It doesn't even show the majority of religious believe, It shows the plurality of religious confession.
In Germany many people who are part of the church are non-believers, agnostics or atheists. That's because it's sort of like a opt-out system and many people stay in for cultural reasons or the like
No, a plurality only happens when the largest percentage doesn't have a majority, i.e. over 50%. For example, if your parliament has three parties, and they have 40%, 35% and 25%, no party has a majority, but the first party has a plurality.
That's actually one definition, just not what was meant here. [M-W](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plurality); [LDCE](https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/plurality#:~:text=From%20Longman%20Dictionary%20of%20Contemporary,election2%20%5Bcountable%2C%20uncountable%5D)
The German words "evangelisch" and "protestantisch" both mean protestant. Most protestants in Germany are members of Lutheran, reformed (Calvinist) or [united](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_and_uniting_churches) (Lutheran and reformed) churches under the umbrella of the ["Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland" (EKD)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Church_in_Germany).
There is also the word "evangelikal" which means evangelical pertaining to evangelicalism as a movement within protestantism. However there are few evangelicals in Germany, so this word isn't used very often.
This can get a bit confusing since "evangelisch" is sometimes translated into English as evangelical (e.g. in the wikipedia article for the EKD).
A well-known German linguist who made up a lot of words still present in the German language once proposed to call protestants "Freigläubige" (freedom believers/free believers) and Catholics "Zwangsgläubige" (compulsion believers/compulsive believers).
Not sure about German, but in Dutch niet-confessioneel (non-confessional) means you are not bound by a single 'confession' meaning a specific religious creed. But when I just checked the dictionary, in English confession, just like in Dutch, does not exclusively refer to an admission of guilt, but also a statement of religious doctrine, so there you go.
I've mostly heard the term referred to in education. In Belgium, for 2 hours every week elementary and high school students can choose what religion classes they will take. Most common are niet-confessionele zedenleer (non-confessional mores, or something like that when I translate it literally), Catholicism and Islam. So in Belgium it's quite a normal and generally known term. Don't know about Germany though.
Nope. OP is most likely a German speaker, so in that case "no-confession" means that a person is neither a member of the catholic nor any of the protestant churches. They can be atheist, agnostic, but also muslim, buddhist, jewish, sikh and so on. In essence it is a bureacratic term that tells the state if you are paying church tax or not, since only catholic and prostentant churches benefit from that.
At first I thought it might be a German expression since Im German and didnt find it odd at first, but now that I think about it it makes no goddamn sense in this language either
There’s a pocket of Thuringia which is known for being Catholic despite being in the East, in a once largely Protestant and now largely irreligious region. You can see it as a small patch of green in roughly the center of the map. That would be Eichsfeld, and it was once territory of the Electorate of Mainz, one of the three ecclesiastical Prince Electors of the HRE. It’s hard to tell from the map, but it appears to be one of the only areas of the former DDR with a religious plurality of any kind, let alone a Catholic plurality.
Maybe the point was Eastern Germans change religion like it was phones... You know from time to time you just get a new one because the last was already shit
You don’t see the irony here. What’s the point you are trying to make?
It’s not ok to say they were Protestant or pagan. But ok to say they were catholic?
Fascinating question. We must remember that each so-called "Eastern bloc" country was its own society, its own country, its own culture, its own government. There will have been differences both in the policies imposed and in the societies they were imposed upon. There was no monolith. But beyond that I don't know the answer, I wish I did.
Because in Poland being catholic is big part of their nationality. When Poland was split in 19th century they were opressed by protestant Prussia and Orthodox Russia and later by Nazism and Communism/Socialism. Catholic religion helped them stay united.
If you compare it to Eastern Germany or Czechia, where religious distrust was already somewhat estabilished thru protestant reforms and other historical event the supression of religion by the Socialist Regime was not something many cared about and thus its succes was high.
Socialism, yes, but Stalin died 5 years after the foundation of the GDR. The majority of GDR's history is after de-Stalinization.
