Australia Oppresses Jedi 987
eberry writes "Despite over 70,000 respondents (.37% of the population) replying "Jedi" to an optional faith question on Australia's census, it will not become a recognized religion According to CNN "Australian officials say respondents could face a $1,000 fine for supplying false information. Citing, and I quote, "...people of a particular religious affiliation do not provide the correct information, certain facilities might not be built that otherwise would be."
Personally I find their lack of faith disturbing." And I find the fact that this is on CNN even more so ;)
Separation of Church and State (Score:4, Insightful)
They should not even ask for this information. It is irrelevant to any aspect of the governments purpose.
My tax money shouldn't be used to provide any religious services to anyone.
Re:Separation of Church and State (Score:2)
Government shouldn't be allocating resources based on folks faith beliefs.
Re:Separation of Church and State (Score:2)
Re:Separation of Church and State (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Separation of Church and State (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but you don't have to listen. (Isn't that what everyone is always saying about the 1st Amendment? You have the right to speak, but I have the right to ignore?) And if it solves this following problem...
Then let's say you got arrested for drunken & disorderly.
(Of course, many argue somewhat plausibly that the constitution says nothing about denying government support even to religions, just that it would guarantee religious freedom, in contrast to what was happening in England at that time and before. But I'm not here to argue that.)
If one who is an atheist (to use your example) is bothered by being in a "faith-based" organization, perhaps that person's own faith in atheism (contradiction?) is weak. He should be able to remain firm without trouble, I would think, as many others have in the past, even to the point of being killed over it. (Ancient Rome, anyone? Modern China, anyone?)
Remember also that many hospitals are religiously-affiliated. In times past, especially in Catholic hospitals, a very large percentage of the staff would actually be comprised of priests and nuns. I don't think anyone was ever shocked and horrified by that, so why should this small-time stuff bother you now?
I say this: if the gov't is to be involved in maintaining quality of life in any capacity, it should act like a corporate investor, funding charitable organizations ("companies") that give a good return on investment, not ones that are cash sinkholes and don't benefit anyone. Who should care about ideology if the job gets done?
The only other possibilities I see are (A) the gov't doesn't concern itself with quality of life at all (unreasonable), (B) the gov't funds everybody regardless (a huge waste of money), (C) the gov't does everything itself (bloat and corruption) or (D) the gov't only funds "ideologically pure" organizations.
Of course, since it's impossible for an organization to be ideologically pure (everyone has an ideology), "purity" becomes defined simply on the basis of whatever the regime in power says it is, which sounds to me like a much more tyrannical and arbitrary exercise of gov't power than any of the above. The gov't should be non-descriminatory, and denying funding solely because an organization is a religious one, regardless of its merits, doesn't sound like non-discriminatory behavior to me.
So if someone opens a Jedi alchoholic rehab center, and they do have a good rehab rate, what do I even care whether "Jedi" is a real religion or not?
Re:Separation of Church and State (Score:3, Insightful)
However, what we cannot have is a gov't program specifically designed to benefit faith-based organizations over non-faith based organizations. We also cannot have court-mandated participation in any faith-based organization because that amounts to a state endorsement of religion.
Re:Separation of Church and State (Score:5, Insightful)
Or are you saying that we should have a federally mandated atheistic state? That would worry me as much as dictating any particular religious faith. Religion is part of society, and society creates the government. It's chilling to think of it your way - a government that dictates the society.
--
Evan (no reference)
Re:Separation of Church and State (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course the gov't acts based on faith beliefs... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course the US government acts (and allocates resources) based on faith beliefs of citizens. The US is a representative republic, and so the actions of government reflect, to some extent at least, the will of the people. For many people, their faith beliefs affect their wills more than any other single factor.
The US is also properly a constitutional republic, and to the extent that we pay attention to the US Constitution, governmental action is limited. For example, the Constitution would obviously forbid establishing the Lutheran Church as the official church of the country, even if 90% of the citizens were Lutheran. However, it does not keep Lutherans from lobbying for laws that fit their particular views.
(Note: I just picked Lutheran out of a hat as an example. Don't read more into it than that.)
Re:Of course the gov't acts based on faith beliefs (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, I thought it was because you had created them in a petri dish from one of your teeth and some cola.
Damn it, is there any topic that can't have a Simpsons reference thrown into it?
