Slashdot Mirror
Jedi == Religion In NZ
An unnamed correspondent writes: "It's census night tomorrow in New Zealand, and an email is doing the rounds asking all Star Wars fans to enter their
religion as JEDI :) Should be an interesting experiment to what sort of momentum email can make over just a couple of days. It will take a few months to garner the results though." As the story says, though, "this could land potential Jedi in hot water as those who record false information, don't fill out census forms, or destroy them, can be prosecuted."
As a NZer, I don't really see a point to all this. If by some chance it does make it as an official religion, i'm guessing most people would be like: "Wow, cool, that's nice..." and then go off and do whatever they were doing beforehand. I don't see what's the big deal.
ROFLMAO! So are you Monkey or Jedi? Or a Monkey-Jedi hybrid? :-)
...this is getting out of hand
No, fear mine. Please.
"Do you seriously expect us to believe you're a Jedi? Do you know the kind of trouble you can get in for falsifyin....ggggghhhh"
"Minister, I find your lack of faith....disturbing."
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Oh, like a god that won't reveal himself to the world or explain to his children the mysteries of the universe? One who communicates through ineffective (read: stupid) representitives and through 4000-2000 year old books? hell, at least the Jedi have movies.
-----
-----
so i says to mable, i says
Course, you can see what it looked like in a now multiply acadamied (well, nominated) Chinese film. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is entirely based on this...
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement
New Zealand is far from on Religion. Disregarding the variuos forms of Christainity, Muslim and Hindu are also have a sinficant fraction of the overall. the Jedi religon will most likly show up on the 'resualt' as just an unlisted compent of the 'Other' catagory.
FYI its Maori boths sigualur and plural
--Rogue, who's existance has yet to be disproved
Which do you think will reach more, the email mentioned in the article or the Slashdot story that covers it? :-)
The article says this "is an experiment in the power of email" but if Slashdot reaches even one more than the email, the experiment has been poisoned. Somehow I doubt the reason was true anyway.
Will the Kiwi census have an equivalent to the US census' "long form"? Are there corresponding complaints regarding privacy? Does NZ have laws prohibiting the use of census data by other government agencies? (I'm thinking of the assurances US census workers gave about the privacy of the data given, and then the public admission months later that those assurances were inaccurate.) Will there be or have there been objections to the census by privacy groups in NZ?
For that matter, will potential creditors see your religion is Jedi if you applly for a student or car loan? :-) Are the census recrods public
information there (as personal income tax figures are in Finland)?
Finally, the linked article closes by stating there could be legal reprecussions from reporting your religion as Jedi. How exactly would they prove you are not a Jedi? Trick/bully you into "confessing"?
What a bunch of geeks!
Oh wait, I'm a geek.
Cool!
Execute? [Y/N] _
So if Jedi is a legitimate religion does that mean I could start a Jedi Temple anti-drug program and get Federal aid in the US as a "Faith-based organization?"
Absimiliard
In any case, here are a few other possible choices:
The Eight Virtues
Moon Crystal Magic
The Great Meowth of Bounty
In response to a lot of people questioning the validity/purpose of such an action - Well one can't speak for anyone but offhand I'd say it's a valid response to an invalid question. There is no reasonable purpose for the government of a free and democratic nation to collect information on the religious beliefs of its inhabitants. Providing a nonsense answer is a valid response in the spirit of non-violent resistance. In response to the issue of whether respondents could face legal repercussions to their response... isn't religion one of the basic issues of free choice? What makes espousing a religious belief fraudulent? That you aren't REALLY serious about that belief? Better start lining up the Christians for prosecution, then... plenty of people only practice that belief on Sunday morning, which doesn't strike me a particulalry serious. And this is coming from a practicing Christian, mind you. Anyone should have the right to claim whatever belief system they like. Wouldn't you think?
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Yes, um, New Zealand thanks you:) It's nice to know we're so well thought of, but please don't make out like we've got no imaginations.
Anyhow, the email I saw was that we were all to list ourselves as "Seekers of Punani."
toeslikefingers.com - because
Thassit.
toeslikefingers.com - because
YOU Insult MY RELIGION? Now, DIE.
You stupid bastard, you don't have no arms left. It's just a flesh wound.
All hail Cowboy Neal: Glory be onto the Empire!
This message was encrypted with rot-26 cryptography.
...as will most of my friends.
We hate to be asked- What religion are you? What ethnic background are you?
Those of you who are slamming this miss understand the NZ psyche. Many americans and europeans don't know where NZ is let alone know how we think. In California I was asked in New Zealand is Florida. In London I was asked if we ever drive to Australia for the weekend (5hr plane flight away).
I live in NZ. Having been to about 35 countries. I went to school in the US for a year. I have worked in Italy and Thialand, travlled through the rest of north america (1yr), europe (5mnth), SE+S asia (9mtnhs). I feel I can comment a little on how NZers compare to these cultures.
We are a very liberal country and a mish mash of cultures. Our current and last prime ministers are/were women. Our last deputy PM was a Maori. We were the first country in the world to let women vote. We were one of the first to introduce state welfare. We are nuclear free and have almost no army ecxcept for peace keeping and civil emergencies. Certainly unlike America, you don't have to be white male and christian become the prime minister.
We are one of the most secular countries in the world.And the religions we have are wide and varied.
