Slashdot Mirror
Internet Dismantling the State Church In Finland
An anonymous reader writes "A Finnish secular web site that facilitates electronic resignation from the Finnish state church gained wide attention in the media this week. A gay rights TV panel discussion was followed by thousands resigning from the church. On Wednesday, 2633 people resigned through the web site, which is more than all the resignations in July. The Internet is secularizing the Finnish with increasing speed; over 90% of resignations in Finland go through the site administered and marketed by hobbyists driving Finland towards a secular, non-religious state."
And note that what is driving people away is the immorality of the church. Which is ironic, given that the church probably defines itself as the high bastion of morality.
Win what?
Finland is a secular state, don't let the two state churches fool you. The Lutheran one is basically like the archetypical izzardesque Anglican Church or Unitarian Universalists (we drink more coffee though), and the Orthodox one is just kinda ethnic. Finns go to church for Christmas, weddings and funerals, and stay with the church mainly for those things (and godfathering or godmothering), not for some religious impulse.
I myself resigned from the church a couple years back using eroakirkosta.fi after I started getting the local parish paper... to no avail, they just switched the recipient to my room-mate, who also subsequently decided to resign as well. The process was easy and painless, but don't tell my family: I might have to give back all those Confirmation gifts.
Someone should do the same for the Catholic Church. There are a great many "lapsed Catholics" who are nevertheless counted as full members in good standing when politicians decide what demographics are large enough to be worth pandering to.
You have to explicitly request excommunication in order to be dropped from the church rolls, and that's really only the beginning of the process, as they may not let you go without a fight. It would be nice if there were a site that made it easier for those whose consciences no longer permit them to be counted among the Church's numbers to take this first step.
World domination? Isn't that what they've been trying for two millennia.
Why does the kernel go through stable and then unstable forks? Can't it always be a stable build, like with Windows?
Ireland has had a popular equivalent in http://countmeout.ie/ for some time.. It seems it has been so popular that, as of August, the catholic church actually changed their 'canon law' so that defection is no longer available!!
This was inevitable once we developed the Intimate Social Graph.
It's all the pirates' fault if content producers fail. It's all the Internet heathens' fault if churches lose followers. it's always somebody else's fault.
Much like any of the Internet sites that claim to have bazillions of members - even though only 1% is active - churches claim to have bazillions of devout followers - even if most of them are only religious on paper. These people weren't real members anyway and they were just too lazy to quit the old-fashioned way; ironically "old-fashioned" describes churches in every single aspect.
The latest statistics for those that have resigned via the eroakirkosta.fi service are available at http://mpolla.net/ek/ it's very clear to see a huge spike starting from 14.10.2010 just after the panel discussion mentioned. Myself being an atheist and a Secular Humanist I'm very pleased to see that when the state church made it's view of homosexuals clear, many people decided that they could no longer reconcile being a part of such a close-minded organization. My hope is that this is the "straw that broke the camels back" and will lead to the total separation of church and state in Finland like in Sweden (yes Finland still has a state church)
This is a classic base Vs. stakeholders issue - when the organization (church in this case) fails to represent a view compatible with its base, and so long as it doesn't hold some critical resource away from its base, it will lose that base.
The usual resolution of such disputes is not the organization changing though - it is either a major structural failure of the organization followed by minimal changes, or the organization deciding threaten its base into staying in more harsh terms. This happens particularly often in politics.
Why do organizations tend to act this way? Because they virtually always exist to serve the stakeholders first, and not to serve the base they were designed to represent, whatever their origin. This is based on the idea that one has to serve one's own interest before they can logically be able to serve others - and carries through to individual members decisions to either serve the organizations resource gathering, or suppress others altruistic actions, more often than deciding to actually act altruistically through the organization. In other words, organizations select for selfishness towards the organization, and against other factors like serving those not as much a part of the organization.
So, leave all you want - even if it threatens to destroy the church, as long as the stakeholders can be comfortable with the process, it's just those fickle folks straying from the true path. But the second a true insider nails something to the Church door, then suddenly its something meaningful.
See also most group disputes inside the Democratic/Republican parties - it takes core insiders to cause the party to blink. The base falling apart is just unfortunate noise. Reality ignored all over the place, when it doesn't serve the interests of the core shareholders.
Same thing with most businesses, unions, communes, mutual funds, and so on - they all organize, then tend to find themselves more unresponsive to their base over time.
Ryan Fenton
The only thing that prevents me from leaving the catholic church in germany is the fee that I have to pay in order to get out. It's 30 (~42$) and a visit to the local court. I don't know if you have to pay a fee in finland.
"Die endgueltige Teilung Deutschlands - das ist unser Auftrag." - Chlodwig Poth
And we would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for you meddling kids.
More likely its that Finns dont want to pay the 1.3% church tax that church members have to pay.
The Danish website https://www.ingenkirkeskat.dk/ (no church tax dot dk) has been up for a few years. I used it to resign from the church, and got the additional bonus of saving 0,80% income tax. The site says he (it's a one man operation) has saved Danish tax payers DKK 123'535'000 (EUR 16'500'000) so far. His fee is DKK 99 (EUR 13), because in Denmark it has to be done in hardcopy.
Wilson's Nails, etc.