Re:Of course the gov't acts based on faith beliefs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Of course the gov't acts based on faith beliefs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Separation of Church and State (Score:2, Informative)
both clearly state that was an OPTIONAL field
Re:Separation of Church and State (Score:5, Informative)
It's an optional question on a census, not a tax form.
NanoGator wins: FATALITY
You are correct (Score:3, Funny)
I can't speak about Autralian practice, but in Illinois, my church obtained a large amount of census data from the 1,5, and 10 mile radius around our church, to determine the needs of the area that we might be able to meet. We discovered that a large portion of the people in our neighborhood were working class, Hispanic, and many were single parents.
As a result, we now are seeking a Spanish speaking Pastor, and expanding our preschool program.
Re:Separation of Church and State (Score:4, Insightful)
They should not even ask for this information. It is irrelevant to any aspect of the governments purpose.
My tax money shouldn't be used to provide any religious services to anyone.
Do you live in Australia?
Re:Separation of Church and State and ligthsaber? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Separation of Church and State (Score:5, Insightful)
UK Baptist for prior disclosure. That's rather different to a US Baptist for reference :-) Try here [baptist.org.uk] for more info.
Let's say I decide to move to Utah, for example. Let's say that I want to build a church because I can't find anything other than Mormons for a 50 mile radius of my house.
Let's say that the local council continually refuses building permits for bogus reasons. I'm not saying this happens, Utah has simply been picked on as an example of the area of the US least likely to like to my church by reputation.
Let's say that the census data is able to show that 10% of the local population are Baptists, meeting in small house churches. This data would be very useful in getting the council LARTed for not letting the permit through.
Over here, with a different attitidue to church and state separation, it has more, very real uses. Some areas are currently fighting for state supported Islamic schools on the grounds that there's lots of Muslims in the area and we already have CofE (think Episcopalian, I'm told) and RC state funded (technically voluntary aided) schools. Some areas were able to use this data to confirm that they had a high enough Muslim population that they allowed some shops to open on Christmas day last year, with safeguards for staff in place.
Or let's say that someone's noticed that 30% of people arrested but released without charge are Hindus but they only represent 5% of the population and 7% of the jail population (for example, and the only reason the second number is higher are the general link between poverty and crime and poverty and immigration, I promise!) - in which case there's a case to be answered for discrimination.
If the government doesn't ask for this data it can't pick up on these anomalies and so can't serve groups properly. This is GOOD - and besides, it's not like they're doing ID checks in church carparks and giving people tax breaks as a result...
Oh, BTW, any UK politician want to do that and they've got my vote... ;-) <duck>
Re:Separation of Church and State (Score:4, Insightful)
In your example, you say 10% of the population of some area is of some faith, therefore they deserve special consideration.
Instead of making consideration for this one religion though, the altenative could be to simply have the group sue the government based on discriminatation.
Furthermore, your example showed the good side of counting, that the more of a population there is, the more they "count". But what if the census showed a lot population count, say of
Does the number of people in a religion mean that it's more "right" than other?
If we cannot answer that honestly then we cannot justify making decisions based on it, and then why count it at all?
- Serge Wroclawski
John the baptist (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:John the baptist (Score:4, Interesting)
Let me reccomend The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity by Hyam Maccoby. It may well support such an hypothesis (been a long while since I read it).
Funny enough, while doublechecking the title on Amazon I encountered a book called Mythmaker: The Life and Work of George Lucas. Methinks you are onto something.
Re:John the baptist (Score:4, Insightful)
Several other people were martyred before Paul's conversion (and he himself died for his faith). Who would die for something they knew to be a lie?
Re:John the baptist (Score:3, Informative)
The Magdelen Fragment is interesting, but please excuse me if I take the word of Dr. Carsten Thiede, a doctor of comparitive German literature, concerning its date and significance with a grain of salt. Klaus Wachtel, of the Institute for New Testament Textual Research in Münster, and Dr. Graham Stanton, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, have quite thouroughly demolished Dr. Thiede's dating of Papyrus 64. Here [askwhy.co.uk] is a good review of the criticisms of Dr. Theide's work.
No one claims Paul invented the religion, he just crafted it to fit a gentile audience. And in such crafting destroyed - in my and Dr. Maccabe's view - utterly the original intent of Jesus while paving the way for it's dominance over the latinate and hellenistic world.
Faking miracles. (Score:3, Interesting)
Water to wine - False bottoms.
Feeding the 5000 - False bottoms.
Walking on Water - Mirage Effect.
