Norway gets rid of it's official religion

[nikos]

God forbid  ,what forcing.
My people and church never led crusades,that's not the point,Im just saying that they want to achieve some equality trough this.
But equality is only a dead letter on paper.

 

[JDC]

If the Scandinavian nations' flags were all based on the cross, then it indicates the presence of Christian elements in their history and heritage.

The recent move to drop having an "Official" religion is okay, as long as atheists or members of other religions will not lobby to have official renditions of culture / heritage amended by removing all Christian elements from it, such as the cross on the flag. While having a state religion is one thing, erasing traces of religion from society is something else.

For instance, the Philippines is a dominantly Roman Catholic religion, but neither the state or the church has tried to erase the fact that our ancestors in the pre-spanish era were pagans and muslims.

[nikos]

They can not take away something you have in you,a sense.Anyway they can go with this and slowly start erasing,but slowly,because you can not go any faster and as they say time changes everything and winner's write the history.
They did that here with the introduction of communism,but the idea backfired after 50 years.
Who know's we will see where this will lead.

[JayL]

If the Scandinavian nations' flags were all based on the cross, then it indicates the presence of Christian elements in their history and heritage.

The recent move to drop having an "Official" religion is okay, as long as atheists or members of other religions will not lobby to have official renditions of culture / heritage amended by removing all Christian elements from it, such as the cross on the flag. While having a state religion is one thing, erasing traces of religion from society is something else.

For instance, the Philippines is a dominantly Roman Catholic religion, but neither the state or the church has tried to erase the fact that our ancestors in the pre-spanish era were pagans and muslims.

Institutionalised religion is nothing but a political tool. Religion itself as a whole is a political tool.

[aleksandar_gojkovic]

Norway is distancing itself from its Christian past. The Storting -- the country's Parliament -- will amend the constitution so that the state no longer has an official religion, ending the 1,000-year tradition of the Church of Norway.

A parliamentary committee report presented Tuesday contains a unanimous recommendation to have the state permanently separate from the church.

All 169 members of the seven parties in Parliament, including 10 representatives from the Christian Democratic Party and 30 from the Conservative Party, are said to be behind the move, according to a report from TV2.

The government will no longer have a minister of churches, and the state will no longer be responsible for the appointment of bishops and deans.

Instead, Norway will treat all religions and philosophies equally.

"The state will no longer engage in religious activities, but support the Norwegian church, national church and other religious and belief communities in line with it," reports NRK.

The Church of Norway is evangelical Lutheran and says on its website around 86% of the population are baptized members.

The amendments are expected to be formally passed Monday.

Source: http://www.lfpress.com/news/world/2012/05/15/19761421.html


Being an agnostic atheist, I see this as a positive thing, as it will decrease government spending and stop those that don't believe in the Christian god from being forced to indirectly (through taxation) support something they don't believe in.

Out of all things... I see posts that say grat's and encoureage them...

That is compleatly WRONG!

Religion is ONE THING that you should NEVER GET RID OFF!
For the love of GOD! They are SPITING in face of EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEYRE ANTSESTERS! Theyre antsesters are now ROLLING IN GRAVES out of fury!!!

Holy shit, norway UMAD?!

Very modern and sensible.  :hurray:

I seriously cannot bealive that you support something JUST BECAUSE IT IS MODERN! Jcstodds, i have a feeling that if they tell you that now using heroin is "modern" and "legal", and cheap, you would start doing it like crasy...

Looks like it is going to be that "like an atheist near death" case, but this time for the whole country...

[Mikal]

Then thank the church by donating to it. But don't force it on people that have different beliefs.

Well said.

Institutionalised religion is nothing but a political tool. Religion itself as a whole is a political tool.

I don't really see how religion can help politics, of course theres a reason but I don't know. :roll:

They can not take away something you have in you,a sense.Anyway they can go with this and slowly start erasing,but slowly,because you can not go any faster and as they say time changes everything and winner's write the history.
They did that here with the introduction of communism,but the idea backfired after 50 years.
Who know's we will see where this will lead.