-- Barbie
We can do it by snail mail only, but we've got an unofficial online counter: http://sbattezzati.it/
There's a browser safer than Firefox, it is Firefox, with NoScript
As of right now (1PM Saturday 16th October 2010) there are already over 9000 resignations. Yesterday (Friday) we saw 3473 resignations. Today will see a new daily record again. Currently (by 1PM) there are 1343 resignations and the projected number is over 4100.
Monthly resignations (Currently October 2010)
Daily resignations
legend:
Living in NZ this astounds me! When I was a kid, mum used to give us coin each (20c, 50c or so) to put in the collection basket at our Catholic church. And I know some of the fundie religions (especially the evil Destiny Church) get all their fools to donate 10% of their income. But an actual church tax - now that's messed up.
I don't think there's such thing as paying to register/deregister at a church either.
Anyway, since I declined confirmation in my teens I'm now a reformed Catholic - an atheist.
...and usually students. So their income is low and consequently they might be under the threshold for paying church tax.
> So, people who go about telling how you should go about your life, cannot be held to a higher moral standard?
You're reading what he said backwards. You don't appear to know what "ironic" means..
He's saying it's perfectly normal to hold those with moral authority to a high standard, rather than it being the opposite of what one might expect (i.e. "ironic").
Technically, yes, but it's hard to find a group that tops Christianity in (A) influence, (B) sheer amount of counter-factual woowoo, _and_ (C) hypocrisy.
Heck, even finding a match in two out of three is hard. Even some of the most pencils-up-the-nose underpants-on-head retarded conspiracy-theory groups tend to fail point A majorly (each particular CT has a rather limited fan base), and they tend to stick to one or two idiocies so they don't come even close to Christianity in regards to point B.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
First: Posting A/C since I don't want to beg for karma but would really appreciate it if many people see this since I've asked on plenty of Finnish forums but not gotten any good answer.
When I used the site to leave the church, two elderly women rang my doorbell a few days later telling me that "Jesus has something to say to you, young man" to which I replied "tell him to send me e-mail" and shut the door. Half an hour or so later I noticed that they were still standing outside my door and whilst I obviously don't get intimidated by old ladies, I found it quite rude that they did that. Now my question for my fellow Finns is whether any of you have had the same experience? I don't know precisely who they were but obviously presume that they were from the church and suspect that they update their records manually and make such visits every time someone leaves the church. I might add that this happened in the city of Espoo.
It's not too weird if one looks at their god from the perspective of dystheism, maltheism or gnosticism (if only those weren't also suppressed a long time ago as "heretics" - but hey, it's something the Demiurge would want ;p )
Also, one old Usenet posting writing about it much better that I could in a reasonable amount of time. Maybe this one, too.
One that hath name thou can not otter
..this can only be accomplished by visiting the register office in person. There are no fees, as far as I know.
More information about leaving the (Greek Orthodox) Church, here.
I don't mind dating a girl that has been with everybody, as long as she had a good shower afterwards.
Probably, although I suspect that it also reflects people who left the church years or decades ago in practical terms.
One thing I find amusing about endless American discussions about the separation of church and state is that for many Christians, this is one of our important beliefs. I live in England (specifically England, don't confuse with the UK). We have a state church, the Church of England. Until the 60's farmers had to pay tax (tithes) to the C of E, even if they belonged to non-conformist churches - i.e. those churches which reject a link between church and state. From 1661 until 1828 non-confirmists were barred from holding public office, and were only permitted to take university degrees in 1871.
We don't believe in state support: it's a Faustian bargain. If church and state are linked, the state will control the church, at least to some extent.
And in that October_30th (531777) made a good point which I'll quote:
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.
I think eventually after majority of the population has excluded themselves out of religious issues, we'll just get the increased number of islamic immigrants and right wing crazies fighting amongst themselves, collecting news headlines and escalating the issue.
Thanks for the link to that usenet posting. Almost right from the 'church' of Dawkins. Good piece of writing. Every once in a while I am very glad to read slashdot comments, because of small gems like this. Cheers.
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
Since just before summer it came to light that a Belgian bishop had been abusing his nephew throughout his career of spreading the love, 1.000s of Belgians are 'de-baptising' themselves online too, through a humanist site (ontdoping.be). The Belgian church is supposed to make a note of this in their baptism records, but no-one really knows if they do. As it happens, just this week, the Belgian archbishop released a book from which a single quote has made the media: "Aids has in it a kind of immanent justice". Off course this quote was designed to polarise and shock, as well as divert the attention from the pedo-scandal. Only now politicians are reacting by asking to review the church tax system, which is a system installed by Napoleon, and still in effect many countries that have been at some time under Napoleontic rule, ie. half of Europe. We don't have a percentage in our personal taxes reserved for religion, instead the state is responsible for the upkeep of all church buildings and church staff wages. And since Napoleon was a Catholic, only the Catholic church has these benefits. The word in parliament is now to change our tax declaration to mention how much we want to give to which church. My guess is if this passes as law, only some religious extremists will give them any money. For my part, they could make all religious organisations self-sufficient. Pity that y'all don't speak dutch cause we have a much more fun word for this: zelf-bedruipend: literally, let them drip on theirselves. I believe this = Even though I don't know, I pretend this to be true
Those links are a MUST READ. Wow. Great stuff.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Just out of curiosity does paying the tax guarantee you a spot in the cemetery? I know a couple Germans that pay the tithe simply so they will have a spot in the cemetery, otherwise the spot just gets "rented" and they cremate the body a couple years after you die.