Wine from ground - Buried wine skin.
Faith Healing - Hypochondriacs, Placebo Effect, impersonation.
If you know how others are faked post them below.
Narrow minded? I think not. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Narrow minded? I think not. (Score:2, Funny)
That's pretty damn funny if you've ever listened to any of Bush's speeches.
Re:Narrow minded? I think not. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup. Just an ordinary guy. What he says has no more influence that what any of the other 200,000,000 Americans might say. I don't even know why they keep showing him on TV.
Re:Separation of Church and State (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Separation of Church and State (Score:3, Insightful)
But plenty of others do agree. Last I heard, the guy who devised the details of the Jedi faith (who is an identifiable, contactable person after all) states that the whole thing was devised for a story and has no deeper meaning.
Even if you believe Christianity is utter rubbish and was made up for a story too, we don't have someone standing up saying 'Hey, I wrote that for this cool film, here's a draft of the screenplay with some different details!'. That puts Christianity and Jedi on an entirely different footing and saying anything else is just silly.
It's offensive, but I'm used to that where religion is concerned so that sort of bounces off. But from an academic POV, I've seen nets that hold more water than your argument.
Oh, last I heard, BTW, transubstantiation was a Catholic doctrine. There's a whole lot of Christians in the world who have serious issues with some Catholic theology, and that's one of the bits. We're called Protestants.
Re:Separation of Church and State (Score:3, Funny)
token christians though (Score:3)
For the vast majority of Aussies, their greatest experiance of church is checking out cathedrals while backpacking through Europe.
False? (Score:2, Insightful)
Quite SImple (Score:2)
Re:Quite SImple (Score:3, Interesting)
That had mpore to do with politics and a pissy pope then it had to do with religeon.
Did you know the cathlic church built and maintian one of the planets first observatories?
Re:False? (Score:5, Funny)
1. Have you ever tried to convince someone that the driods in your possession were NOT in fact the driods they were looking for?
2. Did you ever have a crush on Princess Leah but had a strange feeling the cosmos would never let it happen.. Not even realizing she was your sister?
3. While drivign down the street at night have you ever turned off your headlights and driven using only the force? did you live?
Of course if it were me and they were asking me to proove I was of the Jedi faith, Id insist they make the christians prove they were christians.. Do you love thy neighbor even when they are mowing the lawn at 5am on a sunday.. Etc..
-Jason
Re:False? (Score:2)
Re:Christianity's truth (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats my point. They're all unique, or they wouldn't be seperate reason. He might as well say, "I bought a Ford because it was the only car with the Ford logo on it!"
Australia has no freedom of religion? (Score:2)
Re:Australia has no freedom of religion? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Australia has no freedom of religion? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ultimately I doubt the census bureau will try to do anything, as it is next to impossible to prove anything about a religion - after all a religion is based on faith and beliefs, not proofs, and any attempt to push people on it might lead to uncomfortable decisions affecting "real" religions...
Re:Australia has no freedom of religion? (Score:2)
How is it fraud? (Score:2)
Re:How is it fraud? (Score:3, Insightful)
Their are practices and beliefs associated with Druidism and the Wiccan faith. A person can't reasonably _be_ a Druid just by calling himself one momentarily on a piece of paper, any more than it's reasonable to claim to be a Catholic while taking a page from the feminist movement and worshipping Athena as the goddess of Wisdom.
Read what you wrote.... (Score:5, Insightful)
People claim to be religions and do things contrary to them all the time. Does that make the Catholic who gets an abortion guilty of commiting fruad on their census by claiming to be a Catholic even though they don't strictly adhere to doctrine? Or the Mormon who drinks? Or the Druid that eats meat and hunts? etc etc etc. That is why we have freedom of religion in the US, so someones concepts for a religion don't have to apply to mine, then again the government doesn't fund/build churchs here either.
My point is you are singleing out Jedi's becuase it offends you, and not seeing the bigger picture that this "fraud" as you state it goes on ALL the time.
Re:How is it fraud? (Score:3, Insightful)
I really don't see a huge difference between Star Wars geeks going to Star Wars conventions, where they dress up as Jedi Knights, listen to their chosen leaders (Star Wars actors, writers, etc.), and rant and rave about how great Star Wars is, and Christians going to church, where they dress up in "proper clothing" (formal attire), listen to their chosen leaders (priests, deacons, selected speakers, etc.), and rant and rave about how great Jesus is. The only real difference that is see is that one side is adoring a film work and the other side is adoring a written work.
