Slashdot Mirror
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."
Oh no, many of them are serious. That's the real problem.
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
Most Buddhists would strongly disagree with you.
Required reading for internet skeptics
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
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)?