Internet Deconstructing State Church in Finland 808
Agnostic writes "Freethinkers of the city of Tampere, who advocate separation of state and church in Finland, created a Web site
in 2003
to assist people in resigning from the church. The Web site soon became a big success in Finland. 39% of all resignations in 2004 went through the web site and 69% of all resignations in 2005. In the same process 22% more people resigned from the church in 2005 than in 2004. The most common reason cited for resigning from the church has been saving church income tax (1.3% on average)."
Church? (Score:5, Funny)
I resigned from the church ages ago, where's the site to help people resign from the state?
Re:Church? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Church? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because people who have a problem with an inanimate object don't seem to understand that there are various ways to use it. It's the end goal of it's use that is the problem, not the object itself.
Don't forget that bullets have enslaved people just as they have freed people.
Perhaps if Bin Laden was threating you with death unless you served his purpose you'd understand the difference.
Re:Church? (Score:4, Interesting)
Bin Laden considers himself to be the next caliph of a new massive islamic state. He wants a strictly run theocracy free from immorality. He does not even want freedom for himself. I mean, you have a very wealthy but religious guy who could do anything he wants. He chooses to push islam, try to prevent corruption of a certain population by non-islamic values, and lead his own private little army.
Re:Church? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Church? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hey, illiterates! (Score:5, Informative)
"Deconstruction" is almost universally understood to refer to a specific sort of literary analysis.
In the US and France this is true. In other places, however, the more archaic usage is more common. It is often used to refer to "demolition" or "dismantlement," but with an orderly, methodical connotation. Since this article is about Finland, I suspect they probably repeated the usage they heard from sources there.
I suspect a more appropriate word in the title would have used a form of the verb "to erode,"...
I disagree. Erosion implies a natural process, whereas this was a directed use of technology. That seems an inappropriate connotation to me.
Please educate yourselves.
Please get over yourself and realize your interpretation of something is not the only one. Language is fluid and varied. On a forum devoted to technology it is inappropriate and off topic to complain about spelling, grammar, or word usage that does not prevent you from understanding the meaning of the writing. Besides, you wouldn't want anyone to sit here and rip apart your every word and phrase, despite it being immaterial to the topic at hand. I hope the moderators mark you as "offtopic" for you certainly are.
church income tax? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:church income tax? (Score:5, Informative)
in medieval or something times it was 1/10th of income(or potates/wheat/etc you produced.. I'm not exactly sure how it went, been a while since I was in history class).
Re:church income tax? (Score:2, Funny)
So when democracy came about, the laws about christianity and the "state church" just kinda stayed on the books
To be fair, it's fairly simple to opt-out of, and one does get something in return for the tax (christenings, weddings, funerals etc. are all free of charge).
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:church income tax? (Score:4, Informative)
The point is that just because people who (nominally) held religious beliefs committed violence, does not therefore prove that their religious beliefs caused violence. In some cases, no doubt the beliefs led to violence. That is certainly the case in the sorry Kingdom of Muenster incident. But in many cases, the religious beliefs were a convenient cover for a power grab.
Re:church income tax? (Score:4, Informative)
Why translate "kepha" as both "petros" ("pebble") and "petra" ("rock")? Because it would have sounded really funky to Greek-speakers if Jesus had assigned Simon a female nickname here -- in Greek, "petra" is a feminine noun. The closest male noun was "petros". Unfortunately using "petros" in both places would sap the force of the second part -- "...and upon this pebble I build my church?" Nah. I think it was a reasonable compromise on the part of the translator.
Something else to think about: obviously the rock-rock assocation was important to the sense of the passage, or the translator could have avoided the problem simply by transliterating the nickname, "You are Cephas, and upon this rock (petra) I build my Church."
