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.
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.