Monstar L
And how many believers would choose to formally break links with their church for such small (considering the eternity...) savings?
No, those people shouldn't have been counted as members a long time ago. It's just that up to know they didn't care, even despite 1.3% (hey, good for some traditional services)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Finns never struck me as particularly religious anyway.
I wonder what's going on with Sweden, Norway and Denmark?
There are two concepts in Christianity that address these issues - Faith and Grace.
Some critics have defined faith as "believing in what you know isn't true." But the essence of faith (in general) is that you'r supposed to subjegate your own ego/reason and trust another. Some people will call this Doublethink, but Faith means not rushing to a judgement based on a usenet posting constructed by a simple Human - God has a bigger plan.
Grace is another concept by which you get to an enlightened state even though you're incapable of it - you get it via God's grace.
All one needs to do is look at the millions and millions of people killed by hard-core Atheists (Soviet Union, Khemer Rouge, French Revolution) to know that Christians don't have a monopoly on whatever the bad thing is that people have. The philosophy behind the God-concept is much richer and more subtle.
the Church is automatically on the wrong side.
Religion is not a buffet bar you saunter up to and select from the various rules from all available. While those of faith are rarely perfect in their adherence they acknowledge what is. To claim the church is not moral because a survey declares gay marriage as acceptable is a stretch. By the standards of Christian (and and in Islam and Judaism as well) the gay lifestyle is far from acceptable.
I guess you could say that certain loud parts of society are upset they cannot change what is and therefor declare what offends them as immoral.
So whether or not you agree with gay marriage/lifestyle/etc it do not expect to change religion, do not expect to minimize it by declaring it the problem either. I am quite sure you will find lots of positives in that survey who would not tolerate a gay couple in their circle of friends but are afraid of answering a poll in a way not considered politically correct. Can you change morality by intimidation?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I think there is some guarantee yes, but it's not eternal. AFAIK graves are often reused after some decades when the corpse has rotted away to the point that they can dig down a new one in roughly the same spot.
Also, I think that as the official state church, the Lutheran church has some kind of responsibility for taking care of bodies of people who don't belong to any particular faith nor have any kin paying for the disposal, or such. I suspect most parishes have some odd corner in the graveyard for these people, or then they are cremated, whichever is cheaper. FWIW cremation is increasingly common in the cities also for church members, for obvious reasons.
If church and state are linked, the state will control the church, at least to some extent.
Or the other way round: Ireland, for example.
Am I the only person who is utterly flabbergasted that it appears to be that in most European countries, you're automatically enrolled in the state church without your consent, and on top of that, you pay -additional- income tax? Like... there's a line on your pay statement every month saying "Church Tax" or whatever? Amazing.
Unless there is some trick on heaven, the mujaheddin are quite unlikely to find any anal compatriot virgins.
That's just the way things work in societies that value the hymen.
I'm personally not religious, but I have no problem with people who are, as long as they don't act stupidly (being an American, this is something I see far too often). When taking a stupid position on a social issue can be observed directly to lead to a giant spike in defection, along with a corresponding giant financial loss, I think this gives the Church of Finland plenty of incentive to reconsider their social policies to keep up with social progress. Basically, they need to keep their customers happy for the money to continue to roll in. When opting out is easy, that just makes their work harder.
I have no doubt that this will be a good thing for the Finnish church in the long run, and it might be a good thing for the Christian religion altogether, because the progress that will be made by the Finns will, with time, possibly trickle into the church teachings in other countries.
Have you been to Germany? Yeah, try 8% or 9% depending on whether your Luthern or Catholic.
Ignoring of course who supposedly gave us that reason; an act which to fully get appreciated would need now to be... relinquished? OK... (nice how that faith works BTW, simply dispelling taking a broader look at what it holds dear, also just on the basis of where that look is hosted). And yes, congregations and their rituals evolved to induce mystical feelings, we know that. There are much easier ways if you want those.
Yes, people are generally bastards (which is of course the most straightforward reason why their gods and organizations are, too). However, certainly when looking at all the stats of positive societal factors, there is a very strong correlation between them and levels of organic secularism in a given place. BTW I can't speak much about French Revolution or Khmer Rouge, but I had a decently intimate insight into workings of European-area Warsaw Pact - and "strangely" enough, virtually all Party members were closet Christians, their kids baptized, attending services in the country, etc. With general level of religiosity still there and, at most, regimes usually trying to introduce on top of it their new state religions.
(there's another curious correlation BTW - take a look at a world map, take note of places which are historically strongly "old" Christian; now take note of places which had major problems with "communism" - notice any interesting overlap? I suspect it boils down to continuing reverberations of strong feudalism typical of those societies; certainly some sort of continuum - you thinking how it's a case of clear opposition, how it is sensible to use it as such, is another confusion on your part similar to one pointed out by the first of linked usenet postings)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Wonderful. All points that came to me naturally as the church and my parents failed to ever satisfactorily resolve any question I had about religion's complete lack of logic (when the universe is full of logical consistency) or God's apparent lack of willingness to use his omnipotence to help humans. It's nice to see the thoughts I had summed up so much more eloquently.