Our cultrual background is a mish mash of dozens of cultures. It started with the Maori who arrived around 1000 yrs ago. Then europeans came 250 yrs ago (dutch, english, french, scotish mostly). This was followed by a large influx of chinese around the gold rush days (150 yrs ago). The 1st half of the 20cent was east eurpoens (Dalmatians, Polish etc). The latter half has been from SE asia (Malaysia, Vietnam, Thialand, Cambodia) and the Pacific Islands. More recently we seemed to have more Africans (I live by a Somali family) and ongoing Pacific Island immigration.
Our country has a population of 3.6million. Last year we had 1.8million tourists. We are used to cultural and religious diversity.
People I went to school and varsity with in NZ come from a wider ethinic range than I have encountered in any country I visited in the world.
These people often considern themselves New Zealander first and original culture second. If your parent moved here from Malaysia 35yrs ago and you were born here you probably consider you self 100% New Zealander, with malaysian overtones. Compare this with some Amercians I've meet who are 4th gen American but call themselves Irish.
Most New Zealanders are non-practicing of thier partents religion. These people (like me) hate having to state what their cultrual background and religion is.
This is a good oportunity to "do the finger" to those who would like to classify us into groups we don't feel we belong to. On most forms where I have to specify ethnic background I've ticked [other] and then written New Zealander. Ofcourse this makes almost no difference as not enough people do it.
I and most of my friends intend to be JEDI this census. Hopefully at some stage in the future the religious question will be removed from our census forms.
Elvis (elivs@zdnetonebox.com)
PS - I'm not saying NZ does not have sexist, racist, Rednecks etc. It certainly does. However for those of us who hate to be grouped on religion its a great opporunity to protest as a group.
As the story goes:
For the other geographically chalanged, New Zealand!=Australia
If I aimed for Florida, and ended up in in the Panama cannel, I would be a lot closer than New Zealand to Australia. Is Moscow close to London? It's closer than the Auckland is to Melbourne.
If God longs for a personal relationship with me, why doesn't It return Its phone calls? It's not like I don't have an answering machine, either. I even tried writing letters, e-mailing, and faxing. Ok, so the fax didn't go through... But I tried!
You know, you just try, and try, and TRY to get in touch with someone...
Hmm, by that criterion, God is James Kennedy from Cleveland.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
> If you could quantify the effect the nightly local news has on the U.S. general public; I bet you just might find more often than not; the "nightly news group" are subjected to so many false facts, that when it does come time for them to declare/decide SOMEthings, they end up living a lie. Atleast the "Jedi" are choosing to lie.
-Those who have a not thorough insight into both the signification and purpose of words, will be under chances.
You mean that if I started my own Star Wars fan club here in the U.S. I could potentially get some kind of religious tax break for it? Well, in that case... "Our Yoda, who art on Coruscant"
All your base are belong to me.
I just have to wonder if anyone will take this one step further and put Sith instead. After all, you can't have one without the other.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
What's the point?
Is this supposed to be some sort of practical joke? It's just like a bunch of kids ordering 20 pizzas for a false address and laughing with their friends. "Ha ha - some dumbass is gonna have to pay for all those pizzas", but of course they never find out what happens because they're not there! To which the response "uh, let's not and say we did" usually makes the instigator feel like the dumbass.
Or is it to be rebellious?
Geek 1 (overly-excited): "Hey, let's say were JEDI!"
Geek 2 (grinning): "Yeah, we can really stick it to The Man. All those years of invading our privacy..."
Geek 1 (ready to piss his pants): "Oh my GOD! That would be SWEET! Just imagine the look on the clerk's face she has to enter it into the database!"
Geek 2 (suddenly serious): "I'm imagining it now: anarchy! The government would collapse! The country would be ours for the taking!"
Geek 1 (bouncing off the walls): "Let's send out a mass email! Everybody always does everything an email tells them to do, especially when breaking the chain will bring seven years of bad luck!"
The rest is history.
If only someone had been there to say "uh, lets not and say we did"...
I dunno... What do you wanna do?
This can't be a good indicator of the influence of e-mail because it's been all over the news here in NZ and on the Internet. So the results gathered would be flawed as people find out about this from other sources (eg. TV, newspapers, internet etc.).
Whenever I am asked my race on any kind of form, I always put "human".
You know this IS a chain letter: an emaili containing an unusual idea/story, in this case pick Jedi as your reglion, then it ask you to forward it to as many people as possible. Whoever wrote the original message, I salute you! Your chain letter just went on /.
Midichlorians my @$$...
====
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
Jedi is a trademark, _but_...
1) Census data is confidential under the Statistics Act. Therefore, it will be impossible to sue anyone, if such a suit was possible.
2) George Lucas, if he has a sense of humour, would probably laugh his arse off at the whole thing.
3) DMCA is an Amerikan law, and does not apply in other countries!
Can introduce another moderation category? Something like "-5: Stupid Ethnocentric American"
...points this post out to his Muslim and Jewsih friends...
Maori make up more than 10% of the population, they are far from dead.
In any event, Jedi seems like a better religion then any that Star Trek have come up with.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
In Germany and Nazi-occupied countries, census data and Hollerith technology was used to very efficiently produce sorts on the populations; obviously, sorts based on "race" / religion were among the most common
Also, in the USA during WW II, census data and Hollerith technology were used to identify Japanese Americans who were to be interred.
I don't believe that there is a true need for religion to be listed among census data, and that only truly essential items should be incorporated into any census.
Sam Nitzberg sam@iamsam.com http://www.iamsam.com
How could they consider the Jedi thing "false information"? Reading your mind to prove you're actually Buddhist or something?
Why not? It has something like 2 million "followers"! :)
Blarf.
