Michael wrote:other Nordic countries
Finland isn't really Nordic, though, and at least personally I cringe when people say that it is; in my experience it's the Swedish-speaking minority that wants Finland to be seen as a Nordic country because their varity of Swedish is more or less like an extension of the Scandinavian dialect continuum. Since Finnish isn't a Germanic language and we've never had our own proper monarchy, at least in my opinion it's somewhat patronising to call us Nordic. It's also too often used as an excuse to allow Sweden to dictate what laws we must change to "get in on the club" as if we still didn't have independence, and in spite of all the laws that are adopted from Sweden, Norway and/or Denmark, Finland
never gets in on the Nordic club because we simply aren't worthy of it; like, I'm not complaining because I'm increasingly coming to realise that that's the second worst realistic possibility that could happen politically (the worst is becoming part of Russia), but I wish more people admitted to themselves that Sweden has never had and will never have Finland's best interests in mind.
Michael wrote:"Fuck EU" patch on there (surprise surprise)
Well, the EU is starting to become more and more dysfunctional and it's always been too heavily centered on Germany. Ever since Merkel basically told Erdoğan that the EU is going to do anything he asks if only he doesn't flood us with potential terrorists, no matter what the official line is, the EU really is like a Fourth Reich because that's what Erdoğan wants it to be for him to want Turkey to be a part of it. So the more politicians push for "benign censorship" like that of "hate speech", the easier they're making it for literal Neo-Nazis and Islamists to gain the support of people. It's like the saying "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Most people don't like Nazis or other extremists, but if they are the only ones that criticise the suppression of freedom of speech and pushing of laws that simply couldn't possibly have any other purpose than to distract from the real issues (like focusing on transgender bathroom rights instead of discussing and trying to understand what the reasons for the increase in radicalisation are), most people are sooner or later going to become at least a little bit sympathetic towards them because on that regard they have a point.
So, the EU has a lot of good, and it's good in theory, but in practice it's just never going to work so the harder it is made for member states to leave, the more states are going to want to leave. Since there's already talk of special EU-wide military and police forces and shit like that, that rubs a lot of people the wrong way because it's too much like what the Third Reich and Soviet Union had. I guess in Finland it's easier to note that, since we don't have insane bans on the display of Nazi and Communist symbols that make it impossible to learn from the past.
vijayjohn wrote:Vlürch wrote:The first sentence starts with "Early Judaism"...
early...
Did you actually read through that section or just stop there and assume that that meant modern Judaism does have a hell?
I skimmed through it, and the impression I got is that Judaism generally has a concept of hell even if it isn't literal.
vijayjohn wrote:How odd. This is the first time I've heard anything about anything like that in Finland. I would have associated such attitudes with some Eastern European country, like Poland.
Geographically speaking, Finland
is an Eastern European country... and at least my mum keeps telling me that we were like a client state of the Soviet Union all the way until its dissolution.