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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)."
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along..
I resigned from the church ages ago, where's the site to help people resign from the state?
Could someone from over there please explain how this Church Income Tax works? sounds scary. Of course, over here in the U.S. the old traditional Baptist churchs do their best to get everyone to tithe (10% of income), but it's not a line item on our form 1040
for "resigning" from AOL
The most common reasons cited for resigning from the church have been saving church income tax (1.3% on average)
In medieval England, wasn't the church tithe 10%? They're lucky its only about one percent!
Money is more important than jesus
You bet money is more important than some old Jewish bloke who lived 2000 years ago!
As long as your imaginary friend is saying "DONT kill", I'm cool with it. It's when they switch to saying "DO kill" that I get concerned.
stuff |
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?
Slashcode turned my "does not equal" sign into a question mark. Deconstruct != dismantle. Contrary to the implication of the title, this article has nothing to do with deconstruction.
When I went through this process, it was not yet possible to resign through Internet. I had to visit the church office and the priest wanted to have a serious discussion with me. I was a bit rude and cut it short...
Internet used to get people out of sending money to the church? Splits voluntary religious power from mandatory state power?
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!
--
make install -not war
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.
an ill wind that blows no good
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.
Unless I'm misreading, this is about resigning from one particular, state-run church which you are born into as a citizen. Are people who follow different faiths "anti-religion" even though they can devote their every waking moment to a religion which doesn't include this particular Lutheran denomination? Read this and get back to us.
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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.
My blog
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."
No, the problem in Finland(I live here) is that the Lutheran church is so dominant(in numbers, but not in influence) that the state has agreed to help them collect money, using the our regular taxation system. This is NOT an action of a state separated from the church, and also unfair against the other religions in the country. Mind you, the official line of the state is that they have nothing to do with the church. Yet almost all governmental ceremonies are atleast partially Lutheran, considering the location(church) or content(psalms, biblereading).
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.
She: Hey, are you a traitor? Me: No, I'm atheist.
Everyone's knee-jerk reaction is to say 'good for you' but I wonder how much of a part their church instidution plays in providing support and services we now associate with government. Are these taxes simply lining the coffers or going to things such as a version of welfare and social services?
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.
That is just subversive
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.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
People aren't being encouraged to seperate the two, they are being encouraged to abandon religion all together. What are the numbers of new enrollment in other religions besides the state run religion, in Finland? I am just saying that if your desire is to seperate church and state, then create a movement to seperate the two. Don't create a movement to get people to abandon religion. That is just subversive.
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.
I think this whole concept of a "state church" is what the founding fathers were against, and the motivation for separation of church and state, not petty crap like what is going on in San Diego.
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!
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
Given that, what does "Separation of church and state" really mean, anyway?
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". 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 (independently from the corruption of his regime followed by an economic crisis) 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, murders of famous members of the clergy, and it all becomes more and more blurry.
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.
The owls are not what they seem
It may not sound like big news if 41000 people use a web service in some small country somewhere. But it is actually a huge effect. In a country of 5 million, nearly 1% of all people - including kids and pensioners - have resigned from a powerful institution with few clicks in the last couple of years. In US that would correspond to almost 3 million people!
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.
There is no state church in Finland per se, and citizens are not born into Lutherian church by default. Their parents can also choose otherwise, ie. not to became members of ANY church.
"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.
The cross in San Diego was quite offensive. It made me feel unwelcome because I am not Christian. It was on government property and could be seen by a lot of the city. Although it was an obvious violation of the separation of church and state, a judge had to order it removed many times before it was taken down. Religion is quite a bad thing IMO. Believing in a god is harmless for the most part. However, many wars have been started over religion (eg. the crusades). The real problem with religion is corrupt/stupid religious leaders who do not respect other people's beliefs or lack thereof. Also, why believe in god? I might as well believe in the invisible pink elephant in the room. (Not that it is possible to be invisible and pink, but most religious beliefs contain irrational/impossible components.) Look here: http://www.google.com/search?q=dawkins+religion for more problems with religion. I don't think there is a problem with people believing in whatever thing they want. They just shouldn't try to make other people believe in it if they don't want to and they shouldn't kill other people for what they believe.
"A witty saying proves nothing." -- Voltaire
Just in case, here is the original video of this. Nice spoof!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Massachusetts was the last US State in to disestablish its state church in 1833 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Established_church). The state church in MA was Congregationalism (which I think is now part of the very liberal "United Church of Christ"). When MA abolished state religion, they did it as a matter of public policy, not because the US constitution forced them. The idea that the several states are forbidden by the Federal constitutions to have a state religion is fairly modern and was only expressed by the Supreme Court in the 1940s. Up until then, established religion by the individual states and local communities was considered compatible with the federal constitution because the Bill of Rights was usually interpreted to only apply at the Federal level. However, as a practical matter, AFAIK every state has had a prohibition on offically established religion as a part of their state constitutions for a very long time.
Unlike the Jewish (Christian/Muslim) god, the Greek gods didn't really 'smite' the humans or 'taught them a lesson', at least not as often; they more or less fooled around with them. Zeus for example really looved the women, he used all his magic tricks hunting after hot chicks. - To be fair though, if you read Homer et al you will find there were morals, virtues and values, but it was more of a karma/fate thing, not a 'faith' thing.
Polytheists were also naturally more tolerant towards other beliefs as well, compared to quite an amount of monotheists who even resort to waging wars in the name of religion.
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
Article 4, Section 1 of the American Convention on Human Rights , 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
For crying out loud, abortion is almost entirely illegal in Ireland. But I suppose South American, Central American, and Ireland aren't Western countries?Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.