Meanwhile in Romania...

[Zenith]

It's nice I found English articles about it,
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/181093...asses.html

http://patriarhia.ro/enrolling-for-relig...27-en.html

So, we've got quite a controversy here, in the latest months, with all kinds of TV broadcasts with fanatic Church representatives & supporters who get all crazy about the idea that a man should be FREE to choose for his son not to join the Divinity classes (aka Religion classes) - which mostly means Christian Orthodox - insisting that the class of Religion must be compulsory for everyone (including children of atheists and agnostics), in order for them to receive a "proper education".

Now that the Religion class became optional, in the meaning that the parents of the children must sign a request for their children to join the Religion class, the Church came with the following initiative: A contest is organized where the children write an essay entitled "Why is the Divinity class important to me?"
Additional notes: "Several prizes will be granted for each of the three education cycles (primary, gymnasium, high school), like this: 1st prize - 700 lei, 2nd prize: 500 lei, third prize: 300 lei. There will be a special prize, 1000" (prizes for "the most beautiful essay on the subject")
The minimum net wage in Romania is ~600 lei (aprox $150), while the minium pension is ~300 lei.

"Who are invited to participate? All students who love the Religion class and desire to share with others their appreciations".
--- In other words, fearing that the number of students who attend the Religion class might drop, and thus, the teachers / priests who teach / preach there might suffer, and that the number of religious people might thus drop over years, the Church came with the ingenious idea of paying the people to choose to join the classes. Besides of the fact that, of course, many inspectorates summoned the (high) schools principals alongside Archbishops / whatever, and the Principals of the schools were being advised by these Church leaders to influence the parents into opting for the Religion class, despite the Constitutional Court who decided that the decision must not be influenced.

The following pictures are from a demonstration / protest against the decision of the Constitutional Court who decided the Religion class to be optional (for 25 years the respective law article existed against the Constitution)
The images I can read state, "The Orthodox Church is the mother of the Romanian people", "The Orthodoxy is the sap of the Romanian people", "Our voievodes have defended the Christianity of Europe", "Religion in school - National priority"






Another news comes with the title "The High All-Holy Teodosie: He would would renounce, of the parents, to the Religion class, would mutilate his own child."

Joy of joys.

P.S. Romania is 85% Orthodox, but it's unknown how many actual believers there are, because there are many who had been baptized as Orthodox, but no longer believe, or believe in God but not in the Church or whatever. So something like this would not be unnatural: Q: "What's your religion?"; A: "Orthodox"; Q: "Do you believe in God?"; "No."
Either way, the Church brags about how many supporters it has and acts as if 90% of the people are so devout that they'd be willing to die for it.

P.S. I don't know how the 'Religion' class is actually practiced in other countries of Europe, or how it's called for that sake, so an argument of the Church like "in almost all the European countries, Religion is taught within the public educational system." is very likely a fallacy.

[Minimalist]

Those clowns in the dresses in the second picture would do okay at the Gay Pride Parade in Greenwich Village.

[CapnAwesome]

It sort of reminds me of the 'ban' on school prayer here. It's exactly the same really, the ban on school prayer just lets people decide whether or not they want to pray. Christians insist that their rights are being infringed on if they don't get to force people to pray (or in this case attend a whole religious orientated class.)

[Zenith]

It sort of reminds me of the 'ban' on school prayer here. It's exactly the same really, the ban on school prayer just lets people decide whether or not they want to pray. Christians insist that their rights are being infringed on if they don't get to force people to pray (or in this case attend a whole religious orientated class.)

At least USA doesn't donate huge amounts of money from YOUR taxes to Christian leaders, for them to build new churches and cover them with gold, and for building a huge Cathedral as a monument. And at least the salaries of the priests and pastors in your country don't come from YOUR taxes.

[Dystopia]

I'm sure churches are state funded in the US.

In Portugal the government has banned the crucifix in classrooms a few years ago, we are on the right track. Most of the population is Catholic but doesn't live according to the bible's rules. There is a class titled "moral and religious education" that is optional, so parents either agree or don't agree with their children participating in such classes (and it doesn't count for official academic results - You can't fail the school year if you fail these classes). The church is corrupt, state funded to some degree and receives tax benefits for being a non-profit organization - Some parts of the church are aligned with conservative movements such as the "pro-life" one.

I don't see many protests similar to those in Romania - I have my doubts about the percentage of the population that agrees with removing crucifixes from classrooms, but there was no outrage at the time (except from the church and the conservative party - Rest of us ignored them) - This is of course for public schools, private schools are allowed to be religious and even enforce prayer or bible reading sessions.

It seems Romania has a problem with religion, fortunately your government seems to be making the right call, something hard to find these days. The Romanian population probably needs some re-education on secularism.

I hope this helped

[CapnAwesome]

I'm sure churches are state funded in the US.

What?? No. While the U.S. might have a religious population, we actually have some very strong separation of church and state laws.

[SteelCurtain]

Not funded by the state, no.