Religion is 'in you'? No no, religion is something you choose, myself chooses not to be involved with religion.

[aleksandar_gojkovic]

I don't know about your ancestors, but afaik Norways ancestors were pillaging and burning churches long before it was cool.

You missunderstood me.
What i ment was that it is wrong to get rid of RELIGION, official religion a country. They burned churches because they had another paganistic religion.

What will make theyre antcesters angry is getting rid of OFFICIAL religion, and by that country does not have an OFFICIAL religion. That is "Modern" but "modern" aint always wright.

[Pandalink]

If it is not instigated by pressure from other religions, I applaud the move.

This would be my worry.

Sometimes it is necessary to accept the (slightly) lesser evil of a traditional christian establishment in order to protect against a more violent (whether literally or culturally) religion.

I don't really see how religion can help politics, of course theres a reason but I don't know. :roll:

Religion is made to control the uneducated masses in a simple and cheap way. With the threat of eternal damnation at the end of life, the state theoretically need not even hire a police force to prevent crime as everyone will be too fearful of the imaginary consequences.
In practice, however, there is no population that is that so unanimously stupid as to allow themselves to be completely controlled by religion. Nonetheless, it remains a useful political tool (amongst others) that politicians can use to gain easy votes.

[Mikal]

Religion is made to control the uneducated masses in a simple and cheap way. With the threat of eternal damnation at the end of life, the state theoretically need not even hire a police force to prevent crime as everyone will be too fearful of the imaginary consequences.
In practice, however, there is no population that is that so unanimously stupid as to allow themselves to be completely controlled by religion. Nonetheless, it remains a useful political tool (amongst others) that politicians can use to gain easy votes.

Ah I see, I see.

Thanks for explaining.

[JDC]

If anything, the ancestors would be more pleased with the removal of the religion rather than at unrest, because the advent of that religion erased the customs which the ancestors (vikings) practiced, therefore subjugating them to Christianity.

"It enslaved our kids and turned them from our ways, so it is nice to see they finally threw off that yoke."

Don't get me wrong, I am not anti-religious / atheist. I am agnostic, and therefore open to the possibility that any existing Supreme Being could have created the world through what we know as science,

[AnnaR]

This is good news.
Politics and religion is two different things.
In my opinion, having one religion as an official religion is absured.
Religions should be neutral in politics and in nationalism.
Lets say in World War 2 - Catholics killed other Catholics because of nationalism.
They even supported warfare!

That is why any religion should be neutral to politics and nationalism!

[Mikal]

I don't know how people can spend their lives supporting religions, going to church or whatever everyday and praying for something that may not exist..
It's just crazy in my eyes.

[Dolfagr]

I don't know how people can spend their lives supporting religions, going to church or whatever everyday and praying for something that may not exist..
It's just crazy in my eyes.

It's either because you've never been to church or your family was never religious. Or because you're just open minded.

[iDavid]

This thing is some fucked up shit.

Most of the norwegians in Norway is already tired to death by the immigrants just walking right in, and now we will just let go of our religion??
Man, even some of the black dogs who come here to "work", do something illegal, like.. Raping one of our poor kids to be sent to jail, just because jail in Norway is like.. 57 and a half X better than the living he could make back in his banana country.
No hate/racism intended, it's just the truth, and it's bad.

Now, of course 80% of the immigrants get here and do a job well done, and some even gets to know other people, which is, positive I guess.

Just sayin'

[nikos]

Well if you look at that then we all should abandon our religion and turn back to pagan,since we all come from there...
and what sacrifice goats,fuck goats and hail to the ancient goods.
Not that Im not proud on my Slavic background,its a big part in my history but first Im a man,second a Serb,third a Orthodox christian and fourth a Slav.