Bad news to god by e-mail

God is losing popularity in Finland. In 2007, about 52.,000 people signed out from the evangelic lutheran church of Finland, but the funny thing is that 47,300 people did so through a web site called "eroakirkosta.fi", that facilitates the user to give up church without the need for personal signature; from home and without hearing reproaches from any priest.
The idea of this web page was developed in 2003 by a association for the freedom of thought, whose head suggests that even more people is expected to sign out due to the money that doing so they would save in times of crisis.

Thus, from 81.7% of the population in 2006 belonging to the evangelic lutheran church of Finland, nowadays it is about 80.7%. You might want to know that there is a minority (1.1%) that belong to the Finnish ortodox church. This shows how the country has traditionally been, and still is in a crossroads between the Eastern and the Western cultures.

There is a number of nice ortodox churches in Finland, many of them made out of wood that contribute to a very interesting and diversified landscape. One extraordinary and somehow symbolic example of this diversity is the Kirkkokatu street in Joensuu, which departs from a Luteran church in the south and ends in the door of an Ortodox temple in the north. Guess which is which from the pictures.

Geography in Finland

Let's start now. I live in Finland since 2006, when I came for studies as an Erasmus exchange in the university of Joensuu. Though I had studied geography 2 years, in Finland I got a more concrete idea of what was it about, just because the courses had a more practical approach to human geography. I decided to stay and finish my masters degree in human geography, what nowadays I consider a good decision. I am happy with the geography department of the university of Joensuu. The staff is highly expert and very helpful, what I think a geography department should be. Professors are at the same level with students and that is something that at least in Spain I have hardly felt. I recommend Finland in general and Joensuu in particular as a place for studying geography.
Besides Joensuu, as far as I know there are geography departments in Helsinki, Turku, Tampere and Oulu. It is said that the one in Joensuu is very important because it is highly focused in the borderland region between Finland and Rusia, which is a very interesting border area.