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this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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Crazy, how such a small time when germany was divided had such a large effect. The Soviets knew how to shape a people, I give them that.
I would see it the other way around. It shows that religion is nothing natural and as soon as churches aren't actively allowed to indoctrinate children for one generation religious influence is massively reduced.
Although the GDR regime actively surpressed the church and religion and the churches were actually a place of resistance. E.g. the only place where punk bands could play. The church in the GDR tried to not publically oppose the regime, but helped out people who were.
I am not religious, but the church in the GDR went beyond being a religious institution.
Well if they went beyond bring a religious institution than religion wasn't the thing that solved it.
People always mention churches going above and beyond and acting like charities and I'm ok with the charity but why did u need the religion being involved? By merging it with concepts like charity all it does it is allow it to spread easier and thus that spreads the worse parts of religion that are baked into all religions that i can think of from the top of my head.
I mean, I agree. I am not religious myself.
I was merely arguing that what was going on in the GDR was in any kind natural.
What's going on now, with the churches in Europe bleeding followers with people losing interest as the being religious is not something that is expected of you anymore in societial standards, is way more natural.
Not sure how that is relevant to explain the large percentage of the population there who isn't religious. If anything the effect of the actions you describe was probably slightly in favour of the church membership numbers.
Have you missed the part about the active supression?
They could deny you university if you were active in the church. Which is not really all that natural to me.
Have you missed the part where the GDR has been gone for several decades by the time this data was taken? If people had liked the church for those actions you described and just not gone to avoid repercussions from the state there would be plenty of time for them to go back since the fall of the GDR. They just didn't.
Okay, now I got what you wanted. I misunderstood you, I thought you meant that the surpression of the GDR itself was natural. But you meant what happened after the regime and people had the choice to join the church freely again.
That I agree with.
Yes, basically I meant that some religious people tend to argue that religion is some sort of natural need that people have and even if religion was not passed on to children they would flock to it on their own. It seems that is not the case though or a one generation interruption would not have this large of an effect decades later.
I do believe that a lot of religions kinda made sense in the past to underline laws and start building a cohesise society. In a sense the old testament is a book of laws with just a lot of fluff. And while a lot of it aged badly, you can see how a lot of rules made sense at the time (e.g. food safety). I do believe that this was the original purpose of this. To strenghten the belief in laws by adding a mystical component on top of them for people who weren't as firm with written laws and a believe in a justice system.
These days, of course, it's archaic and unnessary.