Jedi Knight Now (Not) Officially a Religion

osiris writes: "The Register is reporting that being a Jedi Knight is now an official religion in the UK after the 2001 census conducted earlier this year. The final number of 'Jedi Knights' has not been confirmed yet as only about 95% of the census forms have been returned. As you could probably imagine, the Home Office is none too pleased. Apparently though, you can't get fined for lying about your religion in the census." Actually, according to the story, this gives the Jedi way no more official status than Plumbing would have if everyone put that down.

Comments

Re:The sad thing is...

[Spootnik]

I've checked out the UK Statistics Office list of religions and it is indeed coded as 896.

Satanism is 331.

They even allow you to have your "Own Belief System" (code 344).

Re:And governments need this type of info because.

[ugliness]

From the Australian Bureau of Statistics...

Main purpose of the religion question

The religion question is included in the census as religious organisations are the biggest providers of services, outside of government, in a number of areas such as schooling, health services, aged care services, and community support facilities. The question is not designed to measure the degree of participation in particular religions and philosophies.

Rather, as many people access services in accord with their nominal religious affiliation, the statistics are highly useful for planning these services (eg many Catholics who do not actively participate in their religion send their children to Catholic schools). The religion question has been optional in all Australian censuses; this follows from a requirement in the Australian Constitution.

Re:None v. Atheist

[The Good Reverend]

"Atheist" is no more a position of faith than saying "I don't believe in 1000 foot tall purple gorrilas" is a statement of faith. Based on available evidence and the self-controdictions of most Gods (I'm using a Christian definition here), being an atheist is accepting the evidence for what it's worth.

Here come the flames...

So where is Time Cube?

[Nathdot]

Looking at the census list of religions it would seem just about every permutation of praise gets a mention...

So where is Time Cube? It's a perfectly valid religious choice?

I thought four corner truth was ineffable. Could it be that Census is just another Evil Word Institution trying to suppress Gene Ray's beautious vision...

Let's all pull together and make time cube number 900 on the list come the next census

I actually sibmitted this story yesterday...

[Scrameustache]

And I find that the most interresting aspect of the whole thing is that it says something about culture, when something totally made up from a 23 year old movie shows up in a national census.

Exactly what it says is up to debate, but the statement is the real message. I doupt that the people who awnsered Jedi when asked aout their religion actually meant that they believe in an invisible force created by life that can be used to do magic.

I wonder how it feels to know you're the one that started all of this in the first place.

Re:None v. Atheist

[dopplex]

None is not agnostic. An agnostic is not someone who can't make up his or her mind. What an agnostic actually believes in (Yes, real agnostics do believe in something...) is that the human race cannot know the form of a supreme being/beings or whether any in fact exist. In essence, agnosticism is the belief that there are some things that we as humans cannot know.
Agnosticism is a belief system in itself, and it most certainly doesn't fall under the category of "no religion".

Strong/Weak/Agnostic

[Bugmaster]

Actually, the more correct division (according to infidels.org and my long-forgotten philosophy classes) is as follows:

• Strong Atheist: You take a definite position that there is no God, thus maiking a statement of faith.
• Weak Atheist: you acknowledge the possibility that God exist, but believe that the likelihood of this is too low to be taken seriously
• Agnostic - Unlike the Weak Atheist, you believe that the existance or nonexistance of God cannot even be estimated, but that's ok, since it doesn't matter anyway.

Oh the three positions, Weak Atheism is probably the most intellectually honest one. Strong Atheism is hypocritical, and Agnosticism seems more of a cop-out than a philosophical standpoint.

Re:Is it a religion at all?

[Fixer]

I don't recall the question of God ever being brought up in the movies. Is "Jedi" ever referred to in the movies explicitly as a religion?

Yes.

In the first released film (A New Hope), Han Solo goes on a bit of rant about it, giving a line about "Ancient weapons and spooky religions are no match for a good blaster at your side" or something very close to that.

Re:None v. Atheist

[nathanh]

Too simplistic. You can break down Atheist into Strong and Weak positions. The definition you wrote is arguably one form of Strong Atheism but even that is stretching it.

Try and think of it like this: the Weak Atheist does not believe in the existence of God whereas the Strong Atheist position believes in the non-existence of God.

To further understand the problem: Atheism is about belief, not knowledge. Agnosticism is about knowledge, not belief. In practise you can be Gnostic and Atheist, Agnostic and Theist, or any other ridiculous combination.

Back to your definitions. Atheism isn't a position of faith, it's a statement of belief. The Strong Atheist could arguably be accused of having "faith" in their assertion of God's non-existence, but to do this would trivialise the meaning of "faith". Suddenly you have "faith" that you are hungry and "faith" that it is cold. Clearly this isn't the same meaning of "faith" that a Christian uses when they claim to have "faith in God".

I don't have much of a problem with your definition of Agnostic, although it's nothing like Huxley's original definition. But I hope you now understand that your definition of Atheist is the one popularised by the United States of Christianity, and is not a reasonable definition of Atheism.

Re:None v. Atheist

[dopplex]

Well.. I see it more as a conviction that is actually based on the fact that there is no evidence. In fact, for agnostics the very evidence that validates belief (for me anyway) is the lack of evidence pointing towards anything else.
Your "typical agnostic" is not an agnostic. He or she is simply undecided, and never bothered looking up the word in the dictionary.

Word History: An agnostic does not deny the existence of God and heaven but holds that one cannot know for certain whether or not they exist. The term agnostic was fittingly coined by the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley, who believed that only material phenomena were objects of exact knowledge. He made up the word from the prefix a-, meaning "without, not," as in amoral, and the noun Gnostic. Gnostic is related to the Greek word gnsis, "knowledge," which was used by early Christian writers to mean "higher, esoteric knowledge of spiritual things" hence, Gnostic referred to those with such knowledge. In coining the term agnostic, Huxley was considering as "Gnostics" a group of his fellow intellectuals"ists," as he called themwho had eagerly embraced various doctrines or theories that explained the world to their satisfaction. Because he was a "man without a rag of a label to cover himself with," Huxley coined the term agnostic for himself, its first published use being in 1870.

I also fail to see how someone who is truly agnostic (i.e. holds that man can not know for certain whether god exists, and in what form) is necessarily militant, any more than anyone else who is religious. An agnostic, (Like people who have other beliefs) is perfectly able to believe in what he or she believes in without trying to enforce it upon others.

This is not to say that none do - but there are those of every belief who are "militant".

Anyway, the ones who are particularly aggressive are probably just pissed that everyone keeps confusing us with those who are merely undecided, or who don't care.

Principia Discordia, not Illuminatus

[TimFreeman]

But just because the Discordian religion probably appeared first in a fictional novel...

Discordianism probably appeared first in the Principia Discordia, which is too disorganized to be called a novel.