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Jedi-ism Becomes a Serious Religion
An anonymous reader writes: 390,127 Brits declared their religion as Jediism in their last census — many as a joke, but some are quite serious, the BBC reports. Cambridge University Divinity Faculty researcher Beth Singler estimates at least 2,000 of them are "genuine," around the same number as the Church of Scientology. The U.K. Church of Jediism has 200,000 members worldwide. Their belief system has expanded well beyond the Star Wars universe to include tenets from Taoism, Buddhism, Catholicism and Samurai. Former priest, psychotherapist and writer Mark Vernon finds real power in the Jedi story: "The reason it's so powerful and universal is that we have to find ourselves. It's by losing ourselves and identifying with something greater like the Jedi myth that we find a fuller life."
"For Mark Vernon, a former priest, psychotherapist and writer, says the Jedi story has real power. "The reason it's so powerful and universal is that we have to find ourselves. It's by losing ourselves and identifying with something greater like the Jedi myth that we find a fuller life."
Speak for yourself
As if there were one :P
390,127 Brits declared their religion as Jediism
vs.
at least 2,000 of them are "genuine,"
doesn't the difference seem a bit high ?
If they assume that roughly 0.5% of the answers are genuine, I wonder what they think about other statements from that census.
If you have to assume that less than a percent of the answers are genuine the whole thing doesn't really seem to be worth the effort.
(or the goal of the census was quite a different one than one would suspect)
I wonder if when you rank high enough in the church, you can jump start your car using "the force".
Good luck with your Midichlorian count.
Or is he Orthodox Jedi? I think they reject the prequels as heresy.
Or is that Reformed Jedi?
Neither is Scientology a church nor are they are a religion or serious. They are a serious criminal company having bullied IRS to conduct their enslaving scam tax free.
not a belief system. Some followed "the way of the samurai" (really neo-confuscianism), and others were (zen) buddhist or shinto adherents, often at the same time.
Don't be offended. Lots of religions start out as jokes or satire, before inexplicably being taken seriously.
If you ever read the Book of Mormon, or Dianetics, you will see what I mean.
It could be time to re-label those E-Meters as midichlorian meters, and make a fortune.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
According to some westerners who got their hands on Buddhist texts in the last century and decided to cut out what made them uncomfortable. Within the Buddhist tradition, some supernatural element has always been present, even among schools that downplayed anything but direct experience. The Mahayana Buddhism most successful among westerners inherited the entire Vedic pantheon, and in Avatamsakasutra, for example, Buddha ascended to Mt. Sumeru to chat with Indra and his buddies. Furthermore, in the Mahayana tradition the boddhisatva ideal remains, but belief in people who choose to stay in the cycle of rebirths until all sentient beings have been liberated requires that one believe in a cycle of rebirths, which is not supported by science in any way, shape or form.
Most Buddhists would strongly disagree with you.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Have they demonstrated the power of the force at all? or are they just genuine nutters?
Nah, Slashdot is not a religion. But you could for example choose one of the many religions organizations represented on Slashdot like: the Sacred Temple of the Apple, the Revered and Holy Shrine of the Android, the Evangelical Church of Emacs, the First Reformed Church of Vim, the Orthodox Church of WIndows or the Open Source Church of the Blessed Saint Linux on the Desktop ... the list goes on ... those are already established religions. Slashdot is more like the plains of Armageddon where the adherents of these faiths fight their wars of religion.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
The proper name is "Jedi". It is both the name of one who practices the religion as well as the religion itself.
"I studied Jedi at a Jedi Institute, to work towards becoming a Jedi"
Are the jedists a large enough group to start killing each other over the "Old Testament" (episodes 4, 5, 6) vs. "New Testament" (episodes 1, 2, 3, with the midichlorians)?
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But they won't kill you over it.
Or more accurately, like most other religious followers, the majority of Buddhists won't kill you for it. Like every religion, it has followers who are willing to kill for their beliefs - Special Report: Buddhist monks incite Muslim killings in Myanmar
It's only starting out. Wait until they come to your house and kidnap your children to help them 'realise their potential'.
Then the next thing you know they are assassinating political leaders in their chambers all because one of the neophytes 'had an uneasy feeling'.
As on of their prophets said: 'Not afraid? You will be. You *will* be'
Mormanism begs to differ.
The Jedi were, in the end, a bunch of idiots who were so blind that they (1) didn't notice they were spending billions of credits a year building a clone army, (2) didn't realize, even after some kid mentioned it to yoda, that all their systems were compromised, and (3) were so bad at tactics that they dropped 100% of their forces into - some dumb arena to fight someone.
Their last practitioner, Obi-Wan, left his best friend to die after cutting off both of his arms and his legs, and spent the rest of his life as a trapdoor spider waiting to turn his best friend's son into a weapon pointed at his old friend.
Why would anyone want to be like these yo-yos?
[rant on] It really gets tiresome reading the same drivel over and over and seeing it marked as "insightful" when it is simply repeating statements that are provably false. It's like watching the KKK guys all pat each other on the back for using a racial slur, it's old and pathetic. [rant off]
Consider Pascal's wager. Even if there is no God, what is the harm in society practicing Christian beliefs? Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet they neighbors wife or property.
7 out of 10 commandments are exactly what we call "Natural Law". The other 3 deal with respecting the God that provided those commandments, which is interestingly a circular logic bit to make sure that people continue to respect the 10 commandments. Wow, there is absolutely nothing parasitic with the beliefs, and there is nothing toxic with the beliefs.
People in power have used religion to manipulate people, but that's not a problem of religion it's a problem of people abusing a system for power. You know, the same abuse that we have with people in political offices, loaning money and exchanging money, owning/controlling land and resources, etc.. etc.. etc.. They can do this because people are ignorant and believe what they are told, even when you can prove their belief wrong. (I really hope that rings a bell for you)
Claiming that Religion is a problem does not fix the issue, education fixes the issue. There is a 50/50 chance that the Universe needs something to create it (I really hope you are not one of those that claims science solved the question, which is another false statement often repeated). This is why a large number of scientifically minded people have at least some faith in some religion. At the same time, the educated can easily pick out the nonsense that people add, or have added to a Religion for gaining power. I have yet to see a crowd of PHDs or Nuclear Physicists run off and join Al Quada or ISIL/ISIS at any rate, go ahead and prove me wrong.
Instead of telling people that Religion is something it's not, why not teach them what their Religion really is? I fully agree that it's an uphill battle, entrenched power is extremely problematic to remove. Trying to counter lies with lies is a no win proposition.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The Mormons and COS were both intended as money making operations to gain power. Hubbard wrote several papers before Dianetics stating that the easiest way to get rich was to start a religion, so he did. To them it was not a joke or satire, it was about money and domination. The story of Mormon religion is similar, but harder to track and requires reading lots of anecdotal evidence.
The masses looking at the founders of these religions for the most part laughed and snickered, but as PT Barnum is attributed with saying "a sucker is born every minute" (re-read that statement before trying to correct the quote)
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.