurt it - for the world as a whole.