A Little Christmas Tale

In a little stable, not far from Jerusalem a baby boy was born on the eve of midwinter to the family of a humble carpenter. The parents of the newborn boy headed for the border of Egypt to seek sanctuary and shelter, because in those days many, many children were killed by the soldiers of Israel, at the behest of their ruler. The escape attempt, however, came to no avail, for the border was closed. As were all other routs, that would have saved the little family. There they remained at the mercy of a raging enemy, who were so indiscriminate in their vengefull killing spree to destroy a vile enemy, that they even killed their own unarmed civillians who had been held hostage by their enemies.

Unlike most of their neighbours, this family of our story was Christian, but did the Christians of the world come to their aid? No, most of them were all too busy building fences to stop anyone in need of help from getting into their countries, because that was what Jesus really meant, when he told his followers to sell all their property and give the money to the poor.

For years this family had suffered abuse and exploitation, as their grandparent’s olive trees were cut down by a bunch of squatters and their house was raised to ground. Now in the rubble of their home town, that had first been turned into a ghetto and a prison, it was finally over. God had given the ancestral land of this small family, to some chosen people who had been promised it thousands of years ago in a book.

Have a nice yule tide, happy hanukkah, merry christmas, saturnalia, joyous bobunk, quanza, or what ever!

 

Abortion

I probably should not talk about this because I am a middle-aged, flesh-eating, white male, but I have an opinion.

One thing, that we need to get clear first, is that nobody – absolutely nobody – is advocating for more abortions. The real issue here is, how to reduce them. Wether you think human rights should be appointed at the point of conception, or at birth the fact, that in societies where abortion is illegal more abortions do take place and they are often more dangerous to the woman, especially if they are poor, than in societies where abortion is legal. It should therefore be obvious, that simply banning them is not a good way to reduce them.

Nowhere is this discussion as heated as in the USA. I guess it is because no other country with secular constitution has as much religiously minded voters. Their sincerely held religious beliefs have been turned into a populist political tool dangled before them to provoke emotional, rather than rational reaction. It is an effective way to sway, misdirect and abuse voters in that it involves the sanctity of life, innocent and helpless subject to violence, the identity of the religious person as part of the group from wich they get their values and a problem that in real life there are no easy answers to, but to the ignorant and emotionally involved one can be seemingly presented.

The Supreme Court of USA decided a while ago to overturn the Roe vs. Wade descision in order to let the states to decide wether or not abortion should be legal. My opinion is, that thus the US Supreme Court has acted in contempt of their own constitution by enabling the states to impose the religious beliefs of some on others.

The idea that the soul begins at the moment of conception – true or false – is a religiously held belief. There is no evidence, that can back it up. Infact, there is no evidence of a soul existing at all. There is no organ, that holds this magical essence of a human being. Exept perhaps the brain, where other such imaginary things reside. One can use the word to poetically describe the persona of an individual, but let us not be hypocritical and claim that is the way state legistlators and their voters who wish to ban abortion see the issue. They are motivated precisely by superstition & their religious moralist beliefs, not by anything else. Hardly anything demonstrates this better, than the fact, that in this day and age of easy access to information, these legistlative bodies have decided to ignore all the research and facts about the issue. Facts, like the one that abortions are not actually much reduced by bans. They simply become more unhealthy and down right dangerous. Facts, like that abortions are reduced by sex education and easy access to free contraception. These matter not, as if the goal was not to reduce abortions, but simply punish the women who need one. They all need it to ask for one. Nobody, absolutely nobody has an abortion just because it is such a thrill. If anyone ever did, they would actually need it more than any other, as it would indicate them as even more unprepared for parenthood, than all the others who feel they need to go through it.

You simply can not make people to become more able parents by punishing them for having had sex. If you are under such a blatant misunderstanding, perhaps it would be best for the sake of any possible kids, you would reconsider becoming a parent your self?

Both the religious moralist motivation and the demand that a woman should sacrifice her body to sustain the developing embryo, claimed to supposedly hold same rights as a fully developed human individual – even if that were true and equal – are against everything the US constitution stands for.

The USA s just a nother country, albeit a fairly big one. I fear for the rest of the world. The USA has shown an example of the success of liberal policies. If this emotional and divisive issue continues to divert political power to other fascist agenda there, it may yet again become an issue in the rest of the world and good willing people all over the globe may become vessels for this stupidity. We have already seen it happen in the heart of Europe, in Poland. The attitudes of the world population stand in danger of hardening in so many issues, not just this. There are, of course, many roads that lead to the demands of controll of the lives of others and eventually Fascism, but this one is especially devious, because it sels itself as a means to protect the innocent and defenseless children, while it actually can not provide any protection to anyone. On the contrary, it sets the living, breathing women in danger, while the amount of abortion and especially late term abortions is likely to grow.

 

Everyone is an Atheist

Not just the people who identify as an atheist – absolutely everyone is an atheist. You, me, everybody.

The Jew is an atheist about every other god exept the god of Abraham. The Christian is an atheist about Allah and the Muslim about Jesus. Even the most liberal minded polytheist, who accepts as gods gods they have never even heard of and thinks that all the gods in the world are mere manifestations of the same divinity, is an atheist about the versions of monotheistic gods, that demand they are the one and only god there is. Simply because the polytheist does not believe in that sort of god. Most people do not even believe in most versions of the gods they profess to believe in, exept perhaps on the most vague terms. When people get into specifics about the gods they do believe in, that is when the suspension of disbelief starts to crumble in the mind of the other person. Does this make the term atheist irrelevant? It does not.