The concept of "the force" closely resembles that
of Qi (pronounced "chee", also spelled chi, ji, ki, prana in various dialects).
The Qi permeates our bodies and the environment.
In proper harmony it can be very powerful.
QiQong, TaiChi, Akido, Falun Dafa, FengShui
is a shortl ist of some of the movements that
harmonize Qi.
If they wanted a sub-ethnic group, we had "Geek-American" already planned. . .
I've seen an interview (on BookTV) with the author(s) of that book. It seemed lacking.
Did IBM actually make the punch cards?
Were any of them smoking guns? The ones that were called such during the interview looked pretty much normal. These were tax forms (with religion as an option) and ID cards listing nationality, cause of death, religion, method of capture...
Did the pres. of IBM know that the holocaust was taking place? The earliest America found out about it was after the taking of Berlin...
If so, did he have reason to believe that IBM technology was used for anything more than regular accounting?
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
religion n 1: a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny;
I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful force controlling everything. There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
It's not often I say this. But some people REALLY needs to get out more. And coming from me, that's serious :).
-Jon
Streamripper
this is my sig.
Countries like America?
We record race, religion, nationality, income, education, criminal background, and in many cases if a gun is owned.
There was some objection to this a while back. Lawmakers tried to calm everyone by saying that it is used to help minorities--and it is.
But it reminds me, and many others, of Nazi Germany. To fund a church, you had to list your religion and earmark money on your tax form for it. This was *not* used to help people.
No one in America expects mass killings, but since most programs that use this data, while intended to help--hurt (such as the inner city housing programs), it might just be better to assume everyone is the same and treat them that way.
accept his fate, timothy will.
---
To see the political (representative) repercussions from the kiwi population declaring themselves Jedi. I'm glad they are aiming high.
You can't just put "Jedi", that's as meaningless as "Jehovist". You have to pick a sect, dammit!
Midichlorist - Old Republic conservative, based on solid scientific principles and prone to much sitting around looking grim and warning about Prophesies.
Immaculatist - Believer in the Immaculate Conception of Anakin Skywalker, marking the end of Midichlorianism rationalism and the beginning of a New Age of "anything goes" psuedo-mystical twaddle.
Intuitist - Imperial period Jedi, eschewing all knowledge of earlier abominations such as Midichlorians and Immaculate Conceptions; a much purer, simpler religion.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Now thats tempting.... if only we could get more than 8000 of each....
MWAHAhahahahahaha
"Should be an interesting experiment to what sort of momentum email can make over just a couple of days."
/. effect on your side too! Even only within New Zealand, I'm sure that's a force to be reckoned with. Probably more powerful than any momentum created through emails.
Well, now it's more than email.. You've got the
Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)
Do not anger the worm.
This really puts me in a moral dilemma being a Christian and Star Wars fan: do I tell the truth as to what my religion is, or lie and help the number of Jedi responses reach 8000, making it an official religion?
Simon
--
Not at all:
All they need to do is ask for proof:
Unless you can levitate rocks with your mind, while doing a one-handed handstand, with a muppet balanced on your foot, then claiming "Jedi" as a religon is false infomation, regardless of its validity otherwise.
Personally, I have always listed my religion as "Discordian", and plan to do so again tomorrow.
I have the documentation to back it up, too. (A copy of the Principa, as printed by SG games.)
Really, "Discordian" is a much better option than "Jedi", and I am disapointed that "Jedi" is the one that got all the press.
Ah well. There is always the 2006 Census...
Shawn Poulsen (Fruan)
"On Slashdot, many obvious things are insightful." - Annonymous Coward, 2000/7/9
seems more fitting to me... :-)
and join us for the hym...
join us now and share the software, you'll be free hackers...
--------------------------------
It takes less time to fly from Los Angeles to New York than it does to fly from New Zealand to Australia.
Why otherwise intelligent people are so utterly incapable of either reading a map or otherwise taking an interest in the outside world is completely beyond me.
It is one thing to mistake a NZ accent for an Australian accent (they do have many similarities) but to mistake one country for the other is nothing less than stupidity!
</obligatory NZ rant>
I refused to tell the US government more than how many people live in my place - even the short form census package had a large number of privacy act violations and highly deceptive material with it (like talking about how they've done a great job of protecting privacy of census data for the last 50 years, conveniently starting their self-congratulation period just a few years after they'd illegally given the US Army data on where to find Japanese-Americans to round up.) It was clearly done in bad faith. The US Constitutional provisions against self-incrimination make it easy to deal with the problem, and if they send census takers around to count, I'll ask them to repeat the Miranda warnings ("You have the right to remain silent" "OK, good. Bye!").
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I tend to screw up the census in Australia when it happens every five years. I can't help it. I was born in the same week of August on which the census is usually taken in Australia. So some years, I'm 4 years older than the last census, and some years I'm 6 years older.
On two of the last three censuses, census night fell on my birthday. I wish I had taken the opportunity to make life interesting for the census staff by going out and getting drunk or something, then not coming home that night.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Census question 18 deals with religion. If you believe in no one specific religion or just simply object to answering that particular question, then please consider the following alternative.....
We are trying to encourage people to tick the 'other' box and then fill their religion in as "JEDI" - all Star Wars fans will understand, but the point of the exercise is two-fold...
1. If 8000 people throughout New Zealand do this then JEDI will become an officially recognised religion which would be a laugh, and
2. It's a bit of an experiment in the power of email, as that has been our primary means of communication, that's not to say that you can't tell others about in other ways.
But I would urge you to do the above and pass this message/idea on to as many of your friends, relatives etc. as you can so we can reach the magic number of 8000, be swift as we don't have a lot of time left!
