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

None v. Atheist

[dmarcov]

Ok - so someone's really decided there needs to be separate categories for "Atheist" and "None". I want to see the discussion here the delineates the differences between someone who says there's no God (which seems to me to be saying that religion would necessarily be a fabrication), and "None" ... which means. I dunno -- pretty much the same thing? That there is a god and they choose not to believe -- it seems that you start to get into one of those Douglas Adams'-ish loops about proof denying faith, and without faith god being nothing -- with of course proof, proving god doesn't exist because god exists.

Re:None v. Atheist

[Reality Master 101]

Atheist: You take a definite position that there is no God (which ironically is actually a position of faith, but that's another debate).

Agnostic: You take the position that the existence of God is not knowable. This IMO is the most intellectually honest position.

None: I guess this means that you take absolutely no position at all on the subject.

Re:None v. Atheist

[efuseekay]

*sigh*, another statement of faith masquerading as an argument.

God has made himself known through many ways, and it behooves us to seek Him.

Please show scientifically testable/repeatable proof.

As for agnostics being lazy, you are accusing people who have spent a lot of time thinking about the issue and evaluating the evidence but came up with the an intellectually honest answer : "We don't have sufficient evidence to decide on whether God exists" of being lazy. I think that's a strawman argument.

I am an agnostic. I spend all my time seeking the Truth as a physicist. That's my job. And if I get lazy, my advisor will kick my butt. Perhaps you should widen your views about what constitutes "Truth" and what constitutes "Faith."

Feynman once said, "It's hard to sit on the Fence." Agnostics sit on the fence all the time, and Feynman's is right : it's not easy.

Re:None v. Atheist

[Reality Master 101]

"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.

Actually, that's not true. We have no evidence for purple gorrilas, but we do have (supposedly) eyewitness accounts of Jesus being resurrected. I don't believe that evidence is very strong, but it is evidence.

I know you're next argument: Santa Claus. Let's hit that one. :)

We can actively disprove Santa Claus, because we can trace the origins of the legend, and see that it is clearly made up. With the Judeo-Christian God, it's not easy to see, because he's pretty much been around since the dawn of writing (8000 years?).

So to actively say that there is absolutely no God presupposes evidence that you don't have, and in fact, ignores that there really is some (admittedly weak) evidence for the existence of God.

All it takes is a following and some faith....

[suso]

2000 years ago a group of people believed in a man called Jesus Christ. And now an enormous amount of our society is based around his sacrifice.

2000 years from now, perhaps the world will pray to a man named Luke Skywalker???

Questions for the many knights out there

[Alpha State]

Wouldn't the religion be just "Jedi"?

Does this cover the dark side of the force as well?

Can you be of the Jedi religion without being a knight?

What's the official Jedi position on abortion, contraception and religious killing?

How do you make those lightsabers anyway?

Learn from the prostitutes

[DaSyonic]

Things like this don't work. A while back, some woman decided to start a church for her bordello ('whore house') in which the 'followers' would enter the 'temple' and perform 'religous services' and upon leaving, would leave 'a charitable religous donation'. Obviously, it got shot down, and they spent some time in jail if I recall.

You can not create a religion that violates the law without a lot of precedent. For example, a group of Indians, I dont recall the tribe, but they are the only group who may use peyote legally. Why? It's their religion, and they've been doing it for hundreds of years. If you had been doing this for many years before the DMCA, and all these laws, you might stand a chance. Otherwise, better just spend your time writing your local representatives.

Re:The article admits that

[Rogerborg]

• point is that a lot of people are putting down Jedi for their religion because they want to mess with the British government. I can't believe this got posted on slashdot.

It's highly relevant under YRO (as this data is held on puters and used by a whole raft of government and quasi-government bodies). Britain leads the US in invasions of privacy and fucked up tech laws (we've had a DMCA since 1988). Anything that happens regarding privacy/censorship/state control in the UK is a good indicator of future behaviour in the US.

Sure, this time around the religion question is voluntary. But by not answering it, all you demonstrate is apathy. By giving a bullshit answer, you send a clear signal that you actively object to it.

The UK census start with the bold statement that (approximate quote) "This data is anonymous, will be used for statistical purposes only, and will not be used to identify you." Then the first question demands to know your name. Do they need to know the statistic of how many people have my name? I don't think so. The presumption is that I will lie on the census, and they need to know who I am so that they can prove this and punish me.

Go ahead and trot out the usual response of "it won't be used against you, stop bitching". If it's not going to be used, then why demand to know it? What purpose does knowing my name serve, other than to identify and punish? I'm not saying that it will be used, but if that's the case, then don't ask.

Similarly, I had to disclose who I work for and where I work. Exactly, not approximately. If this is being used only for traffic planning, why demand to know exactly this? Again, it's probably benign, but it's more information than is needed for the stated purposes.

For these reasons and more, I thoroughly enjoyed fucking with my census. The questions asked do not tally with the reasons given for asking them. I don't enjoy being fed bullshit or treated like an idiot, and so will take every possible opportunity to protest these censii by whatever means I have available. (Yes, I write to my representative regularly, politely and constructively, and just as regularly fail to get any response).

Re:The sad thing is...

[Rogerborg]

• None of the people who check it are actually Jedi, whether they say they are or not

Prove that anybody who puts down Buddhist has been reencarnated.

Prove that anyone who puts down Catholic suffers the consequences of original sin.

Kind of missing the point of belief, aren't you?