Political Crossfire Forums

I don't quite understand the law in the 1st place, but what I gathered reading about this earlier is there are a bunch of German Catholics who don't want to pay the "voluntary" tax so they withdraw from being a registered Catholic so as not to have to pay but still attend services and want to be Catholic.

Gotta agree though, this is going to backfire... but IMO is only hastening the inevitable.

Joseph Smith got it right when he wrote his book (of course times had changed) by making tithing a requirement right from the get go if one wanted to be "saved". Catholic Church is playing catch up in this respect since paying for indulgences went out of vogue.

There's still 50 million registered Christians in Germany? didn't know there were that many. Personally I wouldn't register either, despite being a Christian...tithing is between me and mine gott.

Ummm - isn't registering one's faith what got the Jews in trouble back in the 30s and 40s? Seems like Germany wouldn't really be pushing this any more.

Taxing the citizenry based on religious registration seems...crappy.

I don't like churches themselves to have tax privileges (except for things that are tax-exempt for corporations, citizens, etc) but I don't support taxation of citizens merely for religious affiliation.

Many European countries are technically theocracies and this sort of tax represents the tithe members of the state church are supposed to pay. But declining interest in Christianity in Europe has lead to this becoming voluntary so people are trying to have their cake and eat it to by using the church for it's social functions but not supporting it financially.