As of 14.00 EEST today, 10,000 persons (~0.2% of the population) have left the state church in three days. The pace seems to be somewhat accelerating even.
As far as PR catastrophes go, this is a fairly major one. The average tax paid by a church member is 300€/year, so this means annual losses of at least 3 M€.
What I find incredible is that it appears to be an opt-out system that the government collects the money on behalf of a religion. WTF?
Just one example:
A Christian cheats on their spouse and blames it on man's "fallen" nature and leaves crucifix-equipped Jesus to take the heat for it, making their share of his pain that much worse. And they keep doing it because of this "fallen" bullshit. That's mean.
A moral being just plain doesn't do immoral things because these things are immoral and spares crucifix-equipped Jesus (metaphorical or otherwise) that share of pain.
A moral human being would get Jesus the hell off that cross. I know I would, given the chance. *imagines sniping Romans* Christians are content to keep him there so he can keep bleeding and hurting for trivial garbage. Animals.
When it all comes out in the wash, it's going to be the people who didn't need Jesus who actually took his advice to heart. Every bible thumper who came to my door was nuts. Serving "Jayzus" by pestering me with Hell talk because of their own guilt over something of varying severity.
I'm not having it. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Satan is supposed to personify deception. The ultimate deception would be that of convincing idiots that they can do whatever they want and get away with it just by leaning on Jesus--only to spring the trap later on. That's a clever filter as I'm sure it would keep murderers who repent just before lethal injections, child molesters, RIAA attorneys and hypocrite televangelists like Swaggart out of Heaven, else, why would you want to be there?
It's going to be the unconquered, the ones who didn't use Jesus as a human shield, who truly save your ass--assuming you're worth saving.
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
I'm a Finn, an atheist, and I'm a member of the church. Most of my friends fit the same description and most have just been too lazy to resign from the church. When this first wave of resignations made headlines, a couple of my friends resigned as they had just forgot and this reminded them. This "don't want to pay tax, but I still believe in God" is in my opinion just BS that the church and believers keep touting, because they simply can't admit that a lot of Finns don't give a crap about religion and the only reason they are still members of the church is that they were registered as members when they were kids.
ps. I'm actually a member myself. The only reason why is that I don't care to waste time explaining to my mom why I resigned. I live in the US and my permanent address in Finland is my parents' address, so they would get the letter... Besides I don't pay my taxes to Finland, so it won't make any difference.
It bears remembering there is a massive difference between asking God to guide you in your execution of your own ideas, as did the framers of the constitution, and saying that you, defacto, speak for God, as do the current crop of TV ministers, evangelical shock troops and various self-anointed crusaders (of all nationalities).
I would ask such militants why their deity has adopted such a hands-off policy towards the suffering of the innocent in the world (especially the children) but the rules of Faith neatly circumvent their obligation to provide a cogent reply. And, from the clouds there comes also no answer.
And we would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for you meddling kids.
You mean if they weren't meddling with those kids?
Give me a time in history when people have held the church to a higher moral standard.
The church has been corrupt at least since about 300AD around the time of the Council of Nicea (and it was political before then). You want popes who kill and rape and are hungry for power? You want priests who abuse? You want catamites? You want greed? You want hypocracy? You want genocide? The church has it all. They are the poster boys for the Seven Deadly Sins. Why do you think they call them "Cardinal" Sins? Because all of the Cardinals commit them.
The Church's teachings of love and respect are the ideals which everyone should strive for, but we will all fail at some point (and usually multiple times). That's why the Sacrament of Reconciliation ("Confession") exists in the Church.
At least for the Catholic Church, they teach that the only two people who should be followed as examples of human beings who are sinless are Jesus and Mary. The rest of us are sinners.
I'm not sure where you're getting the impression it was ever otherwise. Have you ever failed to live up to your own standards? Just because you try and fail doesn't necessarily mean you're a hypocrite.
After the revolution the French tossed the church out of France for about two years. That was followed by the state begging the church to re-establish itself due to the chaos that filled the streets. It seems that without a set moral code society crumbles and other people start to be viewed as victims in waiting. Charles Dickens once described stepping out his front door as stepping into a sea of criminals with one or two innocents mixed into the throng. And that was in a society with a well order set of morality. Pull the religion plug and the entire society flushes down the drain.
Matthew 5:17-18 records Jesus to have said this during the sermon on the mountain,
You said,
Deuteronomy 5:11, as part of the Ten Commandment, says,
It is only a tradition of the people, not a law of God, that forbids the use of the name. However, the exact name need not appear in an expression if the expression is meant to dishonor God. You're judged by the effect of your conduct, not by whether you observe the technicality of the law. I would invite you to read Matthew 15 where Jesus talks about how teachers and experts of the law actually break law for the sake of tradition.
My parting word for you is that don't let homosexuality separate you from the love of God. There are many sins people have that are not as visible as homosexuality. The lack of visibility of those other sins doesn't make them more right to criticize your homosexuality, but don't let homosexuality drive you away from God.
I once had a signature.
> When it all comes out in the wash, it's going to be the people who didn't need Jesus who actually took his advice to heart.
Nicely done, sir!