Uh, what about Scientology? (Score:3, Insightful)
As for fiction in modern religion, other then the fact that Jesus was a person, and was killed, we don't have much other proof to support the stories in the bible. Who knows maybe 2000 years from now people will worship Yoda as a person? I think the point is sure Jedi is a fictional concept, but who knows there isn't much proof that other religions are little more (and don't come back with the "Word of God" stuff, cause that is just bringing dogma into a factual argument).
Re:Australia has no freedom of religion? (Score:2, Insightful)
They don't want to spend resources on people who are essentially purpetrating a hoax by giving them legal status as a religion.
Re:Australia has no freedom of religion? (Score:2)
Proving Intent? (Score:2)
What about Lucus? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What about Lucus? (Score:5, Funny)
You know, I look at Scientology [xenu.net] and I say to myself, "you never know."
Re:What about Lucus? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What about Lucus? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What about Lucus? (Score:3, Funny)
Well, it's not funny in a "Ha ha" kind of way, but it's funny in a "Dear God, NO!" kind of way.
I can't blame him (Score:4, Funny)
Hell, make the fatter ones do 1 sit up and I'll believe they've mastered the force.
Nerd(robotic voice): I am a Storm-Trooper!
Triumph the Wonder Dog(robotic voice, mockingly): You are a huge nerd!
Byebye organized religion (Score:5, Insightful)
If you had to prove your religious beliefs existed, say goodbye to all organized religion.
Not that it would be a bad thing.
Re:Byebye organized religion (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't that moon rock very very similar to rocks on earth?
The use ofelectricity inside the case of a computer is part of the hoax. It really does use magic.
The parent's point is that your evidence is still consistant with the hoax theory. Is it simpler to believe that someone used GIMP, or that someone actually built a huge rocket to boost a very heavy camera at such a velocity that it will eventually leave Sol's gravitational influence, just to send back a few photos? Give me a few million dollars for some JPEGs of the solar system, and I know how I'm getting the JPEGs. I might also point out that you cannot prove that the Earth revolves about the Sun. For an earth-bound reference point, Sol orbits Earth and pretty much everything else orbits Sol. Earth has the unique distinction of being the only planet about which Sol orbits.
Now, as far as evidence for the claims of Christianity, you have more early manuscripts of most of the boks of the Bible than you do for any of Shakespear's works, and you have a pretty good geographic distribution of the manuscripts. You have a corroborating document by the non-Christian Roman historian Justinian. You have the question of why the Roman goverment didn't simple produce the body of Jesus when his cult they tried to squash started spreading rumors that he was up and roaming about.
Now, I'm not really asserting any of these claims. I'm just saying that the stuff you presented isn't very scientifically or historically convincing. Be careful about pointing your finger at the fool when you may be found even more foolish.
I agree that people are sheep. However, I tink you fail to realize how much of your "knowledge" you take on blind faith. Oh.. but.. but.. it's not blind faith, it's self-consistant. Most itelligent people in most faiths have come up with an interpretation that is self-consistant. I'm not saying I don't trust the scientific method, I'm saying don't think you're above taking things on "blind faith". I've had some coursework in special relativity. I understand and believe it. As far as anything more complicated in physics goes, I take it on blind faith. Some theories in the past have been shown wrong. Some of the things in physics I take on blind faith will later be shown to be in error. You may be less foolish than I, but I doubt you are much less foolish than I.
Re:I can't blame him (Score:3, Informative)
Saying your religion is "Jedi" is the same as listing your religion is "Cardinal"
aussie construction projects (Score:5, Funny)
They need to know if they should build the Death Star or not!
Re:aussie construction projects (Score:3, Funny)
I'm guessing not -- the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant when compared to the power of the Force.
Derrr.. (Score:2)
Well duh. Who would put down 'Jedi' and not be considered sarcastic? What'd they expect?
Frankly, I'd be insulted if they took me seriously for a stunt like that. "You believe in a force that requires motion control and wires, your idol is a puppet (muppet?), your bible is a piece of inconsistent fiction that isn't even aware of how slow the speed of light is, and you're willing to hang out with a crowd of people are understandably single."
Yep, I'd be insulted by being accepted as a Jedi.
Re:Derrr.. (Score:2)
Religeon is a deep and personal thing, and as such, you can not say one is better or worse then another. This puts people who want to gain statistice on religeon in an inenviable place.
