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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."
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!!
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.
There is no fee involved but as late as 1990's I believe you needed to visit your parish and explain your reason for leaving the church to a priest and then there was a 3 month "test-period" after which you could actually resign. These days just sending an email through the eroakirkosta.fi service is enough and no fee is involved
It's not only income tax. Also corporations are taxed by the church, regardless of whether the personnel is a member of the church or not. The money is used to maintain graveyards and other infrastructure; including graveyards for people who don't belong to any organized religion.
> 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").
Yes. This particular incident comes from the fact that the majority of people (according to polls) do agree that equality is a good thing and that gay people should be allowed to marry and adopt children.
However, the church disagrees, and because they have a government-given monopoly on defining marriage, there's a bit of a crisis now.
(You can kind of get a marriage-like thing from the government, but it's legally not the same thing.)
Are there specific instances of the Finnish state church being out of sync with modern morals?
I don't know enough about the specifics but this story seems to imply that they are adopting a position of promoting homophobia. Even amongst those uncomfortable with homosexuality (which I'd say quite a few people are), I think most people would consider actively promoting that sort of prejudice to be immoral.
The premise for the televised debate was the rights of gay couples vs. the rights of heterosexual couples. What gay couples have here is a registered partnership, which has the inheritance and most social support rights of marriage, but excludes any adoption rights. Therefore most gay parents are marked as single parents, but still don't get full monetary support, since they are in a relationship (this does apply to non-married heterosexual couples as well, where the other party is not the biological parent). Also there was talk about the "stigma" of being in an apartheid-type of relationship, basically they want to change the civil marriage law so it would be gender neutral. This ofcourse brings out all the God-fearing mongrels with their Biblical opposition.
What really makes the situation funny is the fact that even the Evangelical-Lutheran church itself is pretty divided on the issue. There have been a few (primarily female) priests that have blessed gay couples after they have registered their civil relationship. Also the fact that most of the big religions have the right to issue marriage certificates, but still have the choice to refuse service to anyone they don't deem fit is an issue to some. The biggest issue is the state church (Evangelical-Lutheran) getting funds directly from taxes, which are paid by all members registered to the church. The average payout is 1,5%. They calculated the church lost 1,5 M in tax revenue for next year due to this debate.
Basically, it's the church that opposes giving legitimate status to families already in existence, and because we have a Christian party in the parliament, they're fighting the lefties and the greens all the way. Even getting the current partnership law thru took multiple tries over several terms.
The german state collects church-tax that is forwarded.
Yes if you opt-out, you first have to pay an obulus, and this is what keeps ppl who are lazy and don't care what they were signed up to by their parents subscribed.
Now don't think you would save money by resigning,... You still have to pay the same tax with a different name; Instead of going to the church, the state gets to keep it.
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.
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. In the old testament God drowned the world except for those on Noah's Ark. He obliterated entire cities like Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins. The argument that it is right because it is popular is quite well contradicted in scripture. There are many references to staying on the narrow path, that to stray and be sinful is easy while to stay true and rightous is hard. That people accept sin as normality is to them only proof the world has become a den of sin again. It is not a reason to question their own beliefs.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I'm not familiar with this particular church, but churches in general tend not to be democratic - the common people in the pews don't actually get to vote, or have any influence at all over church policy. If you want to alter a church from within, you can't do it as an ordinary member. The only way to do so is to join the clergy, which does give you some say over the policies - an influence increasing as you go up in the ranks. As going up in the ranks depends upon agreeing with the existing doctrine, this is a very slow approach. The only other way to achieve change is to simply leave, and hope that the church realises it's refusal to update is costing it members and donations.
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€.
The irony is that the Bible pretty much says Jesus was gay, or at least bisexual. He hung around with half naked young men and lived with one "as a man lives with his wife." It was only later that various saints and popes came along and decided it was bad.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I admit I know nothing of Finnish law, but in the U.S. (and I believe most other Western countries) you CAN get an actual marriage from the government. It's real and carries the exact same legal weight as a marriage. I'm not talking about a civil union, that's totally different. You can be married by a justice of the peace, it's done at city halls and the like every weekday in every city. However, when gays tried to get married they were refused marriage licenses. In some areas it was found that this had no basis in law. In others (including NY where I live) it was found that the state could refuse marriage licenses but couldn't refuse to recognize out-of-state marriages.
A civil union is not and never will be the same, they don't survive across state lines, let alone national borders (try having a civil union from New Jersey recognized in Canada, or even Massachusetts).
