[627467]

I don't think this is religious institution v non-religious institutions scenario where the first stopped caring and the second cares. I think it's: more comfortable/complacent societies don't care about eliminating suffering so established institutions (religious or not) just stopped caring too. Plenty less-established religious institution are (at least) convincing enough people they are focused on reducing suffering. (in Christianity look at the evangelical movement around the world)

[BJones12]

> I think it's: more comfortable/complacent societies don't care about eliminating suffering so established institutions (religious or not) just stopped caring too

This seems accurate to me. To wit: https://principiadiscordia.com/book/45.php

But instead of 'just stopped caring' I might substitute 'realize they don't have the resources or power to fix the root cause and are resigned to reducing suffering on a small scale'.

[kmeisthax]

It's also important to keep in mind how much power Christianity has lost over the past few decades, to the point where most religious authorities have firmly chucked the whole "actually helping people" thing out the window in favor of power maintenance. Don't worry, Billy, once we've made women barefoot and pregnant again and wiped the gays off the face of the planet we can totally have our faith-based socialist[0] utopia.

Of course, their kids saw this as immediately, obviously wrong and disassociated from their parents. Then they proceeded to join the Democratic Party, bringing all of their entirely ineffectual political tools along with them. This was, again, very useful for helping a certain subset of elites[1] retain position in the social hierarchy but not useful at achieving any of our stated goals. Don't worry, @jointheresistance2016, once we've cancelled enough old fogeys in Hollywood and found someone who can pass all of our purity tests, we can totally have our Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communist utopia.

The answer to "OH. WELL, THEN STOP." is "But if we do that, then the bad guys win!" We've been drowning ourselves in outrage, accelerated by new communications technologies[2], as the people who actually run the show are plotting to see how quickly they can get everyone else to kill each other. Everyone is vying to grab as much power as they can as quickly as they can to impose their ideas upon everyone.

Free societies are built on a bedrock of decentralization, trustworthiness, and humanity[3]. Whether the institutions have the word "government" or "religion" (or "union") written on them matters less than if they're able to meaningfully resist attempts to divide and conquer the public. The more an institution focuses on gaining power, the less they care about eliminating suffering. I mean, why would they? That suffering is the point. It both eliminates a group of people as potential competing powers as well as creates a justification for you continuing to centralize power.

[0] I am perfectly aware that using this adjective is going to make many a Marxist's heads spin. Bear with me.

[1] Us (as in, the average tech worker) and our bosses (who have fucked off to the Trump Train)

[2] Specifically, cable TV and social media. The relative political harmony of the 1950s was aided by a deep and pervasive government censorship regime, whose harms are unrelated to this rant but were arguably worse.

[3] Or if your particular political ideolect prefers, "diversity, equity, and inclusion".