May the Force be with you . . .
[Antispam] Kill the x in my email address to reply
main() {1;}
What intellect is now being shown by a people that invented the submarine,discovered the diffusion of gases,has the largest (and fastest growing)economy in Europe and a world renowned education system
I could believe Ireland has the fastest growing economy in Europe (I don't know whether it's true or not but it's not ludicrous) but the largest? By what measure? Could you cite some sources for that? I mean reputable sources with numbers.
Many US states do something similar. For example, California has an initiative process that requires 5% or 8% of voters to sign the petition, depending on whether normal laws or the constitution are being updated. There are additional restrictions (beyond the percent of voters), such as neutral but useful editing by the Secretary of State, but the idea is basically the same.
(1) Article II, [section] 8:
(a) The initiative is the power of the electors to propose statutes and amendments to the Constitution and to adopt or reject them.
(b) An initiative measure may be proposed by presenting to the Secretary of State a petition that sets forth the text of the proposed statute or amendment to the Constitution and is certified to have been signed by electors equal in number to 5 percent in the case of a statute, and 8 percent in the case of an amendment to the Constitution, of the votes for all candidates for Governor at the last gubernatorial election.
(c) The Secretary of State shall then submit the measure at the next general election held at least 131 days after it qualifies or any special statewide election held prior to that general election. The Governor may call a special statewide election for the measure.
(d) An initiative measure embracing more than one subject may not be submitted to the electors or have any effect.
The shareholder is always right.
Do you not think that the Jedi are above the silliness of our political system. I wish a lot more people were. A lot of ridiculous things are done by toeing the party line, on both sides.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
The two were friends, and at a dinner conversation, Campbell responded to Hubbard's complaint that there was little money in writing for magazines. He said that the real money to be made was in Religion, with the added benefit of being exempt from taxation.
Hubbard started to speculate on what you would need to do, to start a religion. Campbell insisted you couldn't just start a religion, which Hubbard took as a friendly challenge and responded by asserting that he could, and reportedly, bet Campbell a Million dollars that it could be done!
Needless to say, Hubbard may have won the bet, but never collected from Campbell. By then, he was already being secluded by his children, who wished their father to receive as little public examination as possible.
A few of Campbell's contemporaries in the SF publishing world knew this story well, and I remember Harlan Ellison (a famous exagerator, mind you) recounting it as received from Campbell himself....
Jeremiah Cornelius
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
"The numbers may be misleading" does not imply "the story is meaningless".
The shareholder is always right.
That Jedi make pop media religious heros is ironic, given the sad demotion Lucas made by technically explaining the force.
If it WERE a real religion, we'd probably all be dissing it as much as we are enjoying it now. I've done some reading up on the subject and the first thing that turned me off was the chastity involved.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
What seemed most vital to IBM NY was ensuring that IBM's European subsidiaries were in place and able to maintain a strong presence following the war, regardless of their application.
Well before the fall of Berlin, there were numerous sources and indications (e.g. New York Times) indicating that very bad things were happening.
My point (with respect to the original question) is that harm can come from census data
I also consider this book to be a very important, well-documented work.
There are four simple rules:
- Who whom uses free software (esp unix oriented) is blessed.
- Who whom uses a Micro$oft product commits a sin.
- Help others with your Un*X and free software knowledge.
- All other beliefs/holydays/whatever will be those of whatever other religion you use/like/want.
You can be an Un*Xolog Atheus, Un*Xolog Christian, Un*Xolog musulman, whatever...But the cool part is when your PHB asks you to "edit this
So, Linux, *BSD, Un*X fans, at the next census write Un*Xology in the forms.
--
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
No, it's an illustration of why a constitutional elected government works better than pure democracy.
A mandatory referendum with a 3% trigger is a mechanism that virtually guarantees that the majority will run roughshod over the rights of unpopular minorities. The general record of the Canadian Alliance Party implies that this was a feature, not a bug, in the proposal.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I've seen the census statistics for the last hundred years on this question and it's actually really interesting reading, changing from 99% claiming some form of 'christian' through to the current day, when fewer than 50% do, and of those who do, around 80% are pretty vague about what that means.
My girlfriend always used to put "Aztec Sun-Worshiper" down on her census forms. I'm sure Jedi will slip through with a laugh or two from the collaters.
I'm afraid I'm a boring old atheist, so they won't bat an eyelid at that :-)
E-mail is proably the best way to spread stuff like this I can think of.
A few months ago in Canada we had a really good example. During our last election, Stockwell Day (leader of the Canadian Alliance Party) said that if his party formed the government they would enact legislation wich would put any petition wich was signed by 3% of the electorate (about 350,000 people) to a referendum.
The nice people at This Hour Has 22 Minutes, a TV show on CBC that does political satire, put a petition on the web. It stated "We demand that the government of Canada force Stockwell Day to change his first name to Doris."
By 9:30 the next morning I had at least 5 e-mails from friends asking me to go and sign the petition, mnay of which had been forwarded 4 or 5 times. I know that I also sent this on to at least 10 people my self. If I rember correctly the petition was at well over 350,000 names by that afternoon, and well over a million in 4 days. It was really funny, his party didn't win, thank god, but it would have been great to see him run away from that promise.
I don't think the people behind this idea will have any problems getting to word out, its' so easy to forward a message like this to a ton of people. I understand they only need 8000 to actually do it, and I hope they pull it off. Man that would be sweet.