Church Concern Over Mass Resignations
Obviously we would not allow money spent at a gym or a bar to be tax deductible, but we do for a church even though many modern churches are similar. Many are privately owned not be an periodically elected board, but by individuals. The land that might be used to expand the economy, is instead socialized into a non-economic tax generating purposes.
The tax evasion aspect of the modern church is not just a liberal secular issue. When he conservative republican web site AmericanSpeakOut.com was fist set up, one of the first issue to rise to the top of activity was the idea that church subsidies should be eliminated. As such a plan would deny million of republicans from their fruity clubish mega churches, it is never mentioned in the official documents. But that some fetus should die because there is no money because someone want a million dollar private basketball court is indefensible.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
This is Europe. We do things differently.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
It is not opt-out. It is opt-in! (for Christ sake)
There is a formal process to join the church, you have to swear that you actually believe in the church values before they will let you join. After the oath, the priest will typically splash water on your head to signify that you have now entered the church, this is called being baptised. If you are too young to take the oath yourself it is often said on your behalf by your parents or guardians but then it has to be repeated when you are around 13-14, where you are first giving several weeks of education so you know what you are saying yes to. This second opt-in is called confirmation.
So you not only have to opt-in, you have to do twice, and swear that you really believe in God, Jesus and the holy ghost, and THEN you get to pay church tax.
Income tax btw is completely a Christian tradition, kings used to fund themselves and their state using personal estates, trade tariffs and war loot. Income tax was later adopted by the secular state, especially in protestant countries where church and state was merged (the king being the leader of both church and state), therefore the distinction between the church and state doesn't make much sense everywhere because church and state often has NOT been officially separated again (though it might in Finland, since they are newer country with a more modern constitution).
How will you know if someone is a genuine Christian? By their fruit. By their fruit, my dear friend.
Look at your life. Look at the way you walk. Look at the way you talk. Look at the passions of your heart.
Is Jesus in there somewhere? Or is He just some accessory that you add on to your life? Is He just
something that you do on Wednesday or Sunday? Is He something that you give a mental assent
to? Is He an accessory or is He the very center of your life? And what is the fruit that you’re
bearing? Do you look like the world? Act like the world? Do you have and experience the
same joys that the world experiences? Can you love sin and relish it? Can you love rebellion
and relish it? Then you know not God. You will know them by their fruit. God has the power
to change them.
Have you been to Germany? Yeah, try 8% or 9% depending on whether your Luthern or Catholic.
Uhm. It's actually 8-9% on the amount of income tax you pay, not on the income. So, depending on your income, it can still be significantly higher then the rate quoted for Finland, but not as much as you make it sound.
The Internet is secularizing the Finnish
If the internet is secularizing the Finnish, it isn't through this website, except for by some bureaucratic technical definition. This website is allowing those who had already been secular to easily make an official declaration of such, but it's not like devoted god-fearing true believers are finding this site and saying "you know, this internet form makes a good point. I guess since it's easy to unsubscribe from the church now, I don't believe in God anymore."
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
The loss of faith was a long time ago. Now they just don't want to pay the members fee any more.
A similar site in Sweden http://www.uturkyrkan.se/ was the thing that actually got me to leave the Swedish church. I have been atheist as long as I can remember, but since I have been a member since birth I never really thought about it. Until you get a job and start paying taxes it does not matter at all. It has no impact on my life at all that I am a member. Then a site like this comes along and points out how you do it and how easy it is to leave the church. Then I started thinking, "This is not something I should pay any money to, since I do not believe in it.".
That is what got me to do it and I would guess it is the same for a lot of people. Sweden (and Finland also I suppose) is so secular that a majority of members of the church are not religious at all, and are only members out of habit since birth. These are the people that are now leaving
This is starting to be available for exiting Islam. There are bus ads for leaving Islam in New York. In countries that have freedom of religion but a big Islamic immigrant population, like the UK, France, and the Netherlands, this can work. The UK now has a Government Forced Marriage Unit, with services for people forced into marriage by their families. (Guidance of members of Parliament: "Mediation, reconciliation, and family counseling as a response to forced marriage can be extremely dangerous. There have been cases of victims being murdered while mediation was being undertaken.")
I've always thought this term was a misnomer. No human can honestly claim to know the mind of God. A Christian theocracy has little in common with a Muslim theocracy, and there are differences between Muslim theocracies--the greatest being that some are Sunni and others Shia.
"Theocracy" really means "rule by a small group of people based on their interpretation of a sacred text." Which I think we all understand here, but it'd be nice to have the label match the definition, somehow.
Your brain is not a computer.
GD I need mod points right now. I never mod ac up but you sir deserve it.
Ocean is land, covered with water.
Nope. The Church collects a tax from corporations as well, and this money is used to maintain the cemeteries. Hence everyone, regardless of their actual faith or whether they paid their taxes or not, is entitled to a place in the cemetery. It's required by law.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/if-i-hadnt-found-jesus-id-feel-pretty-shitty-about,17883/
...links to usenet postings...
Thanks for these! I'll send them along to some friends of mine who, while they're not very religious, don't agree with me that God, if he exists, must be a particularly evil bastard.
