"Freedom of Religion" is on some people's minds these days in Spain, but I think what Spain needs is a little freedom from religion.This article from El Pais explains that Muslims in Spain want their piece of the subsidy pie - right now mostly reserved for Catholics. They want the State to pay for religious instruction in Islam (which in fact is what the current law says Spain will do). This is in the name of freedom of religion. So, who's next? the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Scientologists? Of course the answer is there should be no public money for ANY religious instruction.
I feel compelled to mention again that in Yanquilandia, where we are all supposedly a bunch of religious fanatics, there has been no public money for teaching religion for, let's see .... never! And yet, freedom of religion is alive and well.
9 comments:
This is gonna be good. Can't wait to see how this debate shakes out in Spanish society.
Resulta curioso que El País saque esta noticia cuando está atacando sistematicamente a la Iglesia Católica desde sus paginas y llamando a prohibir esta religión en las aulas. Pero saben de sobra que contra los musulmanes no se puede ir por lo que pueda pasar y los católico siempre pondrán la otra mejilla de modo que leña al mono que es de goma.
Carl, this isn't big news. It's an old story. Spain has been funding religious groups since the beginning of democracy. Obviously, as the number of registered catholics is very high, the Catholic church gets the largest share of these fundings. There has been a fierce debate about this issue since the very beginning, since the writing of the constitution.
According to our Constitution, The Kingdom of Spain is an non-confessional state, which is not the same as a laicist state like France. I personally don't like it, but that's how things are.
This means, religion, ALL religions recognized as such by the Spanish government have to be funded, officially supported by the state. There are quite a few recognized religious groups. All of them get some money.
That's why the Catholic Church tries to fight against the recent wave of apostasy we have been through. Less registered catholics, less money.
Por cierto Carl, échale un vistazo a la última entrada de mi blog.
I know it's not new but this will never last. There is no way modern Spain will keep paying for religion. The law was created to support the Catholic church really. They didn't think it through to when everyone and their brother would want money with all the newcomers.
To tell you the truth, I like the Catholic traditions of Spain (I'm a recovering Catholic too) But it is not a good idea to have the state pay the church - any church.
Except in America one in eight high school science teachers insist on teaching creationism as a valid scientific concept.
I would love to see where you got your information.
In fact what some want to do is teach two theories, 1) Evolution, and 2) "Intelligent Design" which states that a higher power, or God, had a hand in evolution, that it was not random.
I bet you'll be hearing from these same people in Spain in not too long a time.
That factoid was in a recent copy of Wired. Teaching intelligent design is teaching religion, plain and simple. ID is complete crap and has no place in public schools.
What's amazing to me is that with people still trying to interject religion in many areas of public life, and with Spain actually paying for religious education, and other countries whose governments are completely religion based, with such a strong religious drive in so many people of the world - we in Yanquilandia are doing an admirable job of trying to keep religion and the state separate, and for so long.
Nice run-on sentence!
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