Just as you can't say I practice Priest or Rabbi. Jedi is the the person who trains in the way of the force. If anything "The Force" would be your religion Since the Sith also train with the same "religion", just the darkside of it. I can see it now.. people reconize it as a religion and in EpIII the Sith can sue for religious persecution
Taoism I belive. So don't the several hundred million chinese who are toaist qualify?
Two people came to my house taking the census - the first was - well - eh - screwed up. It's nice to know that the Census ppl hire ex-crackheads.
But the funny thing was she took the long form and then quit her job sometime later. So some other lady came, who seemed to have it all together, but she took the short form.
And the whole time I'm thinking - some crackhead knows that I'm a Swiss Jew without a high school diploma or a job. What did she do with the info - sell it on the net?
Is this who is behind those 'find out anything about anyone' e-mails?
Get your Unix fortune now!
Funny, I've read this in other posts.
-
Get your Unix fortune now!
Only two... A mastah....
...okay, i'm not going to finish the line
Get your Unix fortune now!
countries that record race and/or religion as census data are sick.
Facetious? Absolutely not!
God loved the world so much that He sent His son to come and die for all the sins of mankind.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Send an AynCard today!
Carousel is a lie!
> But the trick of flight is so simple...Just fall down, and miss the ground...
It also helps to leap from a very high place, 'cause then if you fail you don't have to deal with loss of faith in your religion.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
> Jidai Geki is the Japanese term that Lucas derived Jedi from.
Ah, so! Jedi Geek have much force, yes?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> I saw a PBS interview with Lucas where he claimed to have embraced the mystical belief systems of multiple religions so that he could appeal to the deeply ingrained sociological need for mysticism/spirituality
What did he embrace that made him want to appeal to the deeply ingrained need to buy action figures?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
(Apologies to Brad Templeton.)
//jbaltz
--
I am the Lorvax, I speak for the machines.
"An effective religion has to engage people within their lives, offering ways to address their real issues, not just a bunch of supernatural garbage that they can't relate to (light sabers? where?)."
Yes, that's why they should pay their $30 bucks to the Church of the Subgenius, and relax, knowing full well that when the pleasure saucers come on X-Day, they won't be pink to Bob.
The Founders of the American Republic put into the Constitution that the government was to count people to allocate Congressional representation. It did not put in anything about the government tallying up how many toilets you have in your house, how far you commute to work, or any of the other stuff that market research experts should go get for themselves if they want it.
I got the 1990 long form. In retrospect, though I had never heard of Bill Clinton at the time, I managed to come up with some truly Clintonian "legally accurate" answers, e.g.:
Personally, I'm all in favor of "creative" answers to the nosy questions that the government really has no business asking./.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
> Does "jidai" mean warrior?
No, actually it means "age" or "period".
"Sen" means "war" (and "senshi" means
"warrior" or "soldier") and "goku" means
"country" or "land". I don't think this is
where Lucas got "Jedi" from.
Chris Mattern
Don't forget about the great Kuthulu. He will reign above all. Remember, and vote Kuthulu!
--- LOTR!!!
is that 'what your personal beliefs are' is NOT THE GOVERNMENTS, OR ANYONE ELSES BUSINESS unless you want to make them their business.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
my senior year in high school a group of the more cynical students with whom I comisserated (sp?) and I were rather disheartened by the choices given as the song we were to march to to pick up our diploma's. It was the usual pop crap.
Realizing that we must seize the moment before some overly dramatic future marketing major totured us for one last time, we nominated star wars as a song... with some hefty promises, and a little ballot stuffing, we managed to emerge victorious. The song chosen to march to by the administration was The Imperial March... a personal favorite of mine...
Getting my diploma while picturing the administration as the Emporer and Darth made it almost enjoyable... till I realized the idiots probably wouldn't have made it beyond standard cannon fodder storm troopers... then I could barley contain myself.
Sitting through the mind numbing experience of a high school graduation was almost worthwhile....
Maybe this will make religious debate in NZ worthwhile? Definately couldn't hurt...
Moral of this story: It's always good to force your personal tastes on some on else before they do it to you.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
A man who identified himself only as Obi-Wan Kenobi was arrested for stealing a car, which he said was on orders from "The Force" (Bismarck, N.D.).[USA Today, 1-2-01]
Obi-Wan lives, I knew it.
You think if David Blaine and David Copperfield lived in NZ they could legally put doen JEDI? I mean they can make stuff fly, read minds, cut people in half (sorry Sith!). If the goverment want proof, just give them free tickets to their next magic show? Or better still, proove it my slashdotting them...
Warphal
"
Speed of light is constant,
unless the constant is variable
"
What's the Jedi religion? Belief in a mystical paranormal "force" of good versus evil? With a "dark side" mirror-image, don't forget it! What's this "force" anyway?
Sorry, this ain't a religion, folks. A full on religion needs lots more than some vague outline of mysticism. Sure, mysticism plays a role, but there have to be some ways to connect that to the psychological makeups of the intended converts.
An effective religion has to engage people within their lives, offering ways to address their real issues, not just a bunch of supernatural garbage that they can't relate to (light sabers? where?).
George Lucas' myth-spinning Star Wars exploitation of mass love of recast Arthurian sword-and-sorcery tales doesn't begin to come up to the threshold of a religion. It's just a slick, hyped, and very crass commercial scam, complete with cheap molded plastic action figures in Kmart stores near you.
But someone thinks New Zealand will fall for it.
I've been to NZ. Nice clean place. Lots of level headed, interesting, and fun people live there. I don't think many of them will be signing up for a dumb Jedi "religion."
