The fastest growing religion group in Iceland is Zuism, that has already outstripped the number of Muslims in that country. What is Zuism?
Zuism is based on ancient Sumeran texts and the Sumeran religion is one of the world’s oldest religions, believed to be the basis of the world’s religions. It survived for instance in the mythologies and religions of ancient cultures such as the Babylonians, Assyrians, Hurrians, Akkadians, Egyptians, Romans and other culture groups.
According to Sumerian mythology, the primordial union of An and Ki produced Enlil, who became leader of the Sumerian pantheon. After the deities banished Enlil from the home of the Gods, Dilmun for raping the goddess Ninlil, she had a child, Nanna, god of the moon, Nanna and Ningal gave birth to Inanna, the goddess of war and fertility and to Utu, the god of the sun.
All that is no doubt fascinating but it appears that the popularity of this religion may be due to more prosaic reasons.
Iceland is one of those European countries that requires you to state your religious affiliation and the government then imposes a tax called a ‘parish fee’ and gives that money to your church. If you say you are an atheist, the government taxes you anyway and puts the money in a pool that is then shared among the churches.
This state subsidizing of religion is what enables churches in many countries to survive despite the decline in their numbers and there are moves in Iceland to create a separation of church and state. But meanwhile, if you say that you are a Zuist, the church of Zuism has promised that the money it gets from the government will be given back to its members.
So the Zuists are somewhat like the Satanist religion in the US, using their religious status to advance the cause of church-state separation.