Wednesday, August 16, 2006
RELIGION
Today a jeep zoomed past my car in the fast lane of the motorway. On the back was a large red sticker that read 'Jesus is my airbag'. I was brought up in a family with no religion. From my earliest childhood I remember being taught astronomy, science etc and although religion was a topic we learned about at school, we weren't taught what we could believe, more what others believed. Religion always belonged to other people. I was an outsider and always would be. I smiled to myself as the jeep recklessly overtook me and I thought: it must be nice to have an airbag like that, it must make life just a tiny bit easier :-)
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11 comments:
Easier until the jeep is involved in an accident and Jesus doesn't act as an airbag after all...
And so you should here from a child of two priests :-/ Or maybe because of that?
Is Denmark a really religious country? - In the UK, (or France or germany for that matter) I never met anyone related to a minister and yet everyone I know from Denmark has a relative who is a minister of some sort! In Scotland we use churches as pubs, restaurants, theatres, even furniture shops - from the sounds of things Denmark should be building extra ones just to have enough for all these ministers! ;-)
Explain your country to me guys, I'm intrigued!
Oh I don't have such a relative, my dad is a lawyer and mom mum and sister are teachers ;-) My uncle and his wife in Germany are playing the flute.
But you actually go to church! To explain it to Phyllis, Denmark still has a state church, and unless they've changed the rules, one automatically becomes a member unless one explicitly leaves. Birth certificates and so on are done by the church, even for non-members. Church membership fees are collected by the tax authorities. I don't think church attendance on a normal Sunday is any stronger than here, but most people would have their kids baptised and expect to be buried from a church in Denmark.
The last baby to be baptised in my family was a grandparent - I wouldn't even know what religion to guess my family used to be! Though I do think my family is perhaps at the other end of the spectrum - I'd say about half the people I know had their kids baptised, though never attend church and I'd be very hard pushed to name more than 2 or 3 people I know who do attend church who are under 70!
I'd say I'd consider someone religious if they went to church once a year for the Christmas service!
As for paying church taxes - I'm afraid that is a way too alien concept for the UK!
I do remember having a real problem when I lived in Germany because you had to give a religion to anmeld at the townhall - I was unable to and they nearly fell over in shock. Should I have lied??? Eventually after much panic the official stamped the box V.D. - to this day I don't know what it stood for but my mates reckoned it was for verdammt ;-)
I hate to disappoint you, but I think it's short for 'Verschiedenes', according to a Google search... I wouldn't be surprised if the abbreviation was chosen because of the ambiguity, though! :-)
damn - i've enjoyed that story for 17 years and you've just ruined it for me!
Sorry! :-( Do you want me to delete my comment, and you can pretend I never told you? ;-)
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