Besides, the NZ yobbos are all off grokking up the Lord of the Rings books (lips moving as they form the words), not realizing that their parents read them 30 years ago.
Don't mistake my attitude about NZ though. They have more productive folks than Britain. Reasons for this are large questons, though. Let's not go there right now.
Children practicing on fairy tales is appropriate, but when they grow up, they should attend to real issues, not obsess on mind-control abominations like Scientology, EST, Mindspring (that former "human potential" scam is now recast as a national ISP that is run by a Scientology member), vacant TV series, exploitive commercial retellings of old stories (like Star Wars and Star Trek too}.
I could go on, but I suspect you all get my drift.
But the trick of flight is so simple...Just fall down, and miss the ground...
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
... Cowboy Neal!
I forget what depressingly low percentage was required to pass.
:)
I just hope that 20 percentile was more than enough to pass
The shareholder is always right.
You get those emails too? They were REALLY stubborn in sending them to me a while ago, but I was more stubborn in having a filter in place, and now they stopped sending them to me.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
How could you really classify as putting 'other' as religion then putting something as being false? If you think about it, alot of people do not conform to one religion. Look at Oriental culture: lots of Asians are in fact part of multiple religions, this is perfectly accepted. One of my friends is Taoist and Buddhist. So technically is he Taoist or Buddhist? No, both. I am like this too, more of a mishmash of Christianity, Buddhism, Taoist and a few personal beliefs to boot, thus do I not have my own religion? It is what I personally believe in.
May be more appropriate.
When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE
All I can say is, good thing I don't have to take it again!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I was homeschooled, but as you say without some sort of high school diploma you'll have some trouble. I couldn't apply to some colleges without one.
Thus, I took the GED test for a equivilent diploma - if you really want to drop out of high school to try for an IPO (which I wouldn't reccomend BTW), just get one of these. Any moderately intelligent sixth grader could probably pass it with ease, I seem to remember that my score ranked in the 99.9th percentile. I forget what depressingly low percentage was required to pass.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
heres an actual copy that I submitted to /. on sat
> A suggestion for next weeks census....
>
> question 18 deals with religion, if like me, you
> believe in no one specific religion or just simply
> object to answering that particular question, then
> please consider the following alternative.....
> we are trying to encourage people to tick the 'other'
> box and then fill their religion in as "JEDI" - all
> Star Wars fans will understand, but the point of the
> exercise is two-fold...
> 1. if 8000 people throughout new zealand do this then
> JEDI will become an offically recognised religion
> which would be a laugh, and
> 2. it's a bit of an experiment in the power of email,
> as that has been our primary means of communication,
> that's not to say that you can't tell others about in
> other ways.
>
> but i would urge you to do the above and pass this
> message/idea on to as many of your friends, relatives
> etc as you can so we can reach the magic number of
> 8000, be swift as we don't have a lot of time left!
>
> May the Force be with you
>
> Reuben - Wannabe JEDI Master
>
-------
Drink Coffee - Do Stupid Things Faster And With More Energy!
-------
Drink Coffee - Do Stupid Things Faster And With More Energy!
A workmate got his census form returned titled "incomplete" when he put his occupation and religion down as "High Priest of the KLF" here in NZ. Be proud! vote Kuthulu! (we only need 8000 votes to make it a real religion!)
--- LOTR!!!
Actually, it blacks didn't count as 3/8s of a person. All other persons counted as 3/5s of a person, which meant any non-person person. Free Blacks were a full person, slave blacks were 3/5s. After the Civil War, the northern states freaked (hence reconstruction) when they realized that with all blacks counting as full persons, the south would become a dominate force in the House.
> Race shouldn't relly enter into the position at
> all. If the Constitution says anything about
> race, it's because at the time it was written,
> blacks only counted as 3/8 of a person.
Not quite; *slaves* counted as *3/5* of a person,
and are referred to only as "other Persons" (i.e.,
not free, indentured or Indians not taxed).
All slaves were black, but not all blacks were
slaves; the ones that weren't counted as a full
person. The only actual mention of a race in the
original Constitution was in fact Indians, who
didn't get to count at all.
Chris Mattern
As I recall, from just a couple days ago, there is a drive to make forwarding email without explicit permission illegal.
* Split Infinity Music
So can the government prosecute all those new Jedi converts for breaking the OTHER law?!
*grin*
* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
Enough with the pregnant chads! They wouldn't be pregnant if they weren't such sluts.
> do all Christians have to be able to do the 5 loaves and 2 fishes trick? :-)
:o)
Only if they indend to put "Christ" instead of "Christian" on the census
There is a difference between believing in the Force and being a Jedi - Jedi can kick ass 8 ways from sunday, using nothing but their Jedi Powers.
Shawn Poulsen (Fruan)
"On Slashdot, many obvious things are insightful." - Annonymous Coward, 2000/7/9
I haven't decided on my ethnicity yet, I'll come up with something.
Ewok?
Seriously, I'm not sure I'd want to mislead the census takers; it was considered important enough to put in the US Constitution, but maybe people elsewhere take it less seriously. The government takes it seriously because it's in the Constitution; I take it seriously because it determines my congressional district.
--
I guess they will have to put away the fava beans and chiantia if they actually want to answer.
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
You _don't_ want to keep trolling.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
I would have figured that "jedi" came from sengoku jidai = "The Age of the Country at War"
Japan---16th Century.
Does "jidai" mean warrior?
Jedi Knights: no more ridiculous than any other religion. And with cooler clothes.
Got Force?
