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."

Comments

Spiritual Needs

[JonnyCalcutta]

"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

Re:Spiritual Needs

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that people without a strong sense of identity are finding something to give them one.

Re:Spiritual Needs

[Opportunist]

Religion gives people who need a purpose in their life one. Some people find one without religion, others are happy without one. But then there's those that need one, can't find one themselves and for them, religion may well fill that void. That's fine and ok, as long as they leave me out of it, and that includes leaving the tenets of their imaginary friend out of anything that may affect me, be it education, legislation or noise in the form of people screaming I should go to prayer or bells ringing in my ears.

In other words, faith is something lovely, just don't make a religion out of it.

Re:Spiritual Needs

[Anonymous Coward]

... faith is something lovely ...

Faith, in the religious sense, is the belief in something without evidence, and the preservation of that belief in the face of contradictory evidence. Some very smart people have faith in a religion and are completely aware that their beliefs have no evidence to back them up, but still believe and act as though they're true. Whether they're right or wrong about the religion is irrelevant, the fact that they're willing to believe it without evidence is problematic – not lovely.

You'll find it quite difficult to find a religious person who doesn't allow their religion to influence the way they act when they have a choice in something to do with education or legislation. There might be a few smart ones around here, but the overwhelming majority will take the words of their religious leaders very seriously and attempt to promote those. It's not fine to allow those people to promote those views without backing them up like the rest of us must.

Faith without evidence is toxic, faith with evidence isn't faith.

Re:Spiritual Needs

[Anonymous Coward]

I dare you to cite at least one solid example that should put me startled into place for assuming otherwise. Otherwise, you're just another one of those holier-than-thou folks with nothing to show for it.

Re:Spiritual Needs

[ThePhilips]

Faith without evidence is toxic, faith with evidence isn't faith.

That makes sense only with this prepended:

Faith, in the religious sense,

But I feel you put those two far too apart.

Faith is something all people have naturally. People just have it.

Religion is simply a parasite which attaches to it. And that can make the faith toxic.

Serious Religion...

[Anonymous Coward]

As if there were one :P

Re:Serious Religion...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no, many of them are serious. That's the real problem.

Midichlorians

[khasim]

Good luck with your Midichlorian count.

Or is he Orthodox Jedi? I think they reject the prequels as heresy.

Or is that Reformed Jedi?

Re:What do you mean?

[quenda]

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.

Re:Worked for me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Buddhism has no mythical or spiritual component. Buddhism is about discovering and accepting what is real.

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.

Re:Worked for me.

[narcc]

Most Buddhists would strongly disagree with you.

Wars of religion . . .

[Savage-Rabbit]

1. Declare your abode to be a Royal Temple of the Seriously Slashdotted
2. Slip through the same tax loopholes that other religions do
3. Profit!

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.

Enough believers for a schism?

[dltaylor]

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)?

Re:What do you mean?

[flyneye]

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Re:Worked for me.

[oobayly]

Most Buddhists would strongly disagree with you.

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

From who's perspective?

[s.petry]

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)