70,000 Jedi's can't be wrong... (Score:2)
False information? (Score:5, Insightful)
I presume that people who write Jedi on their census form are most agnostics and other non-religious people who would have otherwise not answered at all on the census. So the Australian religious budget would not go to them to begin with. Why not have a little fun? It doesn't hurt anything, except for a few hours for the census department to remove the figures from there total.
Now if a person from a legitimate religion answered Jedi, and therefore has caused less dollars to go to his religious organization, I say he gets what he deserves.
-BrentRe:False information? (Score:2)
Which is, I suppose, the point -- do Australians want their tax dollars being spent on having the census bureau go through and remove all the joke answers (not just religion -> Jedi) from census forms?
Re:False information? (Score:2, Interesting)
X1% Religion 1
X2% Religion 2
They have no idea what religion people really are. They know what they claimed on the form, and that should be the number reported.
The American census takes the same position on issues like race, you are what race you claim to be.
Re:False information? (Score:2)
Re:False information? (Score:2, Informative)
Why not have a little fun?
Because in most countries, lying on your census is illegal. Hence the hubbub.
Re:False information? (Score:5, Funny)
They didn't lie on their census forms.*waves hand*
Re:False information? (Score:3, Insightful)
Belonging to "the Jedi religion" need not be the same as being a Jedi, just as belonging to "the Christian religion" is not the same as being Christ.
Re:False information? (Score:3, Interesting)
You're comparing Apples to Hydrogen. Believing you are a Jedi, you try the mind trick. It doesn't work. That doesn't mean you aren't a Jedi, it just means you are bad at the mind trick. If a Christian can't turn water into wine, all that means is that the Christian simply isn't the second coming of Christ. It doesn't mean that he doesn't believe in the Christ.
And the Christ wasn't a member of the Christian religion ethier. By all accounts, he was a Jewish carpenter, possibly a Rabii. Perhaps the first Jedi will turn out to be a Hindu cab driver.
Re:False information? (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I'm concerned, there is no "correct" answer to religion. By definition, it's what YOU (personally) believe, and has nothing to do with any organizations that might think they somehow represent your worldview.
I, personally, would like to see organized religion stop sucking away all my tax money (by claiming excemption, all the churches force ME to pay higher taxes and carry THEIR part of the burden). I recognize that some few of them do good work for the community, but I also see constant remodelling of perfectly good church buildings, and very nice cars the clergy drive.
Government is not God, although perhaps the Australian government thinks it is...
Re:False information? (Score:3, Interesting)
How would this money get diverted from "real" religions that abuse the money? There isn't a central Austrialian Jedi Order Church to give the money to, so I imagine it wouldn't be allocated to the first guy that claimed to be the JediPope.
The DARK FORCE (Score:2)
May the Force be with you ye noble soldiers
YODa YODa we call thee
come sooner than my credit card fee
we will set the world free
Let the unbelievers be
Coz the question is to be or not to be
I m not making any sense, aint I.. well i never ment to
They will certify the Jedi religion (Score:3, Funny)
Re:They will certify the Jedi religion (Score:4, Funny)
Hey that's from the New Testament. Orthodox Jedis don't believe in that shit...
I have a theory..... (Score:4, Funny)
Can anyone tell me why the Aussies need to be involved with building "facilities" that involve religion in any way.... Maybe something having to do with the Aboriginies.... ?
I have another theory. With a stong force of Jedi in the land down under, Dark Helmet and Colonel Sanders don't stand a chance at taking over the galaxy. By breaking the ties formed through the census among all Aussie Jedi, the Schwartz will go flacid. This is make way for the introduction of more intrusive inquiries to be lead by the census, and eventually, universal installation of virgin alarms.
This may lead to something even more dangerous than communism.
Sad devotion to that ancient religion? (Score:2, Insightful)
In the CNN article, they state:
Hmmm...I wonder where the idea that 10 000 responses would make "Jedi" a recoginzed religion?
Anyone know what the real criteria are? Or do you think the Aussie gov't is just trying to sweep this under the carpet?
And how would you charge them with fraud? How could they prove you aren't a Jedi? Or at least an observer of the Jedi faith. I fail to see how anyone can prove anything *isn't* a religion.
Do they call Pope Lucas and get the list of faithful from him?
Is Scientology an official religion in Australia?
70, 000 Jedