Slashdot Mirror
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.
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).
"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...
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".
"You can take our lives, but you can never take our Flerbage!!!!"
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.