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Finnish Atheists

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A group for all the atheists from Finland in the Atheist Nexus

Website: http://beinghuman.blogs.fi
Location: Finland
Members: 35
Latest Activity: Oct 25, 2012

The right to worship freely is guaranteed by Article 8 and Article 9 of the Constitution of 1919 and by the Freedom of Religion Act that went into effect in 1923. In the 1980s, there were about thirty registered religions in the country, all of which met the minimum requirement of having at least thirty followers. Despite this wealth of religions, the country's religious life was dominated by one of its two state churches, the Lutheran Church of Finland, which had nearly 90 percent of the population as members.

The other state church, the Orthodox Church of Finland, had a membership of about 1 percent of the population. The remaining churches or religions had 2 percent of the people in their congregations. Followers of the smaller churches included Jews, Muslims, Roman Catholics, a variety of Protestants, Mormons, Christian Scientists, and converts to eastern religions. Seven percent belonged to no church

Nationality:
noun: Finn(s)
adjective: Finnish

Ethnic groups: Finn 93%, Swede 6%, Lapp 0.11%, Gypsy 0.12%, Tatar 0.02%

Religions:

Evangelical Lutheran 89%,
Greek Orthodox 1%,
none 9%,
other 1%

Languages: Finnish 93.5% (official), Swedish 6.3% (official), small Lapp- and Russian-speaking minorities

Country name:
conventional long form: Republic of Finland
conventional short form: Finland
local long form: Suomen Tasavalta
local short form: Suomi

source; About.com
http://atheism.about.com/library/world/AJ/bl_FinlandIndex.htm

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Comment by Jonny Marko on October 20, 2012 at 12:49am: Terve, olen Kanadalainen. I have been learning Finnish for a few months, practicing every day, though I am still very much a beginner. I love the language and culture and hope to visit in the not too distant future. Just looking to meet some like-minded people... If you're learning Finnish too, or already fluent and want to meet a Canadian for some crazy reason, definitely send me a message!

Kiitos!

Comment by Tiina Pelkonen on March 25, 2012 at 10:32am: I thought I'll add a statistics update here about the situation in Finland. The link is at the bottom but the rough summary is as follows: the most recen stats in 2010 show that 78,2% of Finns belong to the Lutheran Church and 19,2% admit no religious affiliation (this means atheists, agnostics or those that just don't want to report their affiliation). The rest of the population belong to various other religius groups, including Muslim, Jew, and Orthodox Christian minorities that have long traditions in Finland.

In 2008 the stats were a bit different: 80,7% Lutherans and 16,8% of no affiliation. And if we look even further back to 2003 we can see something funnier still: only 13.5% of no affiliation. Gasp, horror, something is rationalising Finland...

The link to official Finnish statistics is here:

http://www.stat.fi/til/vaerak/2010/01/vaerak_2010_01_2011-09-30_tau...

As you can see it does not provide any sort of numbers in percentages so if you find an error in them, blame me. Or my computer. Which ever you feel more appropriate.

If anyone actually ends up reading this and feel interested in having a discussion about this little Ultima Thule here finding rationalism, feel free to contact me and start a discussion on this forum. Especially if you have Finnish roots or some other link to this odd country I call home.

Comment by Tiina Pelkonen on March 21, 2012 at 12:00pm: Hi, I just joined and I'm Finnish and, um, yeah, you guessed the rest... So, I obviously joined this group too :)

The good thing about being a non-theist in Finland is that nobody cares that much, religion is your own business and you're let alone with it. More and more people are leaving the Lutheran church too, for various reasons now. So, the situation is not as bleak as the stats that are a bit old say.

Comment by Ben Gold on March 4, 2012 at 2:18pm: Hei everyone! I see this isn't the most popular group... but I just moved to Finland and I'd love to get involved with atheism and meet other atheists so I thought I'd say moi!

Comment by Mika on October 20, 2008 at 10:07pm: Eikös nuo tilastot ole hieman vanhentuneita, vai tulkitsenko tuota lähdettä hieman väärin?
"Data as of December 1988"
20 vuotta on suht pitkä aika.
Eikös tuohon voisi melkeinpä lisätä, että suomessa kirkosta eroaa nykyään melkein 1% vuodessa ja määrä on kasvussa.

Comment by Jaakko Wallenius on July 22, 2008 at 4:46pm: Kun kaikki eivät englantia osaa tai halua käyttää, on nyt suomenkielisillekin vapaasti ajatteleville ihmisille oma sosiaalinen yhteisönsä osoitteessa http://vapaatori.ning.com

Comment by KenLoukinen on July 19, 2008 at 1:41pm: buybull= bible (buy bull(shit)

Comment by Jaakko Wallenius on July 19, 2008 at 4:34am: Ken, what is a buybull?

Comment by KenLoukinen on July 18, 2008 at 6:05pm: I'm not a Finnish citizen..but as you can see from my last name, I would like to be a member of this group.
My grandparents moved to the US in 1901. I did get to live in Helsinki for 2 years as a child, but I don't know very much and would love to visit. I promise to leave my buybull home

Comment by Jaakko Wallenius on July 18, 2008 at 5:57pm: If the states of the US of A have their own groups here, there should also be groups for the independent nations of the world, I think. So here is a group for us Finns, for what it is worth.