We use the word atheist to describe a person who does not believe in any gods. However, it should be noticed, that it is our shared disbelief in all sorts of gods, that is the unifying factor between all of us and thus the right to not believe in the other man’s god is important to all of us. As such, it should also remind us that for the same reason laws must not be passed based on the alledged opinion, or authority of any gods, but based on the ethical evaluation of secular reasoning for harm and benefit of action, or inaction. If the gods are reasonable, they agree with such secular morals, if not, then to hell with them.

 

Religious Rights II – The Plot Thikens

Recently I wrote about an oncoming trial and about some international reactions to it in my previous post the Religious Rights. Now there is more. A nother international player has made a big entrance to the play. The Citizen Go – an ultra-conservative advocacy group, based originally in Spain – has started bombarding the Finnish Justice Department with letters. In addition they tell us, that they have collected some 200 000 names in defence of the accused. Altough, this has not been confirmed, since the memory stick by wich these names have been sent to the Finnish Justice Department is still being processed for potential viruses. The office of the Finnish National Prosecutor has recieved some 1600 letters, each with approximately 100 signatures, that demand that former minister and Parliamentary Representative Päivi Räsänen would not be condemned to prison for her (rather vile) Christian opinions about homosexuals.

The loathsome and underhanded nature of the right-wing ultra-conservative religious groups is well demonstrated by this, as in real life there is no danger whatsoever, that Päivi Räsänen would serve jail time as a result of the prosecutions she is facing. The most severe punishment – if found guilty – would be for her to pay fines. If the Citizen Go does not know this fact about the trial they dample in, it is extremely poor and soddy work from them. However, it seems much more likelier, that they are just using poor old Päivi (who might well be enjoying her position as a martyr for her cause) for their own ends to make up statistics to show how threatened the Christian conservative world view alledgedly is and how they are supposedly persecuted, when in fact – as in this court case – they are only being limited in their attempts to attack the rights of others. It seems the Citizen Go has simply lied, or deliberately “misinformed” the 200 000 people, if these even exist, into subscribing a petition for much more severe sounding punishment. It might be, that even the supporters of the Christian right might not be interrested in signing a petition for some obscure person in an obscure country to not be fined for speaking their Christian opinions aloud in public. So, I guess lying for Jesus to his supporters (once again) was seen as needed in this case.

This entire affair has not yet enjoyed much public attention, or interrest here in Finland, other than possibly within the Christian conservative minority. I guess, it does not really make good publicity for them here, since the larger Finnish public would not react well to the silly petitions about threatening prison sentence, wich simply does not exist.

 

Religious Rights

Recently no less than ten professors from the USA signed a letter to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom demanding to impose economical sanctions against the Finnish national Prosecutor General Raija Toiviainen because they see her actions as a human rights violation. Precisely the two lawsuits against Finnish parliamentary reperesentative (and former minister of interior) Päivi Räsänen and Bishop-Elect of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland, Rev. Dr. Juhana Pohjola. Räsänen has written and Pohjola has published a 2004 booklet entitled, Male and Female He Created Them: Homosexual Relationships Challenge the Christian Concept of Humanity. Räsänen has been charged with three counts of “ethnic agitation” and Pohjola, with one count of ethnic agitation.

The professors argue that: “The Prosecutor General’s pursuit of these charges against a prominent legislator and bishop sends an unmistakable message to Finns of every rank and station: no one who holds to the traditional teachings of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and several other religions on questions of marriage and sexual morality will be safe from state harassment should they, like Bishop Pohjola and Dr. Räsänen, express their moral and religious convictions.”

Actually, the prosecution has nothing at all to do with what values people “hold”, but it has everything to do with how and where such values can be expressed and what sanctions may follow for doing so if they brake the law. In Finland religion is seen very much as a private matter and is rarely put forward to the public and especially the political arena, exept by the small minority party of Christian Democrats represented by Räsänen.

The American professors have acted according to the U.S. values of liberty and individual rights to express oneself peacefully. It is a great ideal, that everyone should have the right to represent their own views. In Europe we have, however a long history and an abundance of experience about how hate speech can cause very real harm.

Does religious freedom mean, that any opinions should be publicly displayed, just as long as they fit into the interpretation of some religious tradition? It is easy to say, that if they demand direct violence against some other group of people, no matter what god alledgedly sanctioned it, such should be illegal. Or is it? Should freedom speech be unlimited? Do we think that the blame and responsibility lies on the person acting up on the suggestions of a nother, but not on the person who did nothing else exept spoke?

Hitler never personally killed anyone, but after gaining political power he persecuted minorities ordered millions to be murdered and plunged the entire world into a destructive war. How did he gain his power? His main political message was racism and hatred. He spoke about these issues and even appealed to “higher authority” of a god. He managed to influence the entire German society (the most highly educated nation, consisting of many, many minorities) so, that these issues became normalized by repeatedly bringing them up and eventually dehumanizing the minorities. Convincing the German nation, that they were this imaginary super race!??? In his inaugural speach he specifically promised to protect both the German churches status. All politically motivated violence starts by dehumanizing the target group of people. Päivi Räsänen is not likely to reach power equal to Hitler or to act as fiendishly if she did, but her religious feelings put in to public display may indeed have serious impact on how many people feel about homosexuals, based on the imaginary authority of a god.

