sapphi_snake said:
Kynes said:
sapphi_snake said:
Kynes said:
If it would have a net positive result for the Spanish economy, then I'm almost sure the protests would be minimal, if any. The problem is that atheists in Spain, and mostly in the entire world, protest against Christians in general, and Catholics in particular, but they almost never protest against Muslims. The problem isn't that a religious leader has come to Spain, the problem is that he's the Pope, and what he represents.
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No, the problem is that this is a religious event funded by taxpayer money. A Government (in a democratic secular country at least), is not allowed to fund such an event. Believe it or not, but lots of people actually care about things like freedom of religion, and dislike it when it is broken, this being such a case. And I don't see any Western Governments funding trips to Mecca for muslims, so why would anyone protest against them?
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First of all, you were the one who put the trips to Mecca example, if you think it's an absurd example, you are the culprit of using it in the first time.
You need to take a look at the 16.3 article of the Spanish constitution. Spain isn't a secular country, a la France. We don't have an official religion, but the Catholic church has some benefits due to tradition and the great supportive actions it does to the Spanish government, as schools, hospitals, elderly asylums... dependent of the Catholic church are way cheaper to the taxpayer, one student in a catholic school is more than 50% cheaper than one in a public one. One of the benefits it has is the possibility every taxpayer has to decide if he wants to provide a 0,7% to fund it, to fund other NPOs, to split the money between both options, or do neither and provide all his tax money to the government funding.
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I think that the ideea of the Spanish Government funding trips to Mecca for muslims is as absurd as they funding the Pope's visit.
If Spain isn't a secular country, then I assume it's a theocracy, no? I mean, if the Catholic Church recieves 'benefits', then it's pretty obvious that's the case. These 'benefits' recieved by Catholic Church undermine people's freedom of religion (provided there even is such a right in Spain). I assume that the Catholic Church recieves additional funding, outside that 0.7% of tax money people may or may not choose to give it, no?
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No, you don't seem to understand that you don't have to be a theocracy or a secular country, you have other government types. I will repeat again, we don't have an official religion, and we aren't a secular country. The presence of the religion in public acts isn't forbidden. Is the USA a secular country? Is UK one? Norway? Israel?
Related to taxpayers money, nowadays the Catholic Church only has that direct benefit, the 0.7% of the income tax of the users who decide to provide it. It used to have exemptions in the VAT, and some direct funding, as any other religion based on the percentage of believers, but several years ago they were overruled. Some people argue that the use of catholic schools as state-subsidized ones is an indirect way of funding it, but as I have mentioned before, one student in a catholic school is way cheaper to the Spanish taxpayer than a student in a public school one.
In Spain not only the Catholic Church has bennefits, we have several mosques partly funded indirectly with taxpayers money, with local governments providing the place where them would be built, or directly funded as the Islamic, Jews or Evangelics are.
