Sunday, July 6, 2008

Normal Thinking

In Germany you are required to register in each town you live in.

One of the things they ask you is your religion.

They asked my boyfriend, and he told them he was atheist.

The woman wrote "VD", and he asked, "What does that stand for?"

She replied "verschieden denkend", which means different thinking.

"No," he said, "normal denkend" (normal thinking).

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6 comments:

Unknown said...

Hahahaha! I love your boyfriend!!!

Richard Wade said...

A quick and excellent retort. It would be interesting to learn what the woman ended up writing on the form. Maybe in German that phrase translates more as "he's different. He thinks!"

I find the whole idea of having to register one's religion as a new member of a town bizarre and sinister. Why the hell do they want to know, and why the hell do they need to know?

Anonymous said...

They ask because thay collect taxes for the two big churches over here (lutherans and catholics).

The Amiable Atheist said...

yes, trublu is correct,

they automatically take taxes from those who claim a religious affiliation in germany.

there is a wikipedia page about it if anyone is interested.

coba said...

Richard Wade,

I agree. Let's say that what the abbreviation really stands for is "verschieden: denkend".

It is like the signs at my old college where an unfortunate line break made it look as though they said "do not flush things; that may clog toilet."

Amatullah said...

I'm sorry, I couldn't find anywhere to email you so I decided to post this on one of your blog posts. I was just wondering if Atheists believe if a person has a soul