Well here in the US when I got the census forms to fill out I decided to be a little different and funny. When the field asked what race I was I said and individual =) Nothing wrong about that, because I wasn't lying. I know of at least 200 people I've convinced to fill out the next census with the race of Individual.
This e-mail OBVIOUSLY has some momentum, and I do believe that it will compel people to put that on their census. For Obi's sake, it was slashdotted!
Douglas Adams
1952-2001 :(
The claim in the email that 8000 'Jedis' would make it an official religion is not true. The census does not determine that sort of thing. Also, based on my conversations with people at the Department os Statistics, they will not break down the indiviual write-ins for "Other" they will just be accounted for as "Other".
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?mode_u=off&
Streamripper
this is my sig.
Then of course, you also have to be a jerk, and try to start shit with everyone who lives outside your little circle of friends - People don't call them "hate edge" for no reason - but hell, it's worth being cool like a Jedi I guess. head
It's an obscure film directed by Akira Kurosawa (who also made "Yojimbo", "The Seven Samurai", and "RAN"... all of which are movies you should see before getting around to "The Hidden Fortress").
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
If Lucas does an Hubbard on this whole thing.... scientology with the force?! Actually, looking at the IMDB the word Jedi came from some zen/buddhist thing originally. Hmm. Has it all been a plan? Will there soon be malinourshed people at the skywalker ranch? then onto airports chanting "join us you will!"?!?!?
Bratwurst Orange the band that loves to sing to bacon.
when Push Comes to Shove
So long as they take the word of the person who gives the information. My airhead tenant, who took the long form, has me down as a white, atheist, computer programmer who rents a house. I am a Native American, Buddhist, computer network engineer, who owns the house she is living in. Anyone know if there is anyway to correct this after the fact?
I had A census guy come to my house while I was sleeping, so i invited him in and I laid back on my couch. He asked me all the questions and I'd answer them wrong because I had sleep giddiness.
:)
guy - "how many people are in your household"
me - "2, me and you"
Then I'd proceed to laugh at myself. It was fun
Some trivia from http://www.deadrabbit.org/movievault/starwars.htm
"Star Wars" was modeled after a Japanese movie called "Kakushi Toride No San Akunin". Obi Wan was modeled after a Samuri warrior from the movie, and R2-D2 and C-3PO were modelded after a few petty crooks chosen to help rescue the princess.
[...]
Jidai Geki is the Japanese term that Lucas derived Jedi from. Jidai Geki means period drama, or a Japanese soap opera. Lucas had heard the word while staying in Japan and liked it.
[...]
Chewbacca was modeled after Lucas' dog, Indianna. [PB: In "Indiana Jones 3", we know that Indy got his nickname form his dog Indiana.]
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Don't be an infidel. Every geek should join Open Source Religion (at SourceForge).
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
I don't think the government could get away with listing any sort of religion as 'false information'--because if they do, they can be accused of religious persecution.
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
Answer (written): Yes
Answer (mental): Yes (it's called "North America")
Or: (For those that have large amounts of land)
Question: Do you live on more than 10 acres of land?
Answer (written): No
Answer (mental): No, about two square feet at a time. Except when I'm lying down
Rich
"Ahhh, My Lord, is that... legal?"
'I will make it legal.'
Or my favorite...
"Slashdot them out, all of them."
Chastity? You mean, Luke and Leia?
Can't?
Didn't?
Whoa, that really sucks. I was living on the fantasy that Luke and Leia had done the nasty before discovering they were siblings. Bummer.
I'm sure Lucas Film loves these guys for inventing what ultimately is little more than a free viral marketing scheme for the StarWars franchise. As for mention in earlier posts of Lucas possibly inventing and marketing a religion (A La Scientology), I don't think his previous testomony of Star Wars being fanciful fiction for tots would go over too well with the critics. Nor would the action figures. Think "Buddy Christ" from Dogma :)
Nothing against classic StarWars, but I'm a little burnt out after all the EP1 and now EP2 hype. Much more looking forward to LOTR.
Slashdot: rejecting tech news in favor of rubber band guns since 1997.
The concepts of the Jedi being used for a religion But that would require people to be tested for "The Force" I do not see 8000 people in NZ having "The Force"
IIRC there should be a census in AU sometime this year.
Religion
/* Man, I just criticised the programming syntax of a census entry...I guess I'm officially a geek now...oh, and feel free to criticise my comment style, haven't really used pascal */
-----
IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
If it WERE a real religion, this wouldn't be so nearly satisfying to us geeks. It's the fact that it's completely fabricated that makes it so exquisite.
Then there's the sci-fi connection, what geek wouldn't want an element of everyone's favorite sci-fi flick as part of some country's official census results?
Simply wave your hand and say, "You have no need count my household."
--
the number of people putting down 'Sith' exceeds two ;)
-----
IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
Haleluyah!
People say the Church of Jedi is bad because we permit polygamy and such. But brother believe me, they're just denying the all-encompasing truth of The Force.
Can I get an 'amen?'
Have a Forceful day.
Local preist gives up Catholicism for Lent
No, you can't, because it will be illegal for you to forward the mail.
--
Niklas Nordebo | niklas at nordebo.com
I say we should do this in Australia, too.
;)
:)
Better yet, lets make JEDI an actual religion
Next time its census time in australia, someone remember to spread this 'round and make it on slashdot
D.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
"As the story says, though, "this could land potential Jedi in hot water as
those who record false information, don't fill out census forms, or destroy them, can be prosecuted."
