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Forostar said:
And my country is one of the five countries. :ph34r:

The severe discrimination in Germany surprised me somewhat. One of the worries about Germany:


Here's the report, by IHEA (The International Humanist and Ethical Union).
http://iheu.org/fot14/
Click to expand...

Yes, because Germany isn't a secular country and the churches, especially the Catholic one, having actual political influence here. -_-

I know this reads like a quip related to our previous discussions, but it's a fact. The state collects church taxes in Germany, the churches have political and tax privileges and in the conservative areas, state and church are closely (albeit unofficially) intertwined. It's one of my major gripes with the country.
 
There's nothing that can be done about it. Germany is quite heterogeneous in that respect; the church plays little to no role in the east, but it basically runs Bavaria. It's always been this way - it's no coincidence that Ratzinger was the archbishop of Regensburg - and the highly favourable social and financial position of the church in these regions will ensure that it will stay this way to kingdom come.
 
What a huge difference with the Dutch Catholic church. Less members each year, and surely not a highly financial position I bet.
 
Oh, there are less members every year, but the church is wealthy and controls the rural areas in conservative regions. It takes advantage of these structures of the country, and the conservative political parties will do everything to support it. Admittedly, Bavaria is the most extreme case, but some other regions aren't far behind (e.g. Rhineland-Palatinate). Maybe removing the state privileges would help a bit, but there is no political will to do so, not much awareness in the population, and the churches (not just the Catholic one, mind you) will do everything to prevent it.
 
Because Germany guarantees freedom of faith and religion in its constitution, and people think that because secularism is an inherent trait in western democracies, that automatically means Germany is secular.
 
Ontario, my new province, officially funds Catholic schools. It's incredible. Do the Catholic schools do a good job? Sure. But it's at the price of forcing religion classes on people, and Catholic official standpoints. That being said, the province usually forces them to do it right in the end, allowing the teaching of gay rights and sex ed, but still.
 
There was a Catholic school in my area when I lived in Ontario. We always went there to play baseball on the weekends.

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Perun said:
Because Germany guarantees freedom of faith and religion in its constitution, and people think that because secularism is an inherent trait in western democracies, that automatically means Germany is secular.
Click to expand...
Hmm, many Germans haven't known something, and a smaller group is angry about something, getting angrier every year. :ahhh:
 
There's been some debate about state continuing to fund for religious schools in the UK, mostly centred around Muslim and Catholic schools, and the Catholic schools talked about no longer admitting non-Catholics. I can't remember whether it happened, but I imagine local authorities don't want to upset these schools too much as they struggle to find enough places for pupils in state schools in some areas as it is. The whole debate was about austerity as much as anything.
 
The church/state equation is obviously different in the US, but the traditional churches are dropping in membership, but own some incredibly valuable property in major cities.

I went to a Catholic university, not because it was Catholic, but because it is a very good school (best in the area I was looking at) and think having an alternative to government schools is a good thing. It has been a while, but 3 religion classes were required. But they were academic and about half were Catholic based, the other half stuff like Comparative Religion, History of, one on Cults and Sects (I took that, was interesting).
 
I had some minor surgery yesterday, I will be under the influence of pain killers and on the couch. But I usually stay in for New Years (after 25 years old) ... as my grandfather used to call it "amateur night"
 
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