I’m an atheist myself, but I still recognise that houses of worship aren’t solely about paying homage to a particular flavour of Invisible Bearded Sky Man™ or enriching and giving power to His sales reps on Earth.
For example, Notre Dame Cathedral is a monument to human ingenuity and creativity as much if not more than it is one to a corrupt purveyor of superstition. Historically Black churches in the American South served as safe forums for African-Americans to meet and politically organise at a time when the Jim Crow police state afforded them very few other options in that regard (and that persist in that function now).
I’m all for addressing the corruption and institutional dysfunction of the RCC, for going after the anti-LGBTQ bigotry of some African-American pastors, and for reducing humanity’s dependence on organised religion in general. But intelligent and thoughtful people can do that without thinking it’s ok for “these icons to fall, even at the hands of malevolent actors” – especially since those malevolent actors often claim to be acting on behalf of their own flavour of IBSM™:
