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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?
for "resigning" from AOL
it's just on top of the normal tax, built in to the system so you don't pay them seperately... so you don't think about it even usually unless someone mentions it to you and tells you that there is a website where you can resign.
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).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
In Finland, if you're a member of the State Church (which you are by birth, but you can withdraw), they get to add a fixed percentage to your income tax bill. Sweden had the same system until 2000 when they abolished the State Church (the Church itself still exists, of course, but it's no longer a Government institution.) There, the system has been modified so that any religious organization which a defined membership that meets certain criteria can apply to tax their members. I think the rate is still set by the Government, though.
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.
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...)
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...
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.
<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 =)
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.
You're not paying for someone else's kids' education. You're paying us all back for YOUR education, which you received for free some years ago.
As a republican I feel it my responsibity to manufacture criminals. People need punished!
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.