Re:church income tax? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:church income tax? (Score:5, Informative)
<nitpick> ...which you are by birth, if you've been baptised, and thus member of the church and thus furthermore listed in the Church's census registry... </nitpick>
As a rule, people born in Lutheran or Orthodox (even in name only) families get their kids baptised and thus to the church's books. Hardcore atheist families can always get their kids named in the boring red-tape way, and I think there's no law against church-goers doing that, aside of getting more than a few weird looks... =)
Besides, it's not like the kid is going to pay the taxes in question until they can actually get a job, anyway =)
Re:church income tax? (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a Lutheran Seminarian (US). While this has been the case in the past and some nominally Lutheran communities still do this, there is a sense in which those training to be pastors (ie, seminarians) are taught to not baptize a child if the parents specifically declare that they do not intend to bring their children to church. While this is a bit different in the US than Finland, there is a very distinct difference in how this subject has been treated over the course of Lutheran history (which is really interesting for the first 100 or so years, and then boring as hell from then on). It is also interesting to note that the practise of not baptizing a child under those circumstances is an indirect result of the separation of church and state. There are too few of us (we are boring and culturally irelevant) to bring in people that aren't serious about being a part of our community. And yes, i realize that that is an extremely simplified way of saying that...but that doesn't mean its wrong.
It's companies, too (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:church income tax? (Score:3, Insightful)
I see it as people finally waking up and realizing that god is myth, no different than greek legend.
Re:church income tax? (Score:5, Funny)
Greek gods (Score:3, Informative)
Polytheists were also naturally more tolerant towards other beliefs as we
Re:church income tax? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:church income tax? (Score:4, Insightful)
You have to be a member if you want a church wedding, and for some reason many, even otherwise quite modern, young women do, and in the process manage to push their would-be-hubbies to rejoin.
Re:church income tax? (Score:5, Informative)
Church income tax (Kirkollisvero) is only paid by members of Finnish Evangelic Lutheran Church and the Finnish Orthodox Church. It's just what it seems like: Part of the income tax (exactly how much depends on the city you live in) goes to the church. No other churches are currently entitled to this stuff, but other churches are, like all other organisations, free to collect membership fees as they see necessary.
It's an old, old, OLD taxation relic, and due to the size of these churches, the system makes sense for their operations.
Apparently, it's also possible to apply for exemption of the church income tax, partially or wholly.
(Thanks to fi.wikipedia...)
Re:church income tax? (Score:2)
This is one of these things that they decided was a bad idea when they were designing this country, and so there's really no parallel to it. Any church that you'd tithe to in the U.S. would be voluntary (ok, we can argue about whether the Scientologists really make it 'voluntary' b
Re:church income tax? (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:church income tax? (Score:2)
Re:church income tax? (Score:5, Interesting)
Massachusetts was last state in 1833 (Score:5, Interesting)
14th Amendment wasn't around in 1833. (Score:3, Informative)
In 1833, it was still generally permissable for state governments to establish state religions, restrict free speech, restrict free press, forbid the bearing of arms, quarter solidiers in homes, etc., etc., though most state constitutions banned some or all of these acts. T
Re:10%-Baptists-Christian Coolition-Bush-War (Score:5, Informative)
Article 4, Section 1 of the American Convention on Human Rights [oas.org] , signed but not ratified by the U.S., and ratified by most central american countries:
The U.N. Declaration of the Rights of the Child [unhchr.ch]
For crying out loud, abortion is almost entirely illegal in Ireland [wikipedia.org]. But I suppose South American, Central American, and Ireland aren't Western countries?Re:10%-Baptists-Christian Coolition-Bush-War (Score:3, Insightful)
You probably didn't, but take a look at the subject line. The topic is about religion. You may not have started it, but that's the way it went.
There's more to it than "inconvenience" and there is certainally mor
Re:10%-Baptists-Christian Coolition-Bush-War (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:10%-Baptists-Christian Coolition-Bush-War (Score:3, Interesting)
Did you see the Simpson episode where Wigam (what's his name? - the police guy) tells Homer he can do whatever he wants to someone who comes into his house? So then Homer's like "hey Ned, come over" and grabs a club. And as Ned walks over Chief Wiggam says "it doesn't work if you invite them in".
Same principle here. A woman - or any person - has absolute sovereignty over
Someone should make something like this... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Someone should make something like this... (Score:2)
(For those that don't get: AOL will just keep charging your credit card, no matter how many times you try to "cancel." I've seen this happen to a LOT of people.)