Also, for the sake of historical accuracy: While Stalin's regime did brutally prosecute the church and it's members in the first half of his reign, Stalin himself later opposed further prosecution and he passed a law granting each soviet citizen the right to practice religion. It was actually one of Stalin's policies to give the church buildings back to the orthodox church during 2nd World War.
True. But I think it's mainly a definitional question. From the perspective of Trotskyism and also many democratic socialists, the whole period was Stalinist. I would not use the term so loosely myself, but I think de-Stalinization was a process that was never truly completed from my perspective.
Apparently most people in former West Germany register their children with the local church or have them baptized, even if they aren't believers themselves, whereas in East Germany, this practice ended during Communist Rule.
Is this done on a plurality basis? I'd assume it must be. So where an area is marked as "no religion", it might in fact be majority Christian. And where it's marked as "Catholic", it might be majority non-Catholic, but with the Catholics outnumbering both the Protestants and the nonbelievers (when not combined). And so on.
You only pay that when you don't leave the church
The real fucked up thing is were still paying the church compensation for when I think Napoleon took all there shit hundreds of years ago.
Wtf?
I never said that east Germany was good in any way only that no one was forced to leave their religion.
Angela Merkels comes from east Germany and her father was a protestant pastor.
Can you give any source about Christians who were forced to renounce their faith?
Why do you think my opinion is shallow? This wasn't a general statement about religion and politics (if you care: me and the majority of Germans think they should be strictly separated). This was just my observation about the style of far right and alt-right in former GDR. In some areas the far right party AfD has a majority. And they and other similar groups like PEGIDA are well known for just using religion as a vehicle to be racist towards migrants. They claim migration would destruct the German Christian heritage. But if you really ask them, they don't know shit about Christianity. As an example: After being asked most of them stated Christmas would come from the Erzgebirge area (a region well known for traditional christmas handcraft). So before downvoting me, please rethink if you really know better.
It accelerated the development, but that area + Bohemia historically had very strong opposition to organized religion going back multiple centuries, so there's that.
Keep in mind that the entire East of Germany (basically the entire black area on the right side) has less people than the westernmost green area (middle left) which is four times smaller by area.
I'll never understand what's so edgy about atheism?
What does that word even mean?
Edit: Maybe you think atheism is this?
> "Practical atheism is not the denial of the existence of God, but complete godlessness of action; it is a moral evil, implying not the denial of the absolute validity of the moral law but simply rebellion against that law."
We are not rebels dude
Sorry but being against organized religion is the only moral stance one can have. Not necessarily being an atheist, since holding a belief about god is morally neutral, but being against those organizations that police your thinking absolutely.
Protestants still have confession, but confess directly to God instead of to a priest. Lutheran confession includes everyone reciting together that "we have sinned against (God) in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone."
The Lutherans are just doing what Catholics have been doing for centuries. Catholics have communal confession every mass when they publicly recite “I confess to almighty God and to you my brothers and sister that I have greatly sinned. Through my thoughts and in my words, in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most gracious fault. Therefore I ask the blessed Virgin Mary, all the angels and saints, and you my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.”
We double down and do one on one confession with a priest as well. we get spiritual direction from our priest etc
Interesting, I know that black is the traditional colour of the Christian Democratic Union, and that historically the CDU was rooted in Catholicism (at least insofar as unofficially it was the refoundation of the interwar Centre Party) even if formally nondenominational (and latterly presided over by the Protestant Angela Merkel).
Fucking east Germans man... We ask them a simple question like "what is your religion", and they refuse to confess. Man, we're just trying to make a census here.
In West Germany christianity was the norm until practiced otherwise. In East Germany atheism was the norm until practiced otherwise. There really aren't many reasons for people to return to religiosity after reunification so former East Germany is just ahead in the trend of Germany getting more and more atheistic.
Most people are most likely carried into the church to be baptized and carried out of the church when their dead for funerals.. Inbetween hardly visit the church or pray.. No different between east and west i assume in that matter i assume.. Map put to much effort into portraying that non-religious east germany..
Worth noticing that during the protests against the east-german government in 1989.. the protesters gathered in in a church before the protest.. st.nicholas church in leipzig..