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
With respect to non-religious activities churches are treated exactly the same as any other non-profit organinzation (which is not the same as charitable). Only land used for religious purposes is free of property tax and fees for use of such things as athletic facilities is not deductable.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Who said they were female?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Mod this one up, please. The Onion scores a home run once again. This is exactly the type of thing I'm talking about.
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
Ok, so Finland has a couple of established churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, and the Finnish Orthodox Church. Unless these national congregations are empowered to collect taxes, draft corvee labor or form standing armies, I have to admit I'm completely baffled by the concept of "resigning from the church in Finland."
Don't these lackadaisical secular souls just languish and perish unlamented, the way they do everywhere else?
Or has Finland, which boasts Linus Torvalds as a native son and has an entire women's choir devoted to a lively repertoire of classic kvetching, simply figured out a way to bend our brains and once again make us think unfamiliar thoughts?
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
Not if the waves of lower-class, uneducated Muslim immigrants have anything to say about that.
Marking this "flamebait" or "troll" is the equivalent of an ad hominem attack, thus conceding that my argument is correct and you have no logically valid retort.
My sarcasm detector is little off today (perhaps due to that nasty fall I had this morning...) so...
Why do you think they call them "Cardinal" Sins? Because all of the Cardinals commit them.
...than just "that church guy with a red robe and a funny hat, who is not the pope... yet".
Not that any of that changes the truthiness of the quoted statement in any way.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I'm reading everyone's version of what you need to do to "resign" your church in each country, and I can't believe it, but more importantly, how do you "join" them in the first place? why are you all official members of an organization that you want to leave so desperately? I mean, I was baptized by my parents when I was 2 (and I have to baptize my goddaughter next month, I'm still trying to convince her mother not to do it), but I have no obligations to the catholic church, it doesn't exist to me, and I couldn't care less if they count me as a member or not, in fact I'm pretty sure I'm going to hell according to their rules, and I don't care. Why is there a need to "resign"? what does it mean to be a part of the church in all these countries?
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
But the essence of faith (in general) is that you'r supposed to subjegate your own ego/reason and trust another.
And if you really believe in Santa Claus, and act like a good little boy, he'll bring you presents.
http://www.haaretz.com/grounds-for-disbelief-1.10757
Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus.
No, you just need to read it. After you get past people getting tuned into pillars of salt, the seas parting spontaneously, water being turned into wine, bread loaves multiplying themselves, resurrection from the dead, angels, devils, talking snakes, 900-year lifespans, immaculate conception, and a whole host (sorry) of other Harry-Potteresque nonsense, you'll either know it is fiction or you'll have abandoned consensual reality altogether... in which case, welcome to theism.
As far as "ancient" goes, the consensus is that the oldest copies of the fragments that make up the NT are from about 100-300 CE, about 1700-1900 years old. You may or may not think that's ancient, but that is, in fact, how old the writing is at a minimum. Since these are all known to be copies, it may in fact be a little older.
spot in the cemetery... gets "rented"
Wow. Used graves. Do Germans rent used underwear too? :D
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Matthew 5:17-19:
Jesus said "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, wtill heaven and earth pass away, one 2jot or one 3tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. "
In other words, you eat shellfish... you're screwed.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Faith means not rushing to a judgement based on a usenet posting constructed by a simple Human - God has a bigger plan.
Faith means continuing to believe whatever it is despite the odds, despite the costs, despite the evidence. But of course trusting the priest. If what he says does not make sense, well, you haven't understood yet. It's a mystery/miracle, etc etc etc.
Faith is a great way to fall pray to manipulators and abusers.
The philosophy behind the God-concept is much richer and more subtle.
It's rich and subtle, in particular it is rich in subterfuge. People believe in god because the cant/don't want to face reality. That religion is elaborate, laberynthine, probably well decorated, poetic in places, filled with some wisdom, etc. granted. But all of this would actually make more sense without the make-believe
I would also point out that it's a church, by definition it's supposed to represent the will of $deity not the opinions of the general population or its members.
That's incorrect, in this case. Evangelic lutherical churchs (one of the two churches of state in Finland) is a protestantic church. One of the main ideas of protestantism was that no earthly entity (such as "the church", "the pope", etc.) can have absolute authority on what the god wills. The belief is that every devout follower should study the bible themselves and form their own opinions. In Ev. Lut. church the church authorities are democratically elected by the people who belong to the church... So the church is simply supposed to represent the community of the religious mass and their current interpretation of what the bible tells us about god and how we should react to that.
Now, the "problem" is that finns aren't religious. In fact, we are - by some studies - one of the most atheistic nations in the world (the summanry makes us seem like some theocracy... That's certainly not the case). That being the case, most finns go to church on christmas and for weddings and funerals... But that's it. What this means? Most of us also don't care enough to vote. Only some 1-2% of those with the legal right to vote for church officials actually use that right. As can be guessed, those are the 1-2% most conservative and religious part of the population and their views aren't 100% compatible with the general population.
So: We have a church to which most of the population belongs to but which represents the 1-2% most conservative part of the population.. Every time we have a major debate (about abortion, gay rights, etc.) that the church is vocal about, a lot of the general public remember "Holy shit. The church still has that view on this? And I belong to the church?! and people leave church by the thousands.
I left the church about two years ago through that site (Lived in East-Vantaa at the moment). Never had such a visit.