From what was reported on TV, this is actually the only question where you can choose whatever you want. Anyway legal or not i've been choosing a random religion for years.
How could someone prove your religion is not Jedi? I mean, if you say "don't have a church" then 90% of people who put "Christian" are breaking the law.
A census taker tried to measure me once...
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Obi (as in Obi-wan) is a word for a magic man in some language. I found this out playing scrabble when I used it, and gosh darn it, not only did it work, it had a definition for me!
Concidering the numerous oriental influences Star Wars has (and I'm sure entire websites address this), maybe -Wan was derived from -San, which every Westerner adds to the end of someones name if they're pretending to be Japanese. >:)
Fuzzy Knights: New RPG Strips Tuesday and Friday!:
http://www.fuzzyknights.com
Playing silly-buggers with the government's stats doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Remember the firemen referendum? The government overturned the result of that as only a few people voted and so obviously (to them) it was not an issue that New Zealanders took seriously (hence they can fund the fire service less hence they can put the tax rate down hence they can be re-elected). If we start making obvious distortions to the census stats, that would give present and future governments licence (in their own minds) to ignore real needs that are illustrated in the census - like traffic issues in the cities and schooling/health needs in rural areas.
Don't do it! The government has listened to us little enough already right through our history.
"Anybody remotely interesting is mad, in some way or another" - Doctor Who
I not only gave my religion as jedi, but I also stated that (to the best of my knowledge), i get to am from work via "magigcal flying cloud". The NZ Census says on the back:"You hereby state that the information provided within is true to the best of your knowledge". And to the best of my knowledge, I AM a Jedi and I DO fly to work on a magical cloud. I haven't decided on my ethnicity yet, I'll come up with something.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
At any rate, even though GL says it's just a fantasy thing, is sounds an awful lot like the currently popular so-called "New Age" spirituality.
From about.com
Let's look at that list for a minute and compare it to StarWars:
Spiritual exploration (The "Force") and Ben Kenobi as a spirit-guide
Advanced technologies - Death Star, AT ATs, X-wings, Personal Robots, Land Speeders, Light Sabres, robotic appendages
Multiculturalism - how much more multicultural can you get than the Galactic Senate?
and Speaking of the Galactic Senate - Global (universal) peace it's the home of 'just government and freedom for thousands of years'
ancient mysteries - What do you call Yoda and the whole study process to become a Jedi?
As far as 'religion' is concerned:
(I'll admit that it's definition #4), but that says: "A cause, a principle, or an activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion."
Star Wars embraces new age philosophy, and "Jedi" seems to meet the criteria for a reliigon (in my opinion, anyway.)
So, if you want to report your religion as Jedi, go ahead.
Regards,
Anomaly
BTW - there is a real, personal God, and He longs for relationship with you.
If you want to know more about Him, please contact me at tom_cooper at bigfoot dot com
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
The US census questions asked for each member of the household "what race does he consider himself?"
So I asked my wife what race she consider herself, and checked of "white".
Then I thought about what race I consider myself, and checked off some variant of mixed, I forget which.
Then I asked my three-year-old son what race he considers himself. Then I asked him to spell it, which he did, and I dutifully wrote in "BRLZMB", just like he said. It's pronounced bwerrlich, I think.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
Considering all of the mess about George Lucas not wanting the SW movies to come out on DVD, at least for a while, I wonder if he will have a problem with people using one of his terms to describe their own religion. Is Jedi a trademark or some other sort of IP (in the intellectual property sense) registered to Lucas, et al? If so, do these people's minds now belong to him, or at least their religious beliefs? Will one of them preaching violate the DMCA somehow?
First of all, he wouldn't have to "run from it", forcing a name change on a citizen is not something the federal government has the power to do. They have practically unbounded power when they can convince the supreme court that what they do is necessary to running the state, but such arbitrary idiocy is not supported.
I think this was just a pack of idiots attacking a good idea because it came from a source they disliked. There are a lot of things wrong with the Canadian Alliance Party. That doesn't mean every idea they promote is a bad one.
"Oo, look: bad man say 'Ask people, do what they say.', so me know never ask people."
---
Same here in Ireland.Everyone in the US thinks were religious nuts.We really do think that its the other way around. P.S.: 8% of our population voted "Homer Simpson" in our last presidential election!What intellect is now being shown by a people that invented the submarine,discovered the diffusion of gases,has the largest (and fastest growing)economy in Europe and a world renowned education system.
--cros13
It claims to tell you how to live your life, it's non-violent, and it's based on a fairy tale. In other words, much like major world religions, but a lot less objectionable. Sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
Yeah, I'm sure that in Lucas's world, all the young jedi ran around looking for some poor sucker smoking a cigarette just to beat the shit out of him... verrrry jedi-like.
"We obviously need a new moderation category: (-1, Woo-fucking-hoo)" --Mr. AC
Obviously, the need to buy action figures mirrors the need of the medieval lay person to buy icons and indulgences from their local priest.
those darn punch-hole voter cards... I've had my lifetime's share of pregnant chads....
[15:43:16] `SyN`: An unnamed correspondent writes: "It's census night tomorrow in New Zealand, and an email is doing the rounds asking all Star Wars fans to enter their religion as JEDI :) -slashdot .. heh
[15:43:32] Aiee: Congratulations SyN!
[15:43:35] `SyN`: ??
[15:43:40] Aiee: you're #25 to notice that in here today =)
Hmm, looks like I'm not the only /. reader around .. :P
--
It's really funny. And since only 8000 people need to right 'Jedi' to have an affect, it's probably going to happen.
Bow to Yoda!