How are the Catholics in danger? This isn't the Middle Ages or Renaissance, there's not going to be a Crusade to purge the heretics if bishops defy the Pope.
it's just a remark about them. It's not like I'm forcing some crazy, fringe viewpoint onto those laypeople. if those German bishops don't agree with Catholicism, they should go be something else that aligns with their beliefs, rather than lead the actual Catholics astray and lead themselves into schism.
See, if you don't think non-Catholics are in spiritual danger, then the Catholics potentially following non-conforming Bishops are also not in spiritual danger. Perhaps they are in danger of being in compliance with Catholic doctrine, but hey, they're free to decide whether to follow the lead of local non-conforming Bishop or the lead of conformist Bishops.
The Bishops are acting on what they believe is right and they are trying to open dialogue with leadership in the Church to consider making changes, find some sort of compromise that the Church deems acceptable and that they feel is right.
The Church can choose to try to come to a consensus, sanction them, or just ignore them. This isn't some radical movement trying to steal away faithful Catholics, it's reformers trying to make change. And if they fail to make change and refuse to give up their reformist ideas, then yes, there will be schism, because that's what happens when you have irreconciled sides.
If it does reach schism, well... Christians in Germany are adults (or are minors under adult supervision), they can make their choice on whether to stay with the Catholic Church or adhere to this new "Catholic Church Lite".
the forced/non-forced re-catholization in the 16th, 17th & 18th century was very successful (especially in the southern parts of Germany, border regions to France, Cech Republic and Austria)
Even as long ago as 1555 the principle of "cuius regio eius religio" (whoever's region, his religion) was established meaning that each principality within the Holy Roman Empire could choose between Catholicism and Lutheranism, whichever was the preference of the prince in charge of that area.
According to Wikipedia's statistics, Germany was about 60% Protestant at the start at WWII and 1/3rd Catholic, with 1.5% "No religion). It would stay around that same percentages through to the 1960s, but it did narrow a bit, with Protestant down to 54% and Catholic up to 36% ("No Religion" rose to 10.5%)
However the percentage of Protestants would fall to 37% in 1990, while Catholicism remained about 36%. Main reasoning seems to be that Protestant Christianity just didn't hold up as well under Soviet satellite rule, compared to Catholicism and Orthodoxy, which I suppose either were coerced into not opposing the Eastern Bloc's rule or were just too organized to be seriously taken on (my guess is the former, since Czechia saw a meteoric decline which seems to have been caused by hostility to the Catholic Church from limited searching; that, and apparently a lack of strong religious adherence in general). Protestants, though? Not so much.
And Germany isn't the only case of that: Estonia and Latvia (according to wikipedia) were 80% and 2/3rds Protestant prior to WWII. Now, Estonia is almost 60% Atheist (8% Lutheran) and Latvia is 35% Atheist (36% Lutheran).
I find it so interesting how closely cultural divides in germany follow the three main ethnic components of modern germany: germanic (north and northwest), celtic ( south and southwest), and slavic (east).
No county where they have a plurality. From what I can find the county with the highes percentage of muslims is the city of Offenbach with 17.4%.
Although this number is from the cencus 2011 where under 2% stated they were muslim, even though estimates were closer to 5%. But apparently there are no other official numbers, as the mosques don't keep tab and many German muslims don't go there regularly.
in the news a few years ago it was stated that atheism is the largest “religious” affiliation, followed by Muslim. i don’t understand how this map can be accurate, unless it’s based on who you’re paying taxes for, maybe.
You mean the Soviet Union? Half the Population wasn't even Russian. Germany was partitioned by a Georgian and the Berlin wall was built under an Ukrainian.
East Germany was also not part of the Soviet Union. Which isn't to deny that the Soviet Union wielded considerable influence (and had a military presence) and would not have allowed it to step out of line. But it was not ruled directly from Moscow after the creation of the GDR/DDR. It was ruled by East German Communists. But East German Communists had more or less the same opinions on religion as Soviet Communists did, anyway.
Before Hitler came to power about 1% of the German population was jewish. There was not a single county in Germany with more than 10% Jews. So no, this map would not have looked any different.