The professors continue: “These prosecutions cannot be understood as mundane applications of a European-style “hate speech” law.  No reasonable balance of the goods of public order, civil equality, and religious liberty can ever support this suppression of the right to believe and express one’s beliefs.  The prosecutions are straightforward acts of oppression. “

The Prosecutor General has acted according to Finnish constitution and specifies her descision to prosecute by saying that the statements of Räsänen both in print and in social media have been offensive, oppressive, dehumanizing and an attack on the human value of homosexuals. It is illegal to degrade a group of people like this in Finland. In addition it should be remembered, that Räsänen as a ranking politician holds authority and prestige, but equal responsibility over how people react to her words. The Prosecutor General has no say on the constitution. Punishing her personally by U.S. issued sanctions would be a clear violation of Finnish sovereign government and Finnish constitution as based by the Finns. Perhaps it would serve her and the Finns right? So, is the Finnish constitution in conflict with human rights as it puts secular law before the religious feelings and their peacefull expression?

Is it really “oppression” to demand that a person stops to dehumanize and continuously attack a group of people, who have done no other harm than to not live according to the rules of one specific god, that they may or may not even worship? Is that issue not between said god and the person braking the arbitrary rules? Has the secular society no right to step in even when tradition demands that psychological harm should be allowed to be done to people who have not chosen their sexual orientation, just because there is a religious interpretation, that sees that orientation as against the will of their god? Should we discuss, the plausibility or morals of a god, that is unable to controll their alledged creation even to the extent, that this god created people who are unable to choose to become homosexuals are displeasing to said god and somehow as a result alledgedly deserving of an eternal punishment for what they did not even choose upon themselves?

It all boils down to where the rights of one person begin and a nother person end. Where do you draw the line between “peacefull expression” and a violent one? If the goal of the speech or text is to dehumanize a group of people, is it still “peacefull expression” of religious beliefs? Religious freedom as a concept has it’s orgins in the realization, that if one interpretation or divine message from gods is put over others by the society, that leads to violence against believers of other religions and sects. History is full of sad examples of that and they continue to pile up. Secularism in society level and in law as it is, is an attempt to find morals outside of any alledged divine demands. That makes it superior to any religious feelings or moralism offered by any gods. Because it is based on the actual real world and not on anything alledgedly transferred to it from outside of it.

Neither Räsänen or Pohjola have been condemned by any court. The legal case is very much about if it is accepted by the Finnish society to attack homosexuals from the hiding bush of religion.

The US professors claim, that: “These prosecutions constitute serious human rights abuses.  They violate Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights…”

However, the declaration of Religious Freedom Artcile 18 actually says under paragraph 3. “Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others“

Wich is pretty much what the prosecutions are all about. That the prosecuted may have broken the law, may have somewhat violated the public safety, order and certainly morals and indeed the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.

Frankly I am appalled at the state of U.S. educational system, that professors from famous universities, such as Princeton, Harward and Yale would draw their names under this pamphlet. That they who teach on such high levels of education in the first actual secular Western country in the world, have not grasped the point of secularism – at all.

In general, Freedom of speech has become a hot topic of lately globally and in the Western Countries it has been increasingly often seen as a topic by the right-wing extremists and their symphatizers. It is curious as how the very people who do not regard all people as of equal value, or deserving equal rights demand that they should have the equal rights as everybody else, even (and most often) in situations where nobody has deprived any rights or freedoms from them. Typically only given criticism as to how they use their freedoms to hurt people they do not see equal to themselves.

 

Field Bishop

Meanwhile in Finland. The Finnish military bishop, a field bishop to be exact, the most high ranking officer with a religious title in the Finnish Defence Forces has written and published a controversial blog. The blog was in Finnish, but some of the points that caused a stir were, about how in his opinion free sex had a deteriorating effect on the Finnish society and how he thought gender duality was important to the society by keeping up birth rates.

Having met the man and even having had a few drinks with him many years ago (altough I was rather pissed, so I can not remember really  did he drink all that much) in a party, I had this notion of him as a fairly decent bloke and a typical Finnish moderate Lutheran, I must say, I was rather surprized to see what he had said. Perhaps he has radicalized since, or my first impression on him was totally off. Most likely the latter, because I am not known to be much of a judge of character.

It was reported, that in the blog he quoted a Finnish author, from one of his books, where a character says: “A woman should produce children, take care of them, sew and prepare food. It is the responsiblity of every man and a woman to to have sex, so that there will be new people on earth.” (Translation is mine and bear in mind, that I am not qualified to translate the dialect nuances of the original text.) Here I have to make a point of the fact, that in Finnish we have a long literary tradition, when an author wants to put one of their characters to address some controversial issue, they have the character speaking in some thick dialect, wich may seem a bit funny at the same time, so the subject matter does not seem so blunt.

Both the head of Finnish Lutheran Church the acrhibishop and the public relations office of the Finnish Defence Forces condemned the blog text content and made their own public announcements of it. The archibishop said that everyone has equal rights and that they must be upheld and respected and the Finnish Defence Forces announced their apology, while the military representative reported, that since the field bishop withdrew his blog post and after having had a talking to, has apologized for it, submitted, that the content was not proper, agreed to align himself with the moral values of equality in the Finnish Defence forces from now on, no further sanctions will be issued.