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
It makes sense if you consider that the church used to be part of the state for centuries, collecting taxes and working together with the kings to hold public order. The protestant reformation did not change the practice, it only dropped the pope out of the equation (and thus increased the power of the king). There have been many societal reforms all over Europe, even some revolutions, but there are always conservative forces fighting each individual reform and it's not always easy to break past traditions, especially if they kind of make sense in the local society. For example in Finland churches maintain graveyards and arrange funerals, and this along with their general charity operations as a justification for maintaining the church tax. After all, it's hard to argue that the church tax is some horrible repressive arrangement when anyone can freely end their church membership.
That being said, the state churches have been losing ground and their official status has been dismantled in most European countries. On that point Finland is a bit of a hold-out.
The church holds parish elections, parish being the basic territorial and administrative unit, every four years. All members ages 16 and up (18 and up until just recently) are eligible to vote, and all members ages 18 and up are eligible to run. Each parish elects a parish board, its decision-making body, which is in charge of such things as the budget. The parish boards also elects a parish council, its executive body in charge of such things as hiring most employees, every two years. One person can serve on both the board and the council. A parish council is headed by a priest, though, who's known as a vicar.
Parishes are grouped into nine dioceses, each of which is led by a bishop and has the two additional decision-making bodies of a diocese council (14 laymen, 7 priests, led by a layman) and a cathedral chapter (seven people, including the bishop, the vicar of the parish with a cathedral, and one layman). The chapter appoints parish priests and selects three candidates for vicar elections. All members of a parish ages 16/18 and up are eligible to vote for vicars, and write-in candidates are possible. Apparently a decision to turn vicar elections over to parish councils is on the table, to clear this mess up a bit.
Bishops are elected by a diocese's priests, lecturers (an aging priest-without-the-frills position, I believe) and an equal number of laymen, whom parish boards select from their ranks. Ten voters can nominate a priest to run. A similar process elects the archbishop, the head honcho and general spokesman. The archbishop can only be bishopy to the oldest diocese, but heads the synod, the church's highest decision-making body that decides where the church stands (64 laymen elected by the parishes for four years, 32 priests, the bishops and a few hangers-on like the leader of the military chaplains) and the church government, the executive body (kirkkohallitus, the archbishop, two bishops and nine laymen, one from every diocese and elected by the synod, also known as those feet-dragging bastards at my folks' so clearly they have some say).
Sorry to gab your ear off, but proper answers take time and this was surprisingly interesting. I'm pretty sure I was careful, though I had to translate some of this on the fly and of course don't know how the internal politics work. Larger cities have parish unions, which, have equivalents to boards and councils. This seems rather democratic to my untrained eye. A parish election is actually coming up next month, an archbishop was elected in the summer, and the new bishop of the capital city is a woman. There was an inspiring campaign where she and the other leading candidate, a man, both told people to ignore gender.
How does this compare?
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.")
Then think of it this way. Protestants say "RTFM, but if you don't care to, every Sunday we'll have Cliff's Notes available in form of a sermon." And if you don't agree with the intrepretations given (they are always properly cited so that you can check yourself and see), then you should shop churches until you find one that agrees more closely with your views.
Learn to love Alaska
Yes, in Finland it's possible to marry at "maistraatti", which is similar to a city hall. Also the discussion about the church not allowing the gays to marry is slightly misunderstood. The real issue is that Finnish law doesn't allow gays to marry, they allow them to form a "registered union". Registered union is very close to a marriage in all but few issues:
* Ability to adopt children outside of the family. (if there is already a child in the family they can adopt him/her)
* Automatic right to take a new last name, application form needs to be filled by the couples in registered union.
* Being "silently" discriminated. In many forms that people need to fill there are options for marriage and registered union, where the nature of the relationship is revealed and enables discrimination.
Kristillisdemokraatit (christian democrats) just happen to be the most vocal opponent against recently introduced new marriage law which would make the marriage gender neutral in all of Finland. That's why church gets involved and the show in question of course had pretty intolerant church representatives presenting their views.
> Why do homosexual want to get married?
There are legal and financial advantages to marriage. For example, employee health care benefits often extend to spouses.
> So they can adopt children?
In some jurisdictions, yes (though in the USA single parent adoption is legal and fairly common so that doesn't really apply here).
> ...we just do away with marriage laws and set up a child rearing law.
I agree. Marriage should not be any of the governments business. We already have lots of child-welfare laws that effectively regulate childrearing and the government is not allowed to regulate sexual conduct or cohabitation. These were the traditional reasons for marriage laws: what are they for now?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
http://www.haaretz.com/grounds-for-disbelief-1.10757
Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus.
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.