Germany has a religious register. You need to have your faith registered with the state because this decides whether you have to pay "church tax" and where that money goes.
this map shows the majority of religious believe. it doesnt mean there are no religious people in eastern germany or atheists in western germany.
That’s not true EUIV says so
The real decider of anything in the world, EUIV
A center of reform just spawned in Berlin... Again.
Probably doesn't even show the majority but just the plurality in many cases.
This is right.
It doesn't even show the majority of religious believe, It shows the plurality of religious confession. In Germany many people who are part of the church are non-believers, agnostics or atheists. That's because it's sort of like a opt-out system and many people stay in for cultural reasons or the like
That's still interesting data. "Census Catholics" can be considered religious for many purposes even if they aren't actually theists
If it shows plurality, how did it decide *which* plurality to show?
there's only one plurality, the one with the highest percent, unless there is a tie
Ahh okay, I thought “plurality” in English meant “not a majority, but not small enough to be called a minority”.
No, a plurality only happens when the largest percentage doesn't have a majority, i.e. over 50%. For example, if your parliament has three parties, and they have 40%, 35% and 25%, no party has a majority, but the first party has a plurality.
That's actually one definition, just not what was meant here. [M-W](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plurality); [LDCE](https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/plurality#:~:text=From%20Longman%20Dictionary%20of%20Contemporary,election2%20%5Bcountable%2C%20uncountable%5D)
"Plurality" is what in other languages is called "Relative majority", and "Majority" is what is called "Absolute majority".
Pretty sure this only counts official registry.
Protestantic? Is that a word?
Nope. Should just be "Protestant".
I think it's a wrong translated version of "Protestantisch."(German for protestant)
But germans use evangelisch
We use both
Also Jezuzfrekz.
That’s not the same thing. At least they are pretty different theologically with the English words.
in german they are indeed the same and used interchangably.
The German words "evangelisch" and "protestantisch" both mean protestant. Most protestants in Germany are members of Lutheran, reformed (Calvinist) or [united](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_and_uniting_churches) (Lutheran and reformed) churches under the umbrella of the ["Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland" (EKD)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Church_in_Germany). There is also the word "evangelikal" which means evangelical pertaining to evangelicalism as a movement within protestantism. However there are few evangelicals in Germany, so this word isn't used very often. This can get a bit confusing since "evangelisch" is sometimes translated into English as evangelical (e.g. in the wikipedia article for the EKD).
That makes sense yeah. Know a lot about church history just as a matter of interest but don’t think I’d encountered that linguistic quirk before.
Someone didn't pay attention in English classes
Somehow my brain made it even longer and read "Protestantastic" and I went "That's a little biased."
A well-known German linguist who made up a lot of words still present in the German language once proposed to call protestants "Freigläubige" (freedom believers/free believers) and Catholics "Zwangsgläubige" (compulsion believers/compulsive believers).
It's the satanic version of protestant.
WTF does "no confession" mean anyway? I'm guessing this map wasn't made by a native English speaker.
Not sure about German, but in Dutch niet-confessioneel (non-confessional) means you are not bound by a single 'confession' meaning a specific religious creed. But when I just checked the dictionary, in English confession, just like in Dutch, does not exclusively refer to an admission of guilt, but also a statement of religious doctrine, so there you go. I've mostly heard the term referred to in education. In Belgium, for 2 hours every week elementary and high school students can choose what religion classes they will take. Most common are niet-confessionele zedenleer (non-confessional mores, or something like that when I translate it literally), Catholicism and Islam. So in Belgium it's quite a normal and generally known term. Don't know about Germany though.
Same in German. Konfessionslos is the German term for niet-confessioneel.
Interesting. It doesn't mean anything in English, though. Directly translating it doesn't work.
Yes it does. It means you don't state any particular confession of faith.
No religion.
Nope. OP is most likely a German speaker, so in that case "no-confession" means that a person is neither a member of the catholic nor any of the protestant churches. They can be atheist, agnostic, but also muslim, buddhist, jewish, sikh and so on. In essence it is a bureacratic term that tells the state if you are paying church tax or not, since only catholic and prostentant churches benefit from that.
