Jussi-K-Niemela's blog, page 1

Last login: 11 days agoJussi-K-Niemela: Jussi K. is a single 41 year old person from Helsinki, Finland.; Likes 32 pages, 2 videos, 1 photo • 11 fans; Member since Oct 21, 2007

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Which Jesus: A Legend with a Multiple Personality Disorder? & Rook Hawkins: Feb 15, 11:23pm 2 reviews atheist
http://rookhawkins.wordpress.com/2008/02/16/which-jesus-a-legend-with-a-multi...; Excellent!

BBC NEWS | Europe | Islam critic asks for protection: Feb 15, 9:05pm 2 reviews europe, france, courage, guts, hirsi-ali
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7245729.stm; Hirsi Ali and other courageous (gorgeous ;-)) people like her surely need protection. I hope France will grant her a political asylum.

http://www.ayaanhirsiali.org/: Jan 26, 8:59am 1 review feminism, islam, liberties, human-rights, hirsi-ali
http://www.ayaanhirsiali.org/; Well, this must be one of the most important sites at the moment; at last, an official Hirsi Ali web-site!!! :)

Reporters sans frontières - Afghanistan: Jan 26, 6:16am 1 review islam, religion, insanity, sharia
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=25154; Just another example of the brutal insanity of tribal Sharia.

Boy, 9, banned from school Christmas party - because he didnt believe in Jesus |…: Dec 22, 2007 11:12pm 11 reviews atheist, religion, discrimination, intolerance
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=5...; This says all re religion and tolerance ;-)

The Triumph of Reason | Rational Responders: Dec 22, 2007 11:08pm 5 reviews atheist, atheism, kelly, rrs
http://www.rationalresponders.com/the_triumph_of_reason; Kelly's blog posts are excellent! Highly recommended :)

Dec 2, 2007 9:08am: Some thoughts about Project Ijtihad from an atheist supporter

I've noticed in my home country Finland that many human rights activists and politicians consider Irshad Manji politically incorrect, since she doesn't beat around the bush about Islam's modern (read: iron age) interpretations and violation of human rights.

So there is a major obstacle for PI to overcome: political correctness. This "invisible thought-police" is mainly due to the overkill of the respect for the "others" that in itself is a good thing. But there's a kind of sad irony in the fact that this respect for "them" is still called tolerance even when it entails a quite arbitrary collectivist frame of mind, labelling all "Muslims" as "Muslims". The nuances get lost in the competition to be the most tolerant person on earth. And then the whole thing turns into cultural and moral relativism. This, in turn, is de facto ignorance of human rights and on top of it, self-refuting. If there's no ethical standard for human behaviour, anything goes. Moral relativism is inherently contradictory, like any kind of relativism. More to the point, to argue that relativism is a valid position is impossible, since if it should be valid, it wouldn't be relativism.

And now back to the case of Irshad. Even if a very outspoken and intelligent MUSLIM human rights activist like Irshad criticises evil deeds done in the name of Islam, she is much too often labelled as a "bad Muslim" by the politically correct Westerners. I find this infuriating and really can't understand how any reasonable individual could see Irshad as a "bad Muslim" or "not a real Muslim". But this very often is the case.

So, the atmosphere of political correctness has in fact turned into something resembling fascism. It's a form of censorship, self-censorship to be precise. There seems to be thoughts that you simply aren't allowed to think. Criticising immoral deeds committed in the name of Islam is one of these taboos. And this is of course totally opposite to the spirit of ijtihad.

To implement Ijtihad in the West big time, we need to get rid of political correctness and lax cultural relativism. At some point there's going to be a critical mass of us ijtihadists and then, only then, the "regular" human rights activists and politicians will join our ranks.

So be this my plea to politicians, writers, journalists, TV & radio-show hosts and bloggers. Spread the word, don't beat around the bush. It's very easy to show that there's not just one Islam, but many versions of it, and the one that fits the 21st century like a glove is the one that Project Ijtihad pursues.

Nov 30, 2007 11:35am: In Finland the state church has begun a ridiculous campaign to get more sheep back under its wings. Because of a web-service that is run by the Freethinkers of Tampere, Finland, exceptionally many people have quitted the church (in Finland, you become a member of your parents religion automatically, when you're still a baby and can't decide for yourself).

The church launched a campaign to lure back the youth who have quitted through the web-page with the poster below. It says: "Jesse digs you - without a condition". Amen to that! So, no matter how nasty bastard you are, Jesse digs you. Be Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin - Jesse digs you man!

Fortunately Finnish youth are smart and the rate of quitting the church is getting even more rapid. All records will be broken this year :D