It is currently that way yes, but that is a very recent change. Up untill a few years ago it was a state church meaning that you where born a member of the curch so it was opt-out and now has become opt-in
This country *was* built on tax evasion.
Though I suppose a great deal of the early (pre-Independence) immigration was for religious reasons. It really does make sense for those two to be joined like that in the modern US.
Jesus specifically discouraged tax evasion... hmm. American Christians don't actually follow Christianity. Shocker.
I'm not a member but I'm pretty sure membership is automatic if one's parents are members, so it's self-perpetuating.
If it's anything like here in Denmark, membership is at baptismal which a majority of the population is due to culture, which is to baptize infants as a naming ceremony.
I was baptized in order to get confirmation, which were a condition for getting a party, presents and money (hey I was a teen), I was never told the prize I would have to pay later. About 1% of my income from I was 18 till about 27 when I left the church.
I'm reading everyone's version of what you need to do to "resign" your church in each country, and I can't believe it, but more importantly, how do you "join" them in the first place?
The old (pre-2003) law was that you automatically joined your parents' church. The new law is that the parents sign you up to whichever one (if any) they wish.
Why is there a need to "resign"? what does it mean to be a part of the church in all these countries?
The state collects a tax (~1% in Finland) on behalf of the church from those registered as its members. The tax goes directly to the church. There are other aspects (e.g. having to do with religious instruction in school), but this one is by far the most prominent.
Faith means not rushing to a judgement based on a usenet posting constructed by a simple Human
Faith also have been constructed mostly based on writings and sayings of simple men..
People believe in all sorts of things because there are fundamental mysteries in the universe (consciouness, for example, or whether we are living in a simulation or a multiverse or a toy or the one and only physical universe) that may be forever beyond the reach of science, and we need to make assumptions in life about values no matter how "rational" we may be -- because all reason depends on emotion (which connects with values).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes%27_Error
See also what Albert Einstein had to say on religion and how science by itself can not even justify why one should do science:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm
Everyone needs faith in something. But as Einstein said, that does not mean abandoning reason totally either. The two can work together.
But bashing dogma as in here is only a small part of the process:
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/
We also need to build up to a faith in new values and new ways of expressing them in a reasonably consistent way.
http://daphne.palomar.edu/christine/e100/thinkingessay.htm
So, some people believe in various things (including one or more "gods") because it is exactly their way of facing the reality of mystery in the universe.
God has a Kingdom A Kingdom is a government with a king as its leader. Jesus is the King. This kingdom has citizens. Those citizens follow their King. Jesus never joined or participated in any other government. Jesus' followers also don't join or participate in any other government.
Can it be any simpler
I can hardly wait for the sequel involving the Insane Clown Posse.
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
and finland may be a most desirable place for civilized, cultured, conscious people.
Read radical news here
The Muslim religion is gaining members, many of whom leave Christianity behind. This is true for Europe, and is beginning to be so in North America.
The Internet is secularizing the Finnish with increasing speed; over 90% of resignations in Finland go through the site administered and marketed by hobbyists driving Finland towards a secular, non-religious state.
Storm in a tea cup. I think the owners of the site are trying to play up their role in the 'secularisation' of Finland. People who use the site to resign from the 'Lutheran Evangelical Church of Finland' are not necessarily giving up religion, there are some who are going to other religions/denominations. (Note the growth is smaller than those who are becoming secularised, but the point is, to assume that because someone resigned from a specific church does not equate to them giving up religion all together. See link further down for the stats.)
Non-religious state? Finland is a representative democracy, not a religious state. Their national church is not a 'compulsory' church that people are automatically members of that they need to resign from. It is a national church in the sense that it gets to preside over any 'official' ceremony etc performed for the state, but it is still a separate entity to the state. In order to resign from it you had to become a member to begin with (probably due to your parents making you a member), but it is not a 'state church'.
' ... the Lutheran "folk churches" of Scandinavia, characterized as "national churches" in the ethnic sense as opposed to the idea of a "state church"...'
- Dag Thorkildsen, 'Scandinavia: Lutheranism and national identity', in World Christianities, c. 1815-1914, vol. 8 of The Cambridge history of Christianity, eds. Sheridan Gilley, Brian Stanley, Cambridge University Press, 2006, ISBN 9780521814560, 342-358
Yes, Finland is increasingly becoming more 'secularised' but the trend has been happening for quite some time now and started before the internet. I see the 'Gay panel' as having more to do with this than the site. The internet is not 'dismantling' the church so much as providing an easier way to resign from it. Nothing is stopping these people writing a letter of resignation to the church once they decide to leave. Claiming the internet is 'dismantling' the church is a bit like saying the Internet is making it sunnier just because you can get a weather report off it. These people have already become 'secularised' whether they use the website, send a letter or even don't resign from the church at all.