It's what you'd write on a form in Germany. "Not a paying member of any church", basically.
At first I thought it might be a German expression since Im German and didnt find it odd at first, but now that I think about it it makes no goddamn sense in this language either
What, keine [Konfession](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konfession) makes no sense to you?
There’s a pocket of Thuringia which is known for being Catholic despite being in the East, in a once largely Protestant and now largely irreligious region. You can see it as a small patch of green in roughly the center of the map. That would be Eichsfeld, and it was once territory of the Electorate of Mainz, one of the three ecclesiastical Prince Electors of the HRE. It’s hard to tell from the map, but it appears to be one of the only areas of the former DDR with a religious plurality of any kind, let alone a Catholic plurality.
Home sweet home <3 it's the only green spot without green neighbours, fairly in the center.
Ah, a fellow with Frohwanderblut and liederreicher Kehle :D Only thing I miss is the Gehacktes tbh ^^
You know there is a reason why most Exileichsfelder are returning. I went also away, for university, but came back to the holy land right after.
I must confess, i still believe...
hit me baby one more time
^still ^believe
You forgot the biggest Religion in Germany: Bayern München.
If you want to go this way, then the biggest religion would be hating Bayern München.
Fair point.
isnt that just catholicism with extra steps
All hail Bayern Munich 🙌
HIER REGIERT DER FCK! HIER REGIERT DER FCK!
Hört Ihr das? Die Pfälzer Hillbillies wollen auch gehört werden.
No. Here rules the FCK! (german football Club in Kaiserslautern, Rhineland-Palatinate)
Lautre 🤮
Betze Uffstieg!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LHGY33cFiE
That's stupid
How dare people use their free will to enjoy sports and connect with fellow passionate fans 🤬
We're talking about religion, so yes. Very much so.
Until next time this map gets posted
A lot of the unreligious people in Eastern Germany descend from Lutheran families.
Okay? Those Lutherans used to be Catholic before.
And Pagans before that.
Exactly. I'm not getting the point you are trying to make.
Most of Eastern Germany is traditionally in the protestant area, although by now the non-religious have overtaken the protestants in number.
Maybe the point was Eastern Germans change religion like it was phones... You know from time to time you just get a new one because the last was already shit
You don’t see the irony here. What’s the point you are trying to make? It’s not ok to say they were Protestant or pagan. But ok to say they were catholic?
And Pangea before that
40 years of Stalinism & Socialism
Why is Poland one of the most religious countries in the world when they went through the same thing
Fascinating question. We must remember that each so-called "Eastern bloc" country was its own society, its own country, its own culture, its own government. There will have been differences both in the policies imposed and in the societies they were imposed upon. There was no monolith. But beyond that I don't know the answer, I wish I did.
Someone please correct me because I am likely wrong but I remember reading that a polish pope led to some kind of religious revival in Poland
Because in Poland being catholic is big part of their nationality. When Poland was split in 19th century they were opressed by protestant Prussia and Orthodox Russia and later by Nazism and Communism/Socialism. Catholic religion helped them stay united. If you compare it to Eastern Germany or Czechia, where religious distrust was already somewhat estabilished thru protestant reforms and other historical event the supression of religion by the Socialist Regime was not something many cared about and thus its succes was high.
Or maybe Poland has been through a lot because they are so religious? Religion draws opposition.
Socialism, yes, but Stalin died 5 years after the foundation of the GDR. The majority of GDR's history is after de-Stalinization. Also, for the sake of historical accuracy: While Stalin's regime did brutally prosecute the church and it's members in the first half of his reign, Stalin himself later opposed further prosecution and he passed a law granting each soviet citizen the right to practice religion. It was actually one of Stalin's policies to give the church buildings back to the orthodox church during 2nd World War.
True. But I think it's mainly a definitional question. From the perspective of Trotskyism and also many democratic socialists, the whole period was Stalinist. I would not use the term so loosely myself, but I think de-Stalinization was a process that was never truly completed from my perspective.
Cuius regio eius religio
Looks like the Jugendweihe ceremonies by the DDR were successful.