Re:Someone should make something like this... (Score:5, Funny)
Vincent: I want to quit the church.
CSR: Sorry to hear that. Let's pull your file up here real quick. Can I have your name, please?
Vincent: Vincent Ferrari
CSR: 'K, Vincent . . . All right, thank you very much. Okay. You've been with the church for a long time.
Vincent: I just don't use it anymore.
CSR: Okay. Well actually, I'm showing a lot of usage on this church file.
Vincent: Yeah, a long time ago. Not recently.
(Here the service rep asks about another file that belongs to Ferrari's dad.)
CSR: Well, what's causing you to want to resign from the church today? I mean obviously, I mean . . .
Vincent: I don't use it and he doesn't use it, so we're quitting the church. . . . I don't need it. I don't want it. I just don't need it anymore.
CSR: Well, on June 2nd, you went to church. You were there for 72 hours. On June 2nd.
Vincent: I don't know how to make it any clearer . . .
CSR: Last month was 545 hours of church usage.
Vincent: I don't know how to make this any clearer, so I'm just going to say it one last time. Resign me. Please.
CSR: Well explain to me what's, wha, why . . .
Vincent: I'm not explaining anything to you. Resign. Me.
CSR: Wha, what's the matter, Vincent? We're just . . . I'm just trying to help here.
Vincent: You're not helping me. Helping me would be . . .
CSR: I am trying to help . . .
Vincent: Listen! I called to resign from the church. Helping me would be resigning me from the church. Please help me and resign me from the church.
CSR: No, it wouldn't actually . . .
Vincent: Resign me!
CSR: Resigning you . . .
Vincent: Resign. Me. From. The. Church. Resign. Me. From. The. Church...
LOL. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Someone should make something like this... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Someone should make something like this... (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, but that requires a serious act of contrition.
Much like how baby rapists can't just say "oops, sorry, won't do it again", the same applies to AOL users. They need to prove they've learned their lesson, and truly repented of their old ways.
I'm glad I don't pay any tithes... (Score:3, Funny)
In medieval England, wasn't the church tithe 10%? They're lucky its only about one percent!
Re:I'm glad I don't pay any tithes... (Score:5, Funny)
It used to be 10%, but some priest got greedy and wanted to collect more money, so he proposed "Tithing^2 -- Taking god's money to the MAX!".
It was much later that he realized his mistake.
Lemme tell ya somethin' 'bout church and state. (Score:4, Insightful)
In the Middle Ages, the states in Europe were relatively weak next to the Catholic Church; the Vatican maintained the Empire Rome had left behind. As individual states became more powerful and less subservient to the Vatican, the idea of a "law higher than the state" remained; this was used to justify England's Magna Carta, the USA's Declaration of Independence, and the French Revolution. In the case of Vatican City, the idea of church as an independent state remains.
Consider Asia:
Marx and Lenin would never approve of the superstitions that continue to dominate Chinese culture after the Communist revolution; yet any religion that dares to become popular is immediately cracked down upon. Why? It's competition to the official state religion, Communism. Even today, China is no more Communist than, say, the United States of America, yet the Church of Mao remains as active as ever -- and remains the state religion.
Every state has its official religion, and every church represents a government with its own laws and enforcement.
Even in the USA, getting back to said Declaration of Independence, the principles behind it need not be defended so much as practiced; as an exercise, walk through the individual grievances against the King listed therein and count how many could apply to the current government of the United States.
Organized religion is either co-opted by a government or competing with it. All governments are theocracies, and all religions are independent states.
The state is a church, and the church is a state.
Given that, what does "Separation of church and state" really mean, anyway?
Re:Lemme tell ya somethin' 'bout church and state. (Score:5, Insightful)
Adherence to the rules of a state is compulsory; adherence to the rules of a religion is not. This is in the modern, Western, context. The historical role of the RC church as state-builder and kingmaker cannot be denied, but it also cannot be used when discussing the role of religion in re: statehood today, and it especially cannot be extrapolated to other religions.
