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Most Christians in my country would consider it a blasphemy to take the bible literally and believe that God is a killer.


From what I read about Germany, the main percentage of Protestants are Lutherans:
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But the facts, apart from surveys, tell a different story. By far most people belong to a religious organization. In 1989, the year before the unification with East Germany, 82.77 percent of the West German population belonged either to the Catholic or the Lutheran Church, 3 percent were Muslim, and a few percent where members of other groups. By far most people still have their children baptized, marry religiously, and pay their church taxes. The main difference between German and American religiosity seems to be that for Germans religiosity is more of a private matter, something that is not shown or spoken about publicly. Some people I have spoken with even deny that they are religious, even though they go sometimes to church and pay their church tax.

source of previous quote

Its important to understand that both the Catholic church AND the German Protestant Churches(Lutherans) are mere shells of the denominations they began as. Martin Luther would turn over in his grave if he were to witness the degradation of his belief system which is evidenced in today's Lutheran churches. Both of these European churches did definitely believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible when they were founded whereas the American churches have preserved the original teachings of the Bible which have lasted since the Protestant reformation.

In one blurb from the Wikipedia on the Evangelical Church in Germany most Protestant Churches in Germany are either Lutheran or United(Which is a Lutheran derivative). I was amazed at the statement that
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The vast majority of German Protestants nevertheless belong to a member church of the EKD, about 32% of the overall German population



So I guess I was wrong about Germany being a cold, religionless place. There is certainly is a lot of religious people there. However, from my initial observations, the main Protestant doctrines there are far removed from their original foundational doctrines. I also would add that listing off a group of numbers and statistics for the purposes of debate is almost inhuman. There are undoubtedly a lot of good, wonderful people in Germany, as their are in America, Iraq, Russia, China or anywhere else. Of course, being good, and nice and friendly and polite are not in themselves reasons for enterance to heaven.

The interesting point about these protestants in Germany(as well as the same kind of Protestants in US or elsewhere) is that they are mostly good people, as are Catholics very good people. And they seem to hold on to a faith in God, however nebulous and impersonal of a God it seems to be. Likewise they seem to believe in a vague concept of heaven, of which it seems that enterance thereof can be attained by just doing good and helping your fellow man.

It is easy to see that, in the context of such a sketchy and half-hearted belief system, why the youth of Europe seem so ready to reject the entire concept of God. This concept of God, "the liberal God" which Irish_Farmer calls it seems completely irrelevant to real life, and the hardships which face us daily.

I would say that this "liberal God" would fare even worsely at your ICC trial because He had the power to stop suffering also, in that He was still all powerful, but instead He watched it like some type of sick voyeur or cold scientist using us as guinea pigs or rats in a maze.

At least the Biblical God, the God upon which all European protestant churches are based upon, was a personal God who set into motion a real plan of salvation from the disasters.

I am no expert of German religion though, I would very much like to speak to a German minister of both denominations, one Baptist and one Lutheran to really get a feel for whats going on there. But I suppose I can learn bits and peices by reading articles and listening to the people on here.

Last edited by NITRO; 01/14/07 14:10.