To be sure, the office of a field bishop is equal to a general in Finnish Defence Forces, altough it is a reservist position. It is a bit of a historical remnant and represents the fact, that the clergy has had a visible role in the Finnish military for the duration of our indipendence. The students of theology still today have a separate training branch for them during the Finnish conscript service mandatory for all young Finnish men and voluntary for all Finnish women. In the reserve these soldiers who undergo the special training serve as field chaplains. There is separate training at least for both of the official state Lutheran and Orthodox churches.

For those of my potential readers who did not get why the field bishop was repremanded by his seniors only for expressing his honest opinions, I have to explain something about the Finnish society. First of all Finland is a very gender equal country. Genger equality has been such a big thing in Finland for such a long time, that it is starting to be a conservative value of the Finnish society. The Finns were among the first nations to give women the right to vote. Free sex has not been a point of discussion in Finland for over several decades. It is a given part of our culture. Only in the most extreme religious minority groups this is an issue at all. Traditionally it has not been such a big deal ever. The ancient cultural rules for sexual behaviour in Finnish culture have never really dictated that only married couples should engage in it, only that you should not get pregnant, but if you do, marriage follows. Another thing to consider is the fact that Finnish birth rates have been going down ever since the baby boom after the WWII. The main real reasons for this are better education, increased access to sexual education and contraception and the increased incomes and the wellfare state that provides for the elderly regardless wether they have children or not, and even if the children are not in speaking terms with their parents. One more thing to understand is, that Finland has been for long on the move towards a more liberal and tolerant society, where nobody has the say on what sort of sexual behavior is OK for others as long as it is between consenting adults.

Why I found this story interresting is, that it is fairly representative of what is happening at the very moment in Finnish society. The bishop’s blog seems to be a sort of backlash for the slow social change. The conservative in him could not understand why these things are happening, so he tried to come up with both a reason and some sort of a solution to them as he saw these phenomena as problematic.

It is also interresting how a fairly nice and seemingly level headed chap like him who really and honestly thinks he is representing some conservative values made such a blunder on his otherwise brilliant and respected career. To me it seems like he has, after all, been living in a bit of a bubble to think, that his notions would not face both damming critique and at least some form of talking to from his superiors in both organizations. I find it a bit scary, that this sort of otherwise smart fellow made the quote, since to put forward the same idea, he could just as well have quoted Mussolini, who thought that the job of a woman was to give birth equally as the job of a man was to fight wars – and we all know how well that went for him and his followers. Indeed he was a radical conservative and it seems even in Europe this radical authoritarianistic conservatism and even racism is rearing it’s ugly head once more.

In my opinion the field bishop was totally wrong about it all. There is more than enough people on this planet as it is. During my lifetime the Human species has doubled it’s number and the growth seems exponential. If the Finnish society has a problem of too many old people in comparrison to too few young people it can be compensated by more young people from where there are too many of them. Only “reason” to prefer Finnish born kids over immigrant kids is racism, but I wonder if all people who do not get this, such as the field bishop of the story, have thought the issue as far as that. I am not sure wich is the worst case, if they have, but dare not say, or if they have not, but inadvertantly support a racist worldview never the less.

The field bishop referred to the free sex as being practiced by some sort of “cultural elite” who has replaced the former Marxist revolutionism. I guess in his Finnish cultural conservatism the idea of the enemy being Marxists is a long lingering thought from times like our civil war when the White Guard Finns fighting for the Finnish parliament (and the priviledges of the elites) won the Red Guard Finnish rebels who were mainly organized by the workers unions, Finnish Communist Party and Finnish Social Democratic Party. After and during the war a piece of propaganda, that the socialists wanted to give up Finnish indipendence and join Finland back to Russia or effectively the Soviet Union was spread to motivate the White army and later to hide the guilt for destroying most of the Reds in concentration camps right after the war, was eagerly spread. It still lives on, altough no documentation has ever been presented (even after the data banks of fallen Soviet Union came to light) to back it up and altough it should be well known, that the socialists were at very least as eager to gain Finnish indipendence as any other political group. As well as times like when the Soviet Union invaded Finland and Finland more or less consequently aligned itself with Hitler.

The talk about “cultural elite” however is new and not at all in line with the former conservative talking points. It is a reference to an increasing and loud minority of extremist right wing populists, who worldwidely have come to blame the undefined “elite” for the brake down of social structure where things like place of birth, race and birth right defined the position of a person within a society. To me it seems, that this notion has been produced by the reality, that the most educated part of the society has better access to knowledge and instead of the former elites, they are not there just to stand for their own elitist priviledges by way of class status quo, but have actually turned towards some progressive ethical aproach, that has led them on the path of tolerant liberalism and even socialism. Yet, since the move towards socialism is hard, because it challenges so many priviledges, there are those who do not benefit from this, and in increasing numbers the begrudging group is people, who come from lower middle class or from the working class and even from among the poor, who would not want to see themselves as needy of help, rather that they have been robbed of some position, that they would have had in their romantic fantasy of an “ideal world” as some sort of a birth right.

I guess the field bishop thought, that he was representing some age old conservative Finnish values widely held within the society. However, it is not that simple. He could not recognize when had been had, by something that was not so very conservative or Finnish to speak of.

