Also from Germany ;)
I feel like Germans fall back on the “delicate topic” nonsense as a permanent justification for just about everything, but in reality, they tolerate plenty of big government violations of privacy and individual liberty while becoming hysterical about Google or Facebook. It’s illogical, Facebook isn’t going to lead to Nazism or the Stasi again — but the actual government could, yet Germans tolerate their government tracking people by religion or a government conducting mass surveillance but they lose their minds over an American social media company?
Russians and East Europeans aren’t constantly claiming “sensitivity” because of the past abuses of the KGB or NKVD despite those organizations killing vastly more people than the Nazis.
It’s hypocrisy. You can’t claim to be sensitive about a Nazi past while still tolerating the government to register people by their religion. Facebook privacy issues aren’t going to lead to Nazism; any implication of same is just nonsense.
The Church's "member fee" is being collected as a tax by the state because of some Weimar Republic law that has been kept around. Bishops are also payed by the state. This was to stop the then powerful churches from revolting against the government because the government wanted to clean up older laws and conflicts. [1] Don't ask me why it's still this way, I know a lot of people that want to get rid of that, including myself. You can get out of paying church tax very easily at the city hall, btw. You can then also state that your religion is following the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Imho, you are blowing this out of proportion.
> It’s illogical, Facebook isn’t going to lead to Nazism or the Stasi again
Right, but governments that request access to this data can. It's better to not collect data in the first place.