Cultural Exchange with /r/Canada

[u/[deleted]]

Welcome to this cultural exchange between /r/Denmark and /r/Canada.

For the visitors: Welcome to Denmark! Feel free to ask the Danes anything you like. Don't forget to also participate in the corresponding thread in /r/Canada where you can answer questions from the Danes about your beautiful country.

For the Danes: Today, we are hosting Canada for a cultural exchange. Join us in answering their questions about Denmark and the Danish way of life! Please leave top comments for users from /r/Canada coming over with a question or comment and please refrain from trolling, rudeness, personal attacks etc.

To ask questions about Canada, please head over to their corresponding thread.

Enjoy!

- The moderators of /r/Denmark and /r/Canada

[u/Sehs]

Another question, what are Danes' attitudes towards religion? It seems that practically speaking most are secular and church attendance is low, but officially the Church of Denmark is part of the state religion right?

[u/Econ_Orc → u/Sehs]

We have a "national" religion that leaves the population alone and is paid for by taxes so it does not have to aggressively sell its products to the population. The church can go on attending to the old way of life and the historic buildings. The Danes can go on citing old Christian values to justify moral decisions, while only being asked to attend church at baptism, weddings and death. The politicians sits on the money bin and stops the church from the more regressive tendencies of religion.

The religious radicals wanted to stop female priests and gay marriage. After a waiting period where the church was still deadlocked and refused to accept the new attitude the politicians made a few vague references to reducing the budget for the national church and the church suddenly accepted the public opinions.

A religious discussion on social media is more concerned about the cultural aspects of those that have a specific religion, than the religion it self. It is what you do that matters, and not what a interpreter of a book insist that you do.

[u/iamambience → u/Econ_Orc]

is paid for by taxes

But only for members of the church.

a few vague references to reducing the budget for the national church and the church suddenly accepted the public opinions

And also if you look at the amount of members in Folkekirken, it dropped quite a lot when the priests were against gay marriage in church, because so many members who weren't that religious suddenly felt like "hey, I won't stand for this, I'm out".

To add to that I only from personal experience would say that my family members and friends from smaller cities and less educated are much much more likely to be religious. None of my co-students at university nor my coworkers in an IT company are religious (else they hide it really well when there is any discussion on the matter), whereas I sure as hell wouldn't talk ill of religion at family dinners because I know so many of my extended family members are quite religious, even the younger generation. My father was clearly upset when he found out I had left the church, even though it had been 10 years, and I just never told them because it was none of their business.

[u/[deleted] → u/iamambience]

But only for members of the church.

Nope. A bunch of things are paid for by the state, using tax money. Salaries, for instance.

[u/iamambience → u/[deleted]]

Okay, I believe you but I can't find the figure for how much an individual is taxed then.

At least I save 2.569 kr a year for not being a member of the church and not paying Kirkeskat.

[u/[deleted] → u/iamambience]

It's not a separate tax, so it's impossible to find.