This case reminded me of why in so many societies and so often the military is led by conservatives and considered to be a conservative element of the society? It seems really idiotic, considering the fact, that if an army is conservative about the technology, tactics, or grand strategy they use, they are almost bound to lose to the more modern and flexible enemy. Even if the army is otherwise very modern, but represents age old values, there is an increased risk, that the society in general will not support and stand behind it. If the army is not popular, it will not get proper funding and it most certainly will not get the most capable individuals for it’s operational and field professionals. Simple as that. Of course the job of the field bishop is merely a ritualistic role, but they also stand out as one of the spokespeople for the military, and in a conscript army, such as the Finnish Defence Forces, it is more than important, that the publicity the army gets, is good, for it to function and attract talented people. Yet armies are authoritarianistic organizations and they do need that command structure to function, when what they essentially do is killing humans, even if it is motivated by the best of reasons to save people’s lives and I guess, that creates a gap for the conservative value systems to creep in. Personally I think such conservatism is merely a hindrance to the functions of any army, but since it is typical, it only goes to show what idiots we humans are.

You may wonder about the seemingly nazi uniform of the field bishop in this picture of him, but do not be alarmed. It is the Finnish defence forces old dress uniform still in use, that was originally modelled after German counterparts some hundred years ago, then renovated during WWII when Finland was in league with the Nazi-Germany and once more right after the WWII, when Finland had taken a neutral position, but could not afford much of new things, since as one of the losing side the country had to pay compensations to the allied. Today Finnish military uniforms are mostly allied green, as Finland has tried to adapt to the role of a western nation and not one of the former Axis countries altough it of course causes the sorry mixup, that now the Finns have fairly indistinguishable military apparel from the Russian ones, since first Russia and later Soviet Union were with the allied.

Two main issues for me however, were that the values inherited from religious superstition and nationalistic romanticism, equally not based on the real world, but a distortion of reality have made an otherwise wise and succesfull person woulnerable to spread the most vile nonsense and effectively harm himself on the way.

 

Invisible Heroes

Here in Finland we often think that if something is made by a Finn then it is well and professionally done. That notion comes from a cultural experience where we take pride in our integrity of doing things properly. Such ideas may be both beneficial and harmfull. Beneficial in the sense, that people who share the Finnish cultural identity, think that as they are Finns they should put an effort to make their best in whatever they do. Harmfull in the sense, that the thing we do or participate in will somehow magically turn into well done, by merely us Finns doing it. That is a dangerous illusion and may lead to a badly botched work. Sometimes the poorly done work may cost a life.

Finland just got a reprizal from the European Court of Human Rights because Finland broke the European Human Rights agreement by returning an Iraqi refugee back to his native country. He was a police who had investigated corruption in Baghdad. He was threatened in his home country for his work and for the fact that he was a Sunni-Muslim, by a Shia-Muslim high ranking official. The Finnish immigration office MIGRI recognized the possible threat to his life, but decided to send him back anyway.

The “professionals” at MIGRI apparently thought that the threat towards this police called Ali was personal, not towards his religious, ethnic or other group, nor against his political activity. They also based their descision on the idea, that Baghdad was somehow less dangerous in 2017 than it was in 2015 when he applied for an asulym in Finland. Infact, they failed him on every possible level of professionalism, law, reason and humanity. He was a Sunni-Muslim living in a country where the Shia-Muslims have a lot to avenge to the Sunni-Muslims from the Saddam era, when the dictator based his power on the Sunnis. Hence he was part of a group of religious minority in danger. He came from a country where religious affiliation is considered an ethnic identity and often enough expected to hold a certain political position. He was prominent and visible representative of all these groups he belonged to because of his position as a policeman in a country where the police is actively engaged in politics and where investigating corruption, as he did, is a political statment. Rest assured it should be obvious to any moron, that all the other reasons such as religious group, ethnic group and political group, were mere excuses for him to be killed, when someone powerfull enough does not like the fact that their corruption is being examined by the police. So, based on his former profession alone, that he had to leave because he was running for his life, it should have been enough for Finland to grant him asylum.

During the right.wing military coup supported by the USA in Chile in 9/11 1973 some Finnish and Swedish diplomats together with representatives from the DDR embassy saved hundreds of lives by hiding these people from the military death squads, that systematically tortured and killed thousands of people. Many of those refugees were admitted to Finland despite the political line, that tried to keep Finland out of focus of the US (and other empires). Long gone are those heroic times and deeds of those invisible heroes.

The previous Finnish conservative government did terrible damage by removing the legal reason for humanitarian asylum. The previously mentioned policeman Ali could have had a humanitarian asylum if it still had been in the law. Alas it was not. Even so, by Finnish law he should have had an asylum anyway, but for some reason there seems to be no reason present in the Finnish immigration office MIGRI. Many Finnish professors of law have commented, that his expulsion was totally illegal. Will there be reprecussions to the people who made the stupid descision? No? Ali was murdered witin a forthnight from his return to Baghdad.

The people at MIGRI propably are patting each others backs for being professionals of their particular line of work merely by the definition that they recieve payment for what they do for their work. The case of Ali may be put aside as merely one separate incident. However, there are other examples of unbelievable stupidity and unprofessional acts within this bureucratic system, that decides on the actual lives of people. For example a refugee seeking asylum from the Middle-East was asked to prove that they are a homosexual. How should one prove that, in the first place? Why was it not enough for the officials asking something as mad as that, that when someone comes from a country where their family and friends might get into serious trouble only if a rumour of their relative asking for an asylum for being gay got out? Is it not enough, that a person coming from such a homophobic culture is even able to tell their secret to anyone? That it really does not matter wether if they are really homosexuals or not, when they are returned home, if it gets out, that homosexuality was the reason by wich they asked for an asulym, they will surely be killed?

How did the officials at MIGRI expect the asylum seeker to prove their homosexuality? Or did they expect their victim to just give up and silently await for their destiny? I bet they did not even care, but that they were satisfied in coming up with a fool proof question, that lets them to send back people who can not “prove” that they are homosexuals.

What if someone seeks an asylum for being an atheist and coming from a country, where atheists are killed on sight by a mob throwing stones? Do the officials at MIGRI aks that person to prove that they are an atheist? How does one prove such a thing any more than their homosexuality? No, the offial should have no options, but to take their word for it. That is, if the official has any morality.

There have been some attempts to defend the difficult job people at MIGRI have to do, by explaining that they have to balance between the safety of the asylum seekers and Finnish people. What a load of rubbish! Finland has had one sad terror attack by a migrant Muslim, who got shot in the leg and was put to prison, but several done by our very own right-wing extremists and other mentally unstable young men. It is just ridiculous to defend unprofessional and obviously politically motivated attempt of the MIGRI officials to fend of as many people as possible. As if there was some consideration that a former highranking police officer who was threatened because he was looking too deeply into corruption in a thoroughly corrupted country, that if he was granted an asylum he would suddenly turn into a terrorist? As if the ISIS fighters were trying to infiltrate Finland by pretending to be gays and waiting all the time until they are finally granted an asylum before they blow up anything? Come on…

The real threat to Finland is not islamist terrorism, we get far more people killed within a year by the reindeer, than by islamist terrorists. Yet, we have no political or otherwise pressure to do anything at all to the “reindeer problem”. The real threat to Finland is, that our population grew dramatically after the WWII and now our population is aging, as we do not breed as wildly anymore. It is good, because there are plenty more of people in the world than it can stand. Especially people growing up in rich countries like Finland, who consume plenty more natural resources during their liftime, than the average person on the planet. However, if we want to save our society and the wellfare state created by our socialist parties, that all our political parties today claim to be committed to, we need immigration of young people from where ever they want to come to this cold and damp country.

 

Church & School

Recently there has been a buzz in Finland because the parliamentary attorney official decided, that school festivities such as end of term celebrations should no longer be arranged in church premises. The descision was based on the idea, that because those events are a part of the educational curriculum, they should, according to the constitution, be equal experiences to all students regardless of their religious affiliation, or lack of it. This caused an outcry mainly by conservative politicians and some members of the public in the social media.

The first reaction was, that people were outraged, that children could no longer visit churches during their school. This was a bit of an exaggeration, because the descision was not about visits, and it specifically listed school events, such as end of term celebrations separate from visits to different religious buildings and communities. Many people seem to have been outraged because they feel this somehow limits the religious freedom of citizens.

The descision became necessary as a response to several complaints about a particular school, that had arranged it’s end of term celebrations in a church, with fairly obvious religious content including it having been in a church building, a priest having made a sermon and religious hymns havingin been sang by the pupils. The complaints were made by the non-religious parents of the pupils.

Most of the counter arguments for the descision presented in public have been about it being unreasonable, because religion does not infect people by the mere building and that it is a tradition in Finland, that the end of the fall semester is called “Christmas party” and therefore somehow unseparable from religious connontations. That having the end of fall semester school event related to Jesus being born is a part of Finnish cultural tradition. Many have pointed out, that if a school has no large enough room for the event and there is a church building awailable, why not use it for the event as any other public building.

Let us take a look at those arguments. The idea, that perhaps there is some such a small community school, that it could not house all of it’s students and their parents, while possible as such, is nonsensical. I went to a small school in the countryside and we did not even have a sports hall (like almost every school around these days has), yet the small amount of kids in a small school made it quite possible for all the kids and their assorted family members to fit into the schoolhouse to have an event. In most areas of the country schools, communities and cities have made the descision, that if a school needs more room for their end of term celebration, it is organized in some public and secular space, not in any church.

In Finnish language Christmass is not actually called Christ-mass at all. It is “joulu” coming from the ancient germanic name of the midwinter feast Yule. So, it is not even referring to any church related religious issue. To many Christians, especially to the religious god botherer minorities, the affiliation between Yule and Christ is central, but even to most Finnish Christians the holidays are not so much about baby Jesus as they are about family get-to-gether and I bet to most Finns the traditional pork eaten during the midwinter feast is (honestly spoken) holier than infant Jesus. Certainly it is an older tradition. Most Finnish members of the state Lutheran Church hardly go to mass even on Christmass, though the attendance during the holidays may be far more than during the rest of the year, including easter – wich is supposed to be the bigger event in Christian doctrine.

It may  have been part of many Finns and their cultural tradition, that end of fall term school event had a Christian religious connontation and even elements of worship. But the mere fact, that something is a part of cultural tradition does not make anything good, fair or even constitutionally proper. One could say, that abusing children by using violence as a method of upbringing has been a major part of many, or even most, Finns in the past. Yet, when we set the law, that children enjoy the same amount of protection from the law as adults against violence in 1984 (despite the outcry and counter arguments such as how is one now supposed to raise their children, because of an alledged lack of alternatives) it has remained illegal to beat your offspring, and I dear say, it has reduced the damage to society in general – and to the kids – dramatically, despite we started to give up that harmfull cultural tradition.

The notion of the Church being just a nother building for school events is false and has a double standard hidden in it, by those who present it. Or perhaps, they really are a bit silly. The atheist parent does not think there is some dangerous magic within the walls of a church building, that infects their kids as they enter. But the religious parents themselves have a magical relationship with places of worship specifically built for that purpose. I bet most of the people who have suggested that it should be OK to arrange the school event in a church, because it is just a building, would loudly protest if the event was to be arranged within the walls of a mosque, synagogue or let us say a temple of Satan. In reality we can bear wittness to the effectiveness of exposing the malleable minds of children to simple indoctrination and ritual used by religions all around the globe. That is also what some of the religious people, who want to smuggle religious rituals to school events are relying on. I find this terribly dishonest. They see it as a virtue to spread their gospel, while we can see the direct and indirect harm religions cause all around us, if we have open eyes.

The point of the aforementioned descision was, that the constitution demands, that school activities should be free from any religious content, that could be recognitional. That the school is an equal ground for all the children and as all kids are required to attend the end of term celebrations, they should not be forced to an environment, that puts them into a segregational situation according to religious affiliation. It is still OK for the school to arrange church visitations especially so, if they arrange alternative program to children whose parents would not want their kids to attend places of alien indoctrinational system. However, the end of term events are meant for all kids to attend on an equal footing, such as all the other educational school content and require participation.

Children deserve to be treated equally just as much as adults. Even more so, because they are still (even more so) voulnerable to influences.

I am appalled, how the conservative politicians rushed in to more or less deliberatly missunderstand, misinterprete the descision of the parliamentary legal advisor and generally just to muddy the waters of discussion, so that they could add to the already existing athmosphere of discussion, where all sorts of “diehards” defend their obsolete and immoral values, because they do not want to, nor do they really feel compelled to (altough they complain endlessly and loudly for their lost freedom of speach and how they are being force fed to be better people, than they want) confirm to a world where they would give up their special priviledges for the world to be more equal and fair place to live in.

 

 

The Bible

Why is it, that some people think this particular book is the word of a creator entity responsible for the entire universe? Because it says so in the book? What do they think is actually the message of the book? Most of them have not even read the damn book. Have they?

The Old Testament is all about the mythical history of a particualr ethnic group and their fairly obviously made up myth of the creation of the world, that is in direct cotradiction to what we do know about the history of the planet we live on. The book has some segregation laws and taboos, that are set in effect to keep the fairly small group of people from mixing and assimilating to the bigger cultures of the georgraphical area, so that the theocratic social class of the ethnic group would not lose it’s benefits and priviledges. Most of the other laws and taboos are about keeping the group loyal through intimidation with superstitious notions and fears ignorant people have. That is, to support the segregation laws. It has some stories about the human suffering as it appeared to the people of iron age Levant. Even though it makes bold claims about a particular god concept, it actually holds nothing at all that would suggest it is somehow divinely inspired and not the work of mere humans.

Most people who hold the Bible to be the word of a particuar god, do not believe all of it is. Not even all of those who make the claim that they do. Even the most faithfull seem to pick and choose all the time, what in the book is actually from a divine source. If it has something they dislike, like stories where the writer enjoys bashing in the heads of little babies, the believer, who is not a total psychopat usually reverts to thinking that this particular part is not inspired by their god, but just some primitive dude writing in the name of their god. It is surprizing how many religious people reveal their inner fascist, when they start to defend the inhumane laws about slavery the book has to offer, by making the claim, that slavery was OK for the people of ancient times. As if owning a person could be justified by mere cultural difference? Even though the book claims that all the ancient laws in it are set in place as the will of the creator entity for humanity, the modern Christians do not run to stone people to death for having tattoos, or engaging in homosexuality. I suppose it should give us hope, that they do not. That they recognize these laws to be inhumane, at least today, even though their compassion does not necessarily reach the long dead ancient people to whom such laws were fatal. They make the claim, that the New Testament somehow amends these inhumane laws. As if they had not read the book. Oh, but they haven’t, have they?

To most people The New Testament story is about a rabbi, who made sermons about “loving thy neighbour” and to the faithfull it is a story about how this same rabbi, somehow by getting killed for the crime of blasphemy, redeemed (with his blood) the humanity from not obeying the inhumane laws in the Old Testament and saved those who believe (and pay their tithes) from inhumane, eternal torment and suffering in a supposed afterlife. The proof for this redemption is supposedly in the alledged resurrection of the rabbi, after being executed for the crime of blasphemy, that nobody saw as nobody was there, when the resurrection supposedly happened. I guess, the book is about that then? Again, it has nothing in it, that would reveal a divine source. There are wild claims about “miracles”, but one can hardly rely on such alledged “eyewittnesses”, when the alledgedly most important events happen when nobody even sees. Nor does making a claim, that there were 500 eyewittnesses mean, that there have actually been 500, 50, or even 5 eyewittnesses, for some supernatural or otherwise unnatural event.

The New Testament and later Christian doctrine is an obvious meeting ground of ancient Levantine beliefs and Indo European cultural heritage. When the Jews of the Old Testament talk about a “son of god” they refer to angels or merely men who have kept the inhumane laws set in the Old Testament, but to the Christians the concept is more similar to that of polytheist tradition, where Heracles, Akilles, Alexander the Great and Julius Cesar are demigods. Flesh and blood sons of some god. The Roman empire assimilated many ancient religions from the rich tradition of it’s eastern provinces in Egypt, Syria and even further from the Hellenistic culture, like Persia. Judaism spread fast, because the rebellious Jews were deliberately distributed throughout the Empire. With them moved the new branch of Judaism, that was more relatable to the mostly Indo-European population of the Roman Empire. So much so, that eventually in the contest of political power Christianity rose to the ultimate power in the Empire.

