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What's even weirder: church attendance is super low compared the US, the average German pays not to go but on the flipside churches act like social service arms
by zwieback 6y ago
What's even weirder: church attendance is super low compared the US, the average German pays not to go but on the flipside churches act like social service arms of the government (meals on wheels, eldercare, etc.)
Schools also have religious instruction as a main class, although you can opt out. I'm a lifelong atheist but thoroughly enjoyed the religion classes, even picked it as a minor in my upper division classes. This might have changed, though, I left Germany 30yrs ago.
- ben0x539 6y agoI grew up in a rural village in Germany. The church operated the kindergarten and the retirement home, and ran some youth organizations with stuff like kids' summer activities. One city over the church ran the hospital, like, to the point where they had nuns on-site. I never really looked too deeply into it but it always felt weird to me how entangled the church is with what is basically treated as public services and hence public finances, since they still get to apply their religious values to hiring discrimination and that sort of thing. I didn't regularly attend the religion classes, but I did once or twice and they gave me candy for memorizing the ten commandments. Organized religion is a-ok in my book! (In high school, they offered an "ethics" class as alternative to denomination-based religion classes, but I guess in the much smaller elementary school the student numbers wouldn't have justified that.)
- summm 6y agoThe religious service providers are reimbursed by the gov and by social insurances just like any other commercial provider. They also get to enjoy lesser worker's protection laws, e.g. they may fire employees who convert away from their religion.