But subsidized, very much so.

[Minimalist]

At least USA doesn't donate huge amounts of money from YOUR taxes to Christian leaders, for them to build new churches and cover them with gold, and for building a huge Cathedral as a monument.

No they get tax exemptions so they can peddle their bullshit and pretend they are doing something for someone else.

Fuckers.

[Zenith]

It seems Romania has a problem with religion, fortunately your government seems to be making the right call, something hard to find these days. The Romanian population probably needs some re-education on secularism.

This is the funny part: You've got it all wrong! (or well, mostly)

1. Most of us hate the Prime Minister and the Government. The Prime Minister is much hated for being and having been a tremendous liar, for having led a Communist-style propaganda in his attempt to become President, because he and his political party had been fighting to promote a law that would have prohibited the Justice system from investigating politicians and many other state officials like mayors, for having attempted to restrain the Romanians of diaspora from voting at both presidential elections (and succeeded, partly) , for using to smile like a retard, and so on.

2. The government does anything but the right thing. We've got one independent politician (deputy) who's an atheist, and who's really taking his responsibilities seriously (for all matters, not only for the cause of non-believers). For the other politicians he's like a laughing matter. There's an emerging political party, which I hope one day will earn significant percentage. (here you can't start a political party unless you are a very well known person and are already supported by hundreds of people in all counties - which is much more than it sounds, for a small country like ours). The government (and the Prime Minister) donated a lot of money to the Orthodox Church for it to preach into Churches to the people that he (the Prime Minister) must be voted for presidency. And quite a number of important Church officials had been recorded preaching into public "Vote X!"
The budged (how money from taxes is to be split within the state) is made by the government, and they came this year with a huge amount of money to be given to the Church. Much higher than in the previous year, as I know.

3. The Romanian people is quite... divided... basically in two:
a) secular - mainly youth, people who do not believe in God, or do believe in God, or even call themselves Christian Orthodox but believe that the Church no longer serves God and the people. They are right wing, pro USA and pro EU, pro democracy.

b) traditional / conservative: most of them are people from villages, and older people. Here there are also people who don't believe in God but say that "Whoever does not support the Orthodox Church is not a true Romanian!" because of the socialist education they had received in their youth where the main responsibility of the Church is "to unite the people". Most old people are left wing, pro Russia, anti-USA and anti-EU, pro communism and anti democracy and anti capitalism. Except, perhaps, the large number of villagers who...I don't think they quite know the difference, and they vote whichever party gives them 1kg of flour or 1 litre of oil, and get carried in vans / cars all over during the election day to vote for multiple times, for additional money.

I believe the religiosity of the people in Romania, as very probably all the post-communist countries, is rather shallow, in the meaning that most don't care about the Bible (the Church doesn't even teach people to read the Bible, AFAIK), nor keeping commandments. They care about keeping traditions, preserving the traditional values, being "united" and (ultra)nationalistic, and living in fairy tales about our history (legacy lies of the communism where we had been the best country in the world, all around, and that we saved Europe from Islam in the middle ages). But most people, I believe, go to Church at most twice a year, besides marriages and baptizing the babies and funerals.

P.S. It's funny that the Church had said that "in almost all the European countries, Religion is taught within the public educational system." because... the West is seen by the traditional side as the great "evil" in this world, there are the countries which "killed God" (in the meaning that they're not that religious) and USA is seen the same. The USA had influenced our culture a lot (from the language, to music, to etc., also worldview and morals) which is in great contradistinction to the traditional / communist culture and the values it promoted, so USA is 'the great evil'. Besides, USA is the wicked country that bore the Church of Satan (as if all americans are satanists or support them) - but this only to those who happen to be aware that such a thing exists.

P.S. The communists that we still have believe that the great powers, mostly the western countries like USA and those in EU had joined their forces in 1989 precisely to plunder and steal our country off our resources and industries we hand, and that they had been the people in the shadows orchestrating the execution of our communist dictator - the greatest man that ever lived, in their minds.

P.S. Romania's recent history (25+ years ago) is covered by communism, where all politicians were bragging, one more than the other, of how atheists they were. And the first president who came after the execution of the dictator, who used to brag about being an atheist during the dictator's time, had switched to making the sign of the cross and showing high respect to the Church, for popularity. And now every time the Church and the traditional side talk about atheism, they complain again about the harsh of communism where they couldn't build churches, were forbidden to hold classes of religion, priests were thrown to jail (mostly catholic, in the later part of communism) because of their faith, people being harassed for stating that they believe in God, etc. So they see the secularisation and atheism as a return to the (unpleasant) part of communism. So yes, it's a bit tricky.

[Norman Humann]

Oh yeah, RE is "optional" here, too. You don't have to go, but if you don't you need to take ethics if there are any teachers qualified to teach it. If not, you just sit there with the rest of the class, but don't have to do anything.

The joke being, there are two hours a week for RE and one for chemistry, physics and biology.