Irreligious Finland and loneliness

President Tarja Halonen has characterised loneliness as a real and serious problem faced by all age groups in Finland.

According to a 2010 Eurobarometer Poll, 33% of Finnish citizens "believe there is a God". (In 2005, the figure was 41%).

Irreligious Finland and loneliness

In 2011, the Finnish news website reported:

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President Tarja Halonen has characterised loneliness as a real and serious problem faced by all age groups in Finland. Her comments came in a TV address opening the annual Collective Responsibility fundraising campaign. She reminded her audience of their responsibility for relatives and others. Dialogue was the answer, she said. The President called for efforts to combat both loneliness and marginalisation during periods of economic hardship... Change in society had been so rapid that support measures designed to help young people had not kept pace with modern society. Halonen demanded that all means be applied to promote the well being of youth and to protect them from marginalisation and other risk factors.

”

According to the paper Loneliness among elderly people in Finnish health care institutions:

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Loneliness contributes to major health problems among the elderly people and its associates are still in dispute and nurses have a limited means to alleviate it. When people get older and experience different kinds of losses they are exposed to the threat of loneliness that might lead to death. Earlier research findings suggest that about a third of elderly Finnish people suffer from loneliness in Finnish health care institutions. Current Finnish president noted that there are more than a million people over the age of 65 in the country. Polls indicate that one third of them report feelings of loneliness. He defined the term loneliness as “means that one feels excluded and that life lacks meaning”.

”

Finland, decriminalization of bestiality and loneliness

See also: Irreligious Finland and bestiality

A prominent Finnish news website reported in July 2015:

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Finland is indeed a last bastion of bestiality. Here a person can have sex with an animal as long as the animal is not harmed. The absence of legislation against bestiality makes the nation one of the last in the European Union not to institute a legal ban. As the law currently stands in Finland, a person can engage in sexual intercourse with an animal as long as it cannot be proved that the animal has been treated too roughly or cruelly or that the act has caused unnecessary pain and suffering. ...Finland legalised bestiality in 1971, following in the footsteps of other European countries. It was thought that criminalising the act was not the right way to deal with people who are likely to suffer from mental illness or who are simply lonely.

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See also: Secular Europe and loneliness and Atheism and loneliness

See also

• Irreligious Finland and alcoholism

• Atheism and loneliness

• Atheism and marriage

• Atheist marriages

• Atheism and social intelligence

• Atheism and emotional intelligence

• England and loneliness

• Atheism and bitterness

• Resources for leaving atheism and becoming a Christian