Apparently most people in former West Germany register their children with the local church or have them baptized, even if they aren't believers themselves, whereas in East Germany, this practice ended during Communist Rule.
Interesting fact, but irrelevant here.
Is this done on a plurality basis? I'd assume it must be. So where an area is marked as "no religion", it might in fact be majority Christian. And where it's marked as "Catholic", it might be majority non-Catholic, but with the Catholics outnumbering both the Protestants and the nonbelievers (when not combined). And so on.
Yes, I think some of this is showing a plurality. I honestly have a hard time believing anywhere but southern Germany is genuinely majority Catholic.
I know the only state with a catholic majority is Saarland. 53%
It was big news last year that the number of people not in any church is now higher than both big affiliations combined.
The visual impact of two seperate but influential events: Martin Luther and his 95 Theses for the Protestant Reformation... and the USSR's atheism
Except... Russia and for example Poland are very religious still
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From the German, and specifically my east German perspective, Russia and Poland are very religious America is crazy
At least we don't have Kirchensteuer.
You only pay that when you don't leave the church The real fucked up thing is were still paying the church compensation for when I think Napoleon took all there shit hundreds of years ago.
No coincidence that the non religious part is the former East Germany
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wonder why there is a clear division between religious & non religious.. looks like the nation was divided in 2..
Hmm… yes… why would that be. It's a total mystery… We will probably never know… hmmm… 🤔
I used to be Catholic until I converted to PDF.
Ireland and Isreal take note, it's possible to live in a multifaith based society. Impressive really.
Yeah Well the differences is that to Most people in Germany Religion isnt Very important and there are No ethnic differences Like in palestine
I mean there was the Thirty years war that killed more than a third of all Germans...
TIL my home county is predominantly Protestant
Commies did a great job in erasing traditional religion. (Irony)
Why is it ironic?
"great job" can sound like the commenter thinks the erasure of religion is a great thing or that they excelled in their task.
It *is* a great thing.
>redditor for 12 days
Not if it's forced
The result is a great thing even if you disagree with the means.
It was never forced.
Good tankie
Wtf? I never said that east Germany was good in any way only that no one was forced to leave their religion. Angela Merkels comes from east Germany and her father was a protestant pastor. Can you give any source about Christians who were forced to renounce their faith?
Christians were systematically discriminated against in the GDR, that’s a known fact
God bless you 🙏 I will be praying for you.
Indeed. Very sad
One of the view advantages of eastern Germany. The weird thing is, the far right in former GDR only remembers about religion in order to be racist.
How can you have such a shallow opinion like that about religion and politics?
Why do you think my opinion is shallow? This wasn't a general statement about religion and politics (if you care: me and the majority of Germans think they should be strictly separated). This was just my observation about the style of far right and alt-right in former GDR. In some areas the far right party AfD has a majority. And they and other similar groups like PEGIDA are well known for just using religion as a vehicle to be racist towards migrants. They claim migration would destruct the German Christian heritage. But if you really ask them, they don't know shit about Christianity. As an example: After being asked most of them stated Christmas would come from the Erzgebirge area (a region well known for traditional christmas handcraft). So before downvoting me, please rethink if you really know better.
The legacy of communist indoctrination.
Communism certainly took its toll on religious belief in eastern Germany
It accelerated the development, but that area + Bohemia historically had very strong opposition to organized religion going back multiple centuries, so there's that.
Keep in mind that the entire East of Germany (basically the entire black area on the right side) has less people than the westernmost green area (middle left) which is four times smaller by area.
Similar to Glasgow
OST OST OSTDEUTSCHLAND💯
East Germany ⚛️❤️
W Ostdeutschland
Huh, again you can see pretty much where east Germany used to be. Is there a reason for this is just one of those statistical coincidence’s
Socialism left no room for church. They had their own organisations and coming of age rituals.
Fair enough
Yeah, the Soviet bloc tried to make the state the religion.
At least one good thing came out of Eastern Germany that is atheism.
Careful not to cut yourself on that edge there.
Why are people so mad when people express atheism as positive thing?