Link for the stats that show the church has been in decline for quite some time without the aid of the internet or the website:
http://tilastokeskus.fi/tup/suoluk/suoluk_vaesto_en.html
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
Officially quoted number of members can influence policies or legitimize feeling of self-importance in some fringe social movements. One small example. Or another, about how some opening points of the constitution are a fiction, also according to every court along the way and our national constitutional tribunal, it had to go to Strasbourg. Or our late president clearly stating, during his speech at the last Day of Independence celebrations (certainly one of speeches of top significance), that to be a true Pole means being a Catholic - while he is the organ which, constitutionally, is supposed to uphold and defend the...constitution. Instead he mocked it (yes, a large part of him being in office was a mobilization of people from the first link above)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Pay your tithe you heathens!
http://stuffgodhates.com/2010/09/87-cheapskates/
http://stuffgodhates.com/2009/04/72-taxes/
When it all comes out in the wash, it's going to be the people who didn't need Jesus who actually took his advice to heart.
The only books that recount his advice recount him as regularly saying things like "I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the father except through me". If you want to take his advice to heart, his advice is that you do need him. He came and died for you; he didn't die for "people who didn't really need him".
Yes, the words are there. How are they applied in today's world, though? Severly distorted, that's how.
No free rides. That "you're saved no matter what you do, as long as you pay up" drivel attracts the guilty who want an easy way out. Man is not fallen. That's just a pathetic excuse and anyone who believes they are evil by nature needs to keep their distance from those of us who firmly believe we should be held accountable for our own actions, otherwise known as karma.
Any omnipotent, omnibenevolent God will honor and respect that or that God is a false, fallible and, therefore, my target.
If you're that afraid of karma, you've got something pretty despicable to hide.
If the truly evil can gain access to Heaven no different from the good people of the world, while casting out those who didn't believe hocus-pocus-at-a-price coming from boisterous idiots grouped with the same book-burning ilk who pester me at my own front door, Heaven can be nothing other than a dangerous Dystopia.
When a man of God who runs a church has a heart attack in the middle of yet another loud rant about gays, atheists, evolution, science, etc, I guarantee he'll take a trip to the cardiac emergency ward of any scientific hospital of the devil over prayer any day. Nevermind the possibility that this heart attack was God's way of telling him to shut the hell up. Faith in action, folks.
On that subject of preaching, spreading "the word" should never be a paid gig. When such things become lucrative from a financial standpoint, they also become corrupted.
"How dare he say that! How dare he not believe what the preacher tol me I beleive the way I believe it. Oh well. I'll have the last laugh! Ha!! That sinner is going to burn in Hell forever."
Evil. Any Christian who has ever even thought along those lines of desiring eternal suffering as the price for something so trivial is pure evil at heart and not forgiving (aka Christlike) in the least. To claim otherwise is deceptive and fraudulent.
Speaking of deceptive and fraudulent, my own aunt tips her waiter/waitress with fake $20 bills. They look real, but when you unfold them all is revealed. "Disappointed? You won't be if you accept Jesus." That's cruel. Nobody works thankless jobs like that unless they have to, meaning tips are extremely important, and to receive something that basically snatches defeat from the jaws of victory like that is damnable.
And then there's that crusader bullshit "You're not acting very Christian there, mister redneck who's beating a gay guy to death." "What wuz that? I don't take kindly tuh you talkin bout mah lord n savior like that. I'm gon beat yer ass, boy."
God lost his voice a long time ago, only to be replaced by marketing budgets, popularity contests, smear campaigns and deception passed down like a long-winded game of Telephone played by self-serving conmen. Else, why would good become evil and vice-versa with Heaven full of criminals and crazies?
The ends never justify the means. Those representing God do so via fear and guilt forced upon people who had no clue they were screwed from the beginning by an omnibenevolent god who supposedly loves us--with a gun to our heads. That is not love. That is evil.
Give until it hurts, then give a little more... because charity is supposed to be housed in big, expensive, ornate buildings while people who have nothing starve or die from diseases that evil, dirty, ungodly science wiped out a long time ago. Because it's God's will that they die so the podium at the front of your church can be made of Teak wood instead of Pine because "it's a house of the lord and must be worthy of his presence". Anyone who can see nothing wrong with this kind of excess can summarily eat shit.
God is Good. Satan is Evil. Playground logic. They got fooled. End of story.
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
Do the Finns gain a financial advantage by resigning from the state church? Such as no longer having to pay a default contribution towards it? If so, this has little to do with religion, as is the case with most religions ...
Love without logic is insanity. And vice versa.
Actually, I think that the Finnish church is trying to do its best and balancing between liberal majority and small, but conservative minority (who are nowhere near as fundamentalist as the fundamentalists in USA).
The archbishop said that being a gay is not a sin and even the religiously conservative woman who was on the TV show has tried to backpedal by saying that she has gay friends. And it seems that quite many at the church have a panic as the number of people resigning seems to be constantly increasing and if this continues long, it will be huge blow for the church.
During just few days over 20 000 persons have resigned which is huge number compared to the number of people who resign during the whole year. For last 10 years the number of people who resign has been between 13000-52000 persons.
Although I am an atheist and a gay I start to feel a bit sorry for most priest in the Finnish church. Even though I am happy that people became less religious, I feel sorry for them, because most of them are decent people and don't hate gays.
It sounds a bit like Facebook with near a billion members but less than half being actively involved in the site.
Hopefully someday something will happen to convince people who are just holding accounts at Facebook to delete their accounts.
Or when nobody remembers. Though people still seem to hope for...something; despite the alley of oldest "graves" being often just a nice collection of relocated ones.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Okay, I admit I don't know if the Finnish state church service is called a mass, but the term was irresistable.