Religion in the Netherlands

[3][4] [page needed] The Constitution of the Netherlands guarantees freedom of education, which means that all schools that adhere to general quality criteria receive the same government funding.

Three out of nineteen political parties in the States General (CDA, CU and SGP) are based upon Christian belief.

There were Germans south of it (Germani Cisrhenani) and many place names and archaeological finds indicate the presence of Celts north of the Rhine.

The tribes adapted one another's myths and polytheistic deities, resulting in a synthesis of Germanic, Celtic, and Roman mythology.

The Celts and Germans in the Low Countries had tree shrines, following the example of the Old Norse Yggdrasil, the Saxon Irminsul, and Donar's oak.

Around 500 of the Franks, initially residing between the Rhine and the Somme, converted to Christianity following the conversion of their king Chlodovech.

After independence, the Netherlands adopted Calvinism as an informal state religion, but practiced a degree of religious tolerance towards non-Calvinists.

It cultivated a reputation as a safe refuge for Jewish and Protestant refugees from Flanders, France (Huguenots), Germany and England.

The increasing trend towards secularism is countered by a religious revival in the Protestant Bible Belt, and the growth of Muslim and Hindu communities resulting from immigration and high birth rates.

The main sources of Muslim immigrants include Suriname and Indonesia from decolonization, Turkey and Morocco as migrant workers, and Iraq, Iran, Bosnia and Afghanistan as refugees.

After the rise of politician Pim Fortuyn, who sought to defend the Dutch liberal culture against what he saw as a "backwards religion",[14] stricter immigration laws were enacted.

Secular humanism has a notable presence in the Netherlands, with research in 2003 indicating about 9.4% of the population expressing affinity with the movement.

This form of pluralism occurs in all religious and philosophical Dutch movements but is strongest among supporters of non-Western religions.

Also 9% of Catholics, 6% of Protestants, and 50% of the Buddhists counting themselves as humanists, as well as 25% of Muslims, 55% of the Hindu, 19% of the Jews, and 15% of the supporters of a movement other than these listed.

[17]: 213 While 67.8% of the Dutch population are not members of any religious community[citation needed], the remainder report affiliation with a multitude of religions.

Religious belief is also regarded as a very personal affair, as is illustrated by the fact that 60% of self-described believers are not affiliated with any organized religion.

In December 2011, a report was published by Wim Deetman, a former Dutch minister, detailing widespread child abuse within the Catholic Church in the Netherlands.

[33] According to the report, "The risk of experiencing unwanted sexual advances was twice as great for minors in institutions as the national average of 9.7%.

"[34] In March 2012, however, it was revealed that cases of 10 children being chemically castrated after reporting being sexually abused to the police had come to light.

According to the De Telegraaf newspaper, he "intervened to have prison sentences dropped against several priests convicted of abusing children.

[3] Notable Dutch Catholics include Pope Adrian VI, Ruud Lubbers, Henry of Gorkum, Cornelius Loos, Jakob Middendorp, Hadewijch, Hieronymus Bosch, Piet de Jong, Jan Harmenszoon Krul, Dries van Agt, Jan Steen, Casimir Ubaghs, Maxime Verhagen, and Joan Albert Ban.

For example, Urk, considered by many as one of the most traditional communities in the country, and some municipalities of Friesland have characteristics typical of the Bible Belt.

During the 1990s, the Netherlands received Muslim refugees from countries like Bosnia and Herzegovina, Somalia, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.

Politician Pim Fortuyn being murdered by militant animal rights activist Volkert van der Graaf in 2002 made his anti-Islamic opinions dominant.

This was reinforced in 2004 by the murder of Theo van Gogh by extremist Muslim Mohammed Bouyeri, part of the Hofstad Network.

After 2009, the Party for Freedom, with considerable electoral success, demanded a ban of the Quran, closure of all mosques and a forced remigration of those Muslims who had not assimilated into the Dutch culture.

Prominent Dutch Jews include Baruch Spinoza, a 17th-century philosopher, Aletta Jacobs, a 19th-century feminist, and Henri Polak, who founded both the socialist party SDAP and the labor union NVV.

[2] Most of these are relatively recent first or second-generation Indo-Surinamese immigrants, South Asians who had been resident in the former Dutch colony of Suriname and traveled to the Netherlands in the 1970s and 1980s.

There are also sizable populations of Hindu immigrants from India and Sri Lanka, as well as a smaller number of Western adherents of Hinduism-oriented new religious movements.

[52] Following World War II, the Baháʼís established a committee to oversee introducing the religion across Europe.