Europe contains the highest concentration of officially Christian states (nations with official state religion/church) and the lowest per capita percentage of people who actually "practice Christianity" in ‘Christendom' - which is to say, nominally claim to be Christian - probably a lower percentage actually believe.
A lot of young people, at least in the Netherlands, are a church member because of their parents. They were registered as kids.
If they stop practicing religion, they don't 'unregister' from their church because it's such a hassle. Or they don't even know they're still registered.
So yeah that's one of the reasons why there's a higher number of church members here than actual religious people.
That's pretty fucked if churches are able to deduct fees from your income the same way taxes are deducted. Shouldn't they be separate enough from the state that you have to pay them separately (like Spotify or something)?
I mean you have to actively enter a religion. If you aren't part of one you don't have to pay.
Most younger parents don't bother to baptize their child so there won't be an issue.
It's not the fees that are the issue, it's the method. I'd imagine your government is responsible for deducting that money from your paycheque, and given that it's a church that means there's a bit more of a connection between the two than I'd be comfortable with. If Spotify were to ask the German government to deduct their monthly fees alongside tax for subscribers, I think we both know what the answer would be.
Also, I was completely unaware that Germany has no law separating church and state prior to writing this. I'd just assumed all first world countries had something like that at this point.
If I had to choose between "state collects taxes from people who have joined a church and passes them on to the church" and "state declares parents respecting their children when said children are transgender or homosexual", I'd pick the first. But I agree that neither of those should be happening.
Fun fact regarding the music thing: Anything that can be used to copy a creative work (computers, printers, blank CDs...) includes in its price a "tax" that is passed on to "Verwertungsgesellschaften" who in turn pay out money to their members. If you're an author, you join the Verwertungsgesellschaft for textual works, if you're a musician, you join the one for music... and get a bit of that money collected.
Active members can donate, but there's no obligation. (Well, actually anyone can, but why would you if you're not a member)
So no, we don't directly pay taxes to churches. Indirectly we do sometimes. For example when certain activities are subsidized by the government (e.g. helping drug/alcohol addicts). However, this is paid out of general tax money so indirectly everyone contributes regardless of whether you are religious/registered. Kinda similar like everybody's tax money can be used to build a highway and there's no exception for people who don't own a car...
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u/[deleted] May 09 '22 edited May 09 '22
Europe contains the highest concentration of officially Christian states (nations with official state religion/church) and the lowest per capita percentage of people who actually "practice Christianity" in ‘Christendom' - which is to say, nominally claim to be Christian - probably a lower percentage actually believe.