I have come to the conclusion that the Finnish Minister of interior, Päivi Räsänen from the Christian Democrats party has done more damage to our Lutheran church than any atheist awareness campaign. Every time she opens her mouth there is a huge spike in people leaving the church.
(Some atheists set up a website where you can resign from church easily. So rather than getting the paperwork and filing it just give them your name [Or someone else's name if you are an asshole] and they do all the paperwork for you. They also show stats of how many people are leaving the church.)
Wait, you mean that any Finn is automatically a member and has to specifically opt out should they want no part of it? I have to say, that's a tad fucked.
Any Finn whose parents are members of the state church. Or just the other parent and they decide that the kid also joins (at the ripe age of few months). So yeah, the membership is kind of automatic. And even among those who don't believe it's just habit to be member for Really Good Reasons (
) such as ability to get wed at church, cheaper funerals and of course you have to name that baby of yours too and some people don't know in real life even this day that even though the kids name is usually told to relatives at the babtism that it really isn't name giving event.