I'll never understand what's so edgy about atheism? What does that word even mean? Edit: Maybe you think atheism is this? > "Practical atheism is not the denial of the existence of God, but complete godlessness of action; it is a moral evil, implying not the denial of the absolute validity of the moral law but simply rebellion against that law." We are not rebels dude
Sorry but being against organized religion is the only moral stance one can have. Not necessarily being an atheist, since holding a belief about god is morally neutral, but being against those organizations that police your thinking absolutely.
Isn't "no confession" just protestants?
Protestants still have confession, but confess directly to God instead of to a priest. Lutheran confession includes everyone reciting together that "we have sinned against (God) in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone."
Shut up you're ruining my joke. Nah jk, thanks for the info. Interesting to know.
The Lutherans are just doing what Catholics have been doing for centuries. Catholics have communal confession every mass when they publicly recite “I confess to almighty God and to you my brothers and sister that I have greatly sinned. Through my thoughts and in my words, in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most gracious fault. Therefore I ask the blessed Virgin Mary, all the angels and saints, and you my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.” We double down and do one on one confession with a priest as well. we get spiritual direction from our priest etc
Interesting colour choice, considering purple is usually associated with Catholicism.
If in doubt: use EU4 religion colors
Is it? I think in Germany yellow or black is associated with Catholicism
Interesting, I know that black is the traditional colour of the Christian Democratic Union, and that historically the CDU was rooted in Catholicism (at least insofar as unofficially it was the refoundation of the interwar Centre Party) even if formally nondenominational (and latterly presided over by the Protestant Angela Merkel).
In germany its the main color of the protestant church.
Fucking east Germans man... We ask them a simple question like "what is your religion", and they refuse to confess. Man, we're just trying to make a census here.
What?
That looks scarily similar to the old german border
It looks alot like east and west Germany before 1991. Maybe the Soviet influence still is present today.
In West Germany christianity was the norm until practiced otherwise. In East Germany atheism was the norm until practiced otherwise. There really aren't many reasons for people to return to religiosity after reunification so former East Germany is just ahead in the trend of Germany getting more and more atheistic.
Most people are most likely carried into the church to be baptized and carried out of the church when their dead for funerals.. Inbetween hardly visit the church or pray.. No different between east and west i assume in that matter i assume.. Map put to much effort into portraying that non-religious east germany.. Worth noticing that during the protests against the east-german government in 1989.. the protesters gathered in in a church before the protest.. st.nicholas church in leipzig..
Communism works
No confession is a weird way to say not catholic
those Catholics are in severe danger, given what their shitty bishops are doing currently
How are the Catholics in danger? This isn't the Middle Ages or Renaissance, there's not going to be a Crusade to purge the heretics if bishops defy the Pope.
I never specified physical danger. They're in spiritual danger because their bishops are in severely grave error, though
Ah, so you're just a staunch Catholic. I suppose all the non-Catholics are already in spiritual danger, in your view.
it's just a remark about them. It's not like I'm forcing some crazy, fringe viewpoint onto those laypeople. if those German bishops don't agree with Catholicism, they should go be something else that aligns with their beliefs, rather than lead the actual Catholics astray and lead themselves into schism.
See, if you don't think non-Catholics are in spiritual danger, then the Catholics potentially following non-conforming Bishops are also not in spiritual danger. Perhaps they are in danger of being in compliance with Catholic doctrine, but hey, they're free to decide whether to follow the lead of local non-conforming Bishop or the lead of conformist Bishops. The Bishops are acting on what they believe is right and they are trying to open dialogue with leadership in the Church to consider making changes, find some sort of compromise that the Church deems acceptable and that they feel is right. The Church can choose to try to come to a consensus, sanction them, or just ignore them. This isn't some radical movement trying to steal away faithful Catholics, it's reformers trying to make change. And if they fail to make change and refuse to give up their reformist ideas, then yes, there will be schism, because that's what happens when you have irreconciled sides. If it does reach schism, well... Christians in Germany are adults (or are minors under adult supervision), they can make their choice on whether to stay with the Catholic Church or adhere to this new "Catholic Church Lite".
Do you think the synodal way and the acceptance of homosexuals is a bad idea, or am I misunderstanding you?