Re:Lemme tell ya somethin' 'bout church and state. (Score:3, Interesting)
The difference is the source by which they claim to derive their authority. Religions claim to derive their authority from god(s) while governments claim to derive their authority from the people.
That's about the only difference, th
Errata (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it varied; Henry of England managed to start his own competing church just in order to remarry and Philip of France plundered the Church whenever he needed a buck.
the Vatican maintained the Empire Rome had left behind.
If you mean the actual roman empire, it was of course Greek Orthodox and maintained (spiritually at least) by the Patriarchate until being overrun by Islamic forces. If you mean the Holy Roman Empire, it was an implacable enemy of the Vatican and fought innumerable wars against the Popes.
As individual states became more powerful and less subservient to the Vatican, the idea of a "law higher than the state" remained; this was used to justify England's Magna Carta,
Partly, yeah.
the USA's Declaration of Independence,
This was justified in Deist or Humanist terms, not Christian and certainly not Catholic ones.
and the French Revolution.
You mean the well-known atheist humanist movement which wiped out a good chunk of France's Christian clergy?!?!
In the case of Vatican City, the idea of church as an independent state remains.
No. A state directly controlled by the church remains. There used to be several such states, now there's only one. I don't think anybody goes from this to considering the remaining state and the church to be the same; it's just that one is based in, and forms the government of, the other.
Anyway, you get the idea...
Consider Mexico (Score:5, Informative)
It means that there should be no official religion for a country - since a religion is chosen by the people (or by their parents), and can't be enforced. Clergy should not occupy state offices (i.e. governor, senator, etc). Religion should be excempt from taxes.
I live in Mexico, and we have this distinction very clear. There's also been an "anticatholicism" idea in the government, because for more than 70 years (until 2000), it was the freemasons who were presidents and ruled the country. So more than a separation between Church and State, we have a Church persecuted by the State. The most agressive attack against the Catholic Church was when Plutarco Elias Calles became president and declared religion illegal in 1926, and temples were destroyed or taken by the state to become public libraries. This led to the famous "cristero war" [wikipedia.org]. Not surprisingly, all references of the cristero war taught in official history books portrayed the movement as some kind of anarchy - and the people who fought this war in favor of the Church, were portrayed as "savage indians" controlled by the catholic hierarchy. The official books did not mention how many innocent people were slaughtered, and how many priests and religious people were persecuted.
Since then, religion is forbidden to do public acts of worship outside churches (except when permitted explicitly by the State), and priests are forbidden from wearing religious outfits in the street. Even Pope John Paul II could not use his tiara when he visited Mexico for the first time in 1979.
All this changed when president Carlos Salinas [wikipedia.org] (independently from the corruption of his regime followed by an economic crisis [wikipedia.org]) modified the freedom of religion laws.
As you can see, religion is a touchy subject, and so is politics. But it becomes much worse when these two are mixed together. For example, the traditionally opposing party in Mexico (PAN), which was founded by compromised catholics, is labelled as "the right-wing" by the freemasonry-founded party (PRI), and they use that name, "the right-wing" to portray PAN as some kind of religious fundamentalists who are intolerant of anything. Insert rumours of secret catholic societies [wikipedia.org], murders of famous members of the clergy [wikipedia.org], and it all becomes more and more blurry.
Re:Lemme tell ya somethin' 'bout church and state. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not at all - while many of them were not Christians, they were most certainly Deists. And that's definitely not atheism. However, they were also men of their times and the religion of their time was emerging from a period in which it had maintained a virtual stranglehold over politics.
Nonetheless, although some of the founders of the US were not Christians, they certai
The exit interview (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The exit interview (Score:4, Funny)
Wow, that's hardcore. When I did the same in Sweden, all I had to do was print and sign a letter and send to my church and BAM! Straight to hell!
Finnish Line (Score:4, Funny)
I see a new threat to Freedom lurking on the horizon, ready to enter the Republican Party platform as "them" in the "us vs them" Terror War just in time for 2006 Campaign Season.
Didn't I hear about some "Cathedral vs Bazaar" terrorist manifesto praising the Finnish cyberterrorists attacking America's beloved Microsoft?