I can see how the notion, that you can buy a better conscience by donating money for the livelyhood of the ritual expert is appealing to people who have bad consciences. Many people have something to regret and many of those are unable to make any amends to the victims of their selfish deeds, or would rather ask for forgiveness from a deity that only exists in their minds (and thus is inclined to agree with them), than their victims. However, I do not see, how this old mythical story would convince anyone of sound mind, that there is actually a mechanism that makes such forgiveness possible. I do not see how this book could convince anyone of sound mind, that there is an afterlife in the first place, nor that that this afterlife is divided according to what you happened to believe about deities into a section of reward of punishment. It happens, though. Not much, in comparrison of how religions – all religions – grow by the birth rate and how most converts to this or that religion (who are a minimal group in comparrison to the children being born into the pews) have already been indoctrinated as children to think that the supernatural is true on some level in their original religion.

 

 

Stupidity

Otherwise seemingly smart people do the most stupid stuff because they hold the most stupid beliefs for the worst and most stupid reasons.

How do we measure stupidity, or intelligence? There are various cognitive tests, that try to measure the problem solving capability of an individual. Much of our capacity to solve certain kind of problems is something we learned to apply to certain kind of situations. Mathematics is a good example, because there are practical situations where this otherwise fairly abstract and simplified method comes to help us, but mathematically skilled person may be a total idiot in for example social situations.

A person may be considered exeptionally succesfull even though they seem like total morons. Take for example the US president Trump. Almost his every comment appears like they were made by a total nincompoop and not the “leader of the free world” (as the US citizens often refer to their own nationally chosen president). Success in the modern world is often measured by money and power (and you know ultimately they are the one and same). It may be argued, that money and power are not very good measurements for success, but they are fairly universally recognized as some form of metrics for having succeeded in reaching your goals. This is a bit absurd, because achieving money and power are not the goals of most people. They are means to reach the goals and people usually have more of them, if their parents had much. Money and power make it – in sufficient quantities – possible for an individual to make some of their dreams come true, but they seem to pile up to some people whose dreams are to have more money and power. Hence, having lots of money and power obviously do not represent a very wide range of being smart or intelligent. Perhaps, this explains why on what the rich and powerfull people do spend their money is often so banal. They rarely use their money for anything especially good, like helping the poor, underdeveloped, or even fighting injustice. Rather they spend on owning the symbols and representations of their social position like numerous fast cars, expensive luxury items and vast mansions, they really do not need. Not like mature responsible individuals, but like little exeptionally selfish children, or more like total morons. As if they were a little stupid?

The success of a stupid person is often explained by the stupidity of others. Stupid people recognize the same stupid ideas in others and choose as their leader someone really stupid. The stupid people provide the idiot with money and power.

Can a stupid person do anything to overcome their stupidity? Most really ridiculous notions, that are against all awailable researched facts are indoctrinated through overwhelming cultural pressure. Look at religion. The entire idea, that there are supernatural entities, gods and whatnot, is silly and it is based on absolutely nothing, but the superstition of passed ignorant generations. Still a top scientist may hold religious beliefs and faith. If they are unable to see how they compartmentalize their ability to apply the scientific method to every other question, exept their faith in their own culturally inherited views about religion, are they being stupid and should we expect better of them? It may be the case that they are unwilling to look at some issue too emotional for them, through the scientific method, but is it stupidity, or cowardice?

Some atheists have complemented each other by referring to each other as “bright”, now even though this word may only refer to a sort of light or beacon in darkness, it has a nother connontation, wich is that a person is somehow more clever, intelligent, or even less stupid than the others. I do not subscribe to this idea, simply because my own atheism is in no way my own achievement. I was raised in a fairly secular society by atheist parents. I do not see how realizing the most obvious hoax in the world, that there really are no gods, and that religions exist simply to provide a steady livelyhood for the professional ritual experts, would make anybody exeptionally smart, or “bright”. An atheist may still be really stupid about a lot of other things.

One thing that reveals a really stupid person, is that they often get very aggravated by being called stupid. A person who has a strong sense of self and reliance on their own intellect, is not affraid of being called stupid. A person who has poor sense of self and poor reliance on their intellect feels threatened by being labelled stupid. It may not be a coincidence, that many of the most stupid and baseless beliefs in the world are based deep within the identity of people. That is why religions and nationalism cause so much harm around the globe. They identity issues, and as such easily manipulated to form ingroups and outgroups. They also make people subseptible to do all manner of harm to others.

In my native Finnish language the words naughty “tuhma” and stupid “tyhmä” sound almost the same. To me this represents the root of all evil. Short sighted selfishness. It is also the best method of measuring wether people are actually stupid. It also provides the justification to call someone stupid. No person chooses to be stupid, but when people do naughty, or even down right evil stuff they are motivated by stupidity. The sort of stupidity, where their scope is limited in that they act only to serve their own, or some ingroup they belong to, most immidiate needs, or desires. When they ignore the common good, but are motivated by their fear of the outsider, or when they simply do not care about the reprecussions of their actions on others and the environment in wich we all live in.

I may be stupid in a lot of ways, but at least I have methods to recognize actual stupidity and thus I may be able to overcome my own stupidity on occasion…