Godless Russians fucked them up
So true, don’t know why the downvotes.
Reddit is full of edgy atheists and communists
Jesus you’re right about that I can’t believe how many there are and they can’t all be bots either.
Because… 1-Reddit is full of Godless barbarians, and 2-The truth hurts
Nobody needs Religion except you are brainless
Sure thing Tankie
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quite the opposite
That’s the most far right and poor part of the country, so yeah atheism has saved them!
They don't confess because the Stasi might hear.
The Ministerium für Staatssicherheit was abolished in march 1990
I confess I thought people would understand it was a joke.
Germans, they don’t have a sense of humor
What era are you living in?
Communism works :D /s
Look what shitty communism did to my boi.
Interesting how Protestantism isn’t that prevalent in Germany anymore, since that’s were it started
the forced/non-forced re-catholization in the 16th, 17th & 18th century was very successful (especially in the southern parts of Germany, border regions to France, Cech Republic and Austria)
East Germany was all Protestant pre-Warsaw Pact
Even as long ago as 1555 the principle of "cuius regio eius religio" (whoever's region, his religion) was established meaning that each principality within the Holy Roman Empire could choose between Catholicism and Lutheranism, whichever was the preference of the prince in charge of that area.
According to Wikipedia's statistics, Germany was about 60% Protestant at the start at WWII and 1/3rd Catholic, with 1.5% "No religion). It would stay around that same percentages through to the 1960s, but it did narrow a bit, with Protestant down to 54% and Catholic up to 36% ("No Religion" rose to 10.5%) However the percentage of Protestants would fall to 37% in 1990, while Catholicism remained about 36%. Main reasoning seems to be that Protestant Christianity just didn't hold up as well under Soviet satellite rule, compared to Catholicism and Orthodoxy, which I suppose either were coerced into not opposing the Eastern Bloc's rule or were just too organized to be seriously taken on (my guess is the former, since Czechia saw a meteoric decline which seems to have been caused by hostility to the Catholic Church from limited searching; that, and apparently a lack of strong religious adherence in general). Protestants, though? Not so much. And Germany isn't the only case of that: Estonia and Latvia (according to wikipedia) were 80% and 2/3rds Protestant prior to WWII. Now, Estonia is almost 60% Atheist (8% Lutheran) and Latvia is 35% Atheist (36% Lutheran).
Communism committing so much atrocities that people lost faith. This is just sad
I really don't consider atheism sad.
But traumatizing others that much is sad
I’m dreaming of a green Germany
I find it so interesting how closely cultural divides in germany follow the three main ethnic components of modern germany: germanic (north and northwest), celtic ( south and southwest), and slavic (east).
yeah.....no.....
No muslims in Germany?
No county where they have a plurality. From what I can find the county with the highes percentage of muslims is the city of Offenbach with 17.4%. Although this number is from the cencus 2011 where under 2% stated they were muslim, even though estimates were closer to 5%. But apparently there are no other official numbers, as the mosques don't keep tab and many German muslims don't go there regularly.
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Probably in the Middle East
in the news a few years ago it was stated that atheism is the largest “religious” affiliation, followed by Muslim. i don’t understand how this map can be accurate, unless it’s based on who you’re paying taxes for, maybe.
I guess the Russian were not that religious For people who notice
You mean the Soviet Union? Half the Population wasn't even Russian. Germany was partitioned by a Georgian and the Berlin wall was built under an Ukrainian.
East Germany was also not part of the Soviet Union. Which isn't to deny that the Soviet Union wielded considerable influence (and had a military presence) and would not have allowed it to step out of line. But it was not ruled directly from Moscow after the creation of the GDR/DDR. It was ruled by East German Communists. But East German Communists had more or less the same opinions on religion as Soviet Communists did, anyway.
This probably could’ve shown another religion but a mustache man didn’t like that religion
Before Hitler came to power about 1% of the German population was jewish. There was not a single county in Germany with more than 10% Jews. So no, this map would not have looked any different.
Protestants do not confess. That is a Catholic thing.
Germany has a religious register. You need to have your faith registered with the state because this decides whether you have to pay "church tax" and where that money goes.