We've got to rip these Internets out by the roots!
Re:Finnish Line (Score:3)
50% Flamebait
50% Funny
TrollMod Cathedral vs freethinker Bazaar.
Re:Finnish Line (Score:3)
I know the Church has never been big on literacy for the masses, but you should take advantage of the common luxuries we've got since we scrambled out of the Dark Ages. Shouting your expertise in babbling incoherence just shows how much there's left to do.
Al a carte government services time has come (Score:5, Interesting)
The exodus from the Church of Finland is just another example of the desire of citizens to opt out of certain government services that do not serve them. As an American I would like to opt out of Social Security, farm subsidies, K-12 public schools, and public television.
Re:Al a carte government services time has come (Score:2)
Farm subsidies also don't fit here; that's just waste, not something you "opt out" of.
And while I agree about European-style "public" television, paid for by involuntary license fees if you have a TV,
Re:Al a carte government services time has come (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Al a carte government services time has come (Score:3, Funny)
Whew, in that case I'm being ripped off pretty badly (paying way more in taxes than my public school education was worth).
I prefer to look at it as paying to keep most rugrats and punks off the streets, if only for six hours a day and half the year. I'd gladly pay more if it'd keep them busy all day long, all year round.
Re:Al a carte government services time has come (Score:5, Insightful)
If you went to a private school, then your parents had enough money to pony up so that people who couldn't afford private school could have you know, textbooks and stuff.
If you were home schooled, or went to religious school, think of it as a tax assessed against your right to brainwash your own kid (apologies to secular homeschoolers).
I know it's popular to think, "I don't use it so I don't care" here, but some of us, my own private schooled ass included, think that there is a little more to the world than screwing poor kids out of an education, and screwing poor old people out of a little pocket change a month. A lot of countries do a hell of a lot more, but if there is one constant about human nature it's that no matter how small the burden, you can find a ton of people to whine about how heavy it is.
Re:Al a carte government services time has come (Score:3, Informative)
Because you will have to live, in your old age, in the society that those children create and mold. Because you are part of a larger society, and it is in your best interest that everyone else around you has a good education.
If you own a business, they may be your future employees or partners. If you get sick, they may be your doctors or nurses. Ge
Re:Al a carte government services time has come (Score:3, Insightful)
Feel free to move to someplace that doesn't have any of these services then.
There's a rather large number of African countries that don't, as well as some remaining in Central Asia. I'm sure you'll find a country with no social safety net far more pleasurable and enjoyable to live in.
Note -- do not move to Western Europe, Australia, or increasingly large areas of Eastern Europe, Asia, or South America. All
Re:Al a carte government services time has come (Score:5, Insightful)
Apart from Social Security, that's all chump change.
Take public television. The total budget there is $380m for 2006, and there are 122,721,000. If we pretend that PBS is funded only by individual taxes and not corporate tax, that still makes your share of the funding a piddling $3.10. Hardly worth your time to whine about it, I'd think.
Me, I'd rather opt out of the stupid Iraq and Afghanistan wars and get back $3500.
Re:Al a carte government services time has come (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Al a carte government services time has come (Score:3, Insightful)
A heck of a lot less than it would have had we not attacked Iraq.
-
Re:Al a carte government services time has come (Score:3, Insightful)
Bzzzzt! Wrong! Public education serves everyone, most especially the ones who are upper class and/or business owners. At low cost to themselves they get an educated workforce that is mroe productive, or an educated workforce for the co
Looking Deeper (Score:4, Interesting)
Real purpose of "separation of church and state" (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean seriously, I think all the folks who rant against the US being a theocracy and hot-bed of fundementalism, etc, etc. need to travel around a little bit more, I think they'd be in for some surprises... even in Europe!
Re:Real purpose of "separation of church and state (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a hard-core atheist... (Score:5, Interesting)
Political reasons. A functioning state church attracts religiously inspired people into one flock and under one "official" Lutheran doctrine that's very, very stable - and dare I say pseudo-secular in its tolerance towards minorities and other religions - in the long run.
This marginalizes the influence of the more miltant lunatic (evangelical) fringe and enhances the stability of our society. I would go as far as atttributing the complete absence of a credible religious right in Finland to the existence state church.
Those who seek the destruction of the one, monolithic state church should think about what they're wishing for.
Put it in perspective: IT'S HUGE! (Score:3, Informative)
And the Church is terrified. Thay are losing income at an increasing pace. They have already announced a need to shrink the number of priests and church workers in the future.
The Lutheran Church of Finland is still trying to defend it's bastion as a major institution on par with government, army and universities. The lutheran church in Sweden has already been kicked out from government protection and the process is beginning in Norway.
The Chuch is still powerful - almost evil - consider this:
- Most don't even notice that 1.3% of their income is sucked out
- At the age of 14, kids have to go to religious camps where they are forced to attest their faith. When they graduate, they are rewarded with presents and told that "now they are adults". You might have thought state-churches are tame, but this a Brainwashing, and nothing else. Bloody sickening.
- Even today there is just one (or two?) graveyards for non-religious people - and the church loves it's monopoly - if you are as an atheist buried to church graveyard, you'll have to pay hefty extra.
- Religion is thought in school, and the 85% who are members, MUST attend and pass. Otherwise no diplomas are coming your way. Could we possibly use this time better? Maths, languages, anyone?
- Due to all this brainwashing, is it no wonder that many people in Finland are completely unable to critizise or question the church or religion. Even though nobody talks about it, it is somehow accepted as a part of "culture".
In this perspective the phenomenon that is reported here is perhaps THE best internet movement that has ever taken place in Finland. Lot's of money and people are involved, and I hope, some cleansing of thinking as well.
Re:Put it in perspective: IT'S HUGE! (Score:3, Informative)
Its voluntary.
Here's a stupid question. (Score:3, Interesting)
In the US a church is a tax-exempt entity, a charitable organization. If they don't pay taxes for the revenue they bring in, and their members can write off the contributions to the church, doesn't that in effect mean the rest of us are paying money that people paying the church don't?
So if I take a vacation with my family I don't get to write it off. But if I donate the same amount of money to my church, who then sponsors an trip to Europe that we participate in, that money is deducted from my gross income. And I directly benefit from money I "donate" to my church.
If you move a few signs around the equation, isn't that the same as taxing people who don't go to church? Double-time? Because if I donate to Oxfam they don't take me on a field trip to another country. They use the money to help someone else.
Re:Real Reason. (Score:3, Funny)
You bet money is more important than some old Jewish bloke who lived 2000 years ago!
Re:I don't agree (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't agree (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"deconstruct" ? "dismantle" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"deconstruct" ? "dismantle" (Score:4, Informative)
deconstruction (Score:2)
Construction is a erudite word meaning "building". You cannot 'de-build'. If you mean dismantle or demolish, say so.
Apart from use in philosophy etc, this word is not valid.
Re:Anti-religion (Score:2, Insightful)
So what? There's nothing wrong with that either, if that's their choice. People have been "subversi
Re:Anti-religion (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Anti-religion (Score:3, Insightful)
How is that subversive? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How is that subversive? (Score:4, Insightful)
If it is not, then you are certainly no better than those people (who I assume you do not view in a positive light).
Some people honestly believe that religion is a large source of the world's problems and to truly advance we need to abandon it.
If they believe this, then is it not a theological statement? It certainly has one thing in common with theological statements: evidence collected in the real world does not necessarily agree with it. Consider this: how many people were killed as a result of the Nazi, Soviet, and Maoist regimes in the last 100 years? How many people were killed by "religion" in the last 100 years? Does this not suggest that in a contemporary setting, "political ideology" is far more dangerous than "religion"?
Furthermore, referring to "religion" as some sort of unitary entity that cannot be further decomposed reeks of dogma and either intellectual dishonesty or blatant lack of nuance. Is it not true that Buddhists have killed far fewer people than members of other religions? Yet if we view the world through your ideologically derived model, we miss this distinction. Hence, your model is inadequate at best.
It certianly (sic) is no more extreme than, say, believing in a virgin birth and reserrection (sic) of the dead.
There is a difference between (crazy) personal beliefs, and attempting to impose your (crazy) personal beliefs upon others. Someone believing that magical fairies are responsible for making the Earth go round affects me far less than evangelicals (including atheist evangelicals) running around attempting to coerce others to join their belief system.
P.S. If you have poor reading comprehension and want to reflexively mod me down, consider this: I am not a Christian.
Re:How is that subversive? (Score:3, Insightful)
"If they believe this, then is it not a theological statement?"
I really don't understand how people can take any sort of belief and claim that just because it's a belief, it's a religious statement. I'm not going to try to define "religion," but in my experience, it tends to deal with issues such as: dieties, the supernatural, faith, the creation/destruction of the world, the afterlife. Saying that you believe religion is mucking up the world is not, itself, a religious belief. Just like any old beliefs
Re:How is that subversive? (Score:4, Insightful)
The point is, that is indeed YOUR viewpoint.
That website doesn't seem to encourage people to officially divorce from religion but merely provide a way to do so. I'm pretty sure that people doing it were not actually religious to begin with. Pointing out to people that they can decide for themselves is NOT encouraging them to leave religion, and is healthy. As opposed to the view that no one should even think or even talk about it that a lot of religious people seem to have.
It's actually asinine that religion always seem to be an opt-out system rather than opt-in. Deciding that someone is of a certain religion by birth is scary. Or even assuming that they share the religious beliefs of the family they were born in.
I'm usually pretty pissed off when my family assume that I'm a christian just because I was christened, for instance.
Let people do their own choices and don't cry foul just because someone points out that you don't HAVE to pretend to share the same religious beliefs (or any at all) as your peers. If you believe that encouraging people to think by themselves is trying to shove an opposite viewpoint to your religion, then I can only assume that your religion is against free thinking.
Re:How is that subversive? (Score:3, Informative)
You've never been approached by someone trying to get you to go to a church? There's barely a week that goes by I don't have someone on the street try and give me a pamphlet, or preaching on a damn street corner. Whens the last time you saw an athe
Re:How is that subversive? (Score:3, Insightful)
What an archaic idea of government you have. Things have moved on since the Middle Ages.
Re:Anti-religion (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Anti-religion (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Anti-religion (Score:5, Insightful)
And to create a movement to get people to join a church by proselytizing on the street, door-to-door, in the malls, in the restauruants, in the supermarket, in people's snail mail, in their e-mail, on TV/radio, on the Net, in the newspapers and magazines, and even in ^*(*^&*() public restrooms, for crying out loud is just so much better, isn't it?
I won't be mentioning which religious organizations tend to do this, but they all seem to belong to one religion, at least in the U.S.
Re:Anti-religion (Score:3, Funny)
Haven't been to Utah much, have you? Or Idaho? Where I live, I have *three* completely different religions showing up semi-regularly at my door asking me to join them. I always say I can't coz I'm too busy waxing the goat in preparation for MY religion and ask if they'd like to join. They always say no, even though my religion involves cute blond women and free chocol
Re:Anti-religion (Score:5, Insightful)
Apart from your silly assumption that it's somehow automatically bad to get people to abandon religion, your argument is severely flawed: You are assuming that the people who leave the church somehow believed before they left the state church and stopped believing after they left just because they choose not to have the government pick which church they wish their money to go to.
Scandinavia really needs to get rid of the state churches. Most people are members not because they want to, but because they can't be bothered to resign their membership, or don't even know that they are members. In Norway, for instance, a child that is born to a mother that is a member of the Norwegian state church is automatically enrolled as a member, while a child born to a mother belonging to any other religious or secular society must explicitly be added, and similarly a child enrolled in the state church stays a member until he/she decides to resign the membership, while other organizations typically need to get the child to actively "take over" the membership once they reach 15 years.
The result is that the membership of the state churches is in no way an indication of what level of support they enjoy, and is only used as an excuse to justify the differences in government funding. In Norway, for instance, the funding to the state church is decided. Then that amount is divided by the number of "members" of the state church, which is hugely inflated by their membership policy, and the resulting amount is what is granted per member to other registered religious and secular movements.
Getting people to leave the state churches is a way of removing the grossly undeserved preferential treatment they get. Let the people who actually want those churches pay for it.
Re:Anti-religion (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not being "subversive," they're just allowing people to make a cost/benefit analysis for themselves.
The question that's being asked implicitly is: 'Is whatever you're getting from the Church worth 1.5% of your income?' And people -- apparently -- are saying 'no' in droves.
If people had a need for another religion, doubtless they'd find one. If they aren't, perhaps it's because that's not something that they require in their lives.
Re:Anti-religion (Score:2)
"I can support the seperation of church and state. But that isn't what is going on here. People aren't being encouraged to seperate the two, they are being encouraged to abandon religion all together."
I disagree. Church and state are separate in the US, but it's completely obvious that religion has an insane overall effect on politicians and hence politics. In Finland, we have an official state religion, but it has virtually no power to influence anyone.
I feel that the latter is much more important, a
Re:Anti-religion (Score:3, Insightful)
Churches have special classes for kids where they teach a watered down puppies and ponies version of religion that is palatable to young, impressionable children. That's quite subversive in my book. And I'm sure I could go on about other subversive religious attempts... "Intelligent Design" anyone?
Re:Anti-religion (Score:5, Informative)
On top of this, ALL businesses pay a certain percentage of church-tax. It doesn't matter if none of the employees are members of the church, hell even Muslim-owned businesses pay taxes to the Lutheran church.
I used this webpage to resign last year, for purely faith-related reasons. Some regions of the country do not allow resigning by email, even if you add all the vital information. I was sent a letter home with a form to fill in and sign, and a return envelope. I was officially not part of the church 5 weeks after I used that webpage. This because we have what they call a "regret-month", which basicly just makes you wait 4 weeks before it makes it official. Like I haven't thought through my choice BEFORE sending in my resignation.
Re:Anti-religion, no it's not (Score:3, Informative)
Historically everyone in Finland belonged to the Lutheran Church. Children born were automatically "enrolled" if at least one of the parents (or maybe just the mother) belonged to the church, and since 99% (or so) did, practically all children born in Finland became Lutherans as well.
It didn't matter how religious you were, if you were born in Finland, you were a Lutheran, even if you worshi
Re:Anti-religion (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually its probably one of the best movements we could get going. Lets abandon myth and start looking at the world logically. And it would be one less thing to use to justify killing each other.
Gaah! Lutherans! (Score:4, Funny)
Subversive? We're talking about combatting Lutheranism, here. There's nothing more subversive than Lutherans. They have managed to completely take over most of the upper midwest of the US, causing Minnesota to have thousands of lakes in which to hide their underwater fortresses (called "Perches"), and making almost everyone chant their subversive mantras, "Oh yah, you betcha" and "Well, OK then!"
Their prophet, Garrison Keillor, uses his vast network of National Public Radio stations to broadcast his "Pray At Home Companion" show directly into the minds of members, who then send in money and get back tote bags with subliminal messages embroidered onto them by Hmong immigrants working in Wisconsin sweat shops. Keillor's goal? Transition to a sinister god-like form known as a "Lex Lutheran," which allows him to have a hot, but dumb, female sidekick.
Re:Anti-religion (Score:4, Insightful)
What is the difference? If your religion is state sponsored and you believe in seperation of church and state, then what other principled choice do you have? Or do you suggest illegally dodging the tax and still going to church on Sunday?
But I doubt that is what actually is going on. I suspect that most of the people resigning were never really members in the first place. In advertising it is called "opt out". The only choice you are given is to resign if you are by default a member of the church.
Re:Anti-religion (Score:2)
Re:Atheists push to establish State religion (Score:3, Insightful)
Meanwhile, agnostcism carries the connotation of trying to figure out the ineffable mysteries of the unknown. "Is there a god? Well, I don't know. I think I'll spend the rest of my cycles trying to figure that one out." Eh, seems like too much work.
I coined a new o