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Internet Deconstructing State Church in Finland
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)."
Consider Europe:
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?
How is it any different than trying to get people to join a religion? If you are ok with people who have faith in a particular religious dogma going and trying to convert others to their views, what's wrong with peopel who belive in no religious dogma trying to convert others to their views? Some people honestly believe that religion is a large source of the world's problems and to truly advance we need to abandon it. You may not agree, but it's not a carzy viewpoint. It certianly is no more extreme than, say, believing in a virgin birth and reserrection of the dead.
Don't create a movement to get people to abandon religion. That is just subversive.
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.
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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.
Um ... so what?
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.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Don't create a movement to get people to abandon religion. That is just subversive.
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.
In the Middle Ages, the states in Europe were relatively weak next to the Catholic Church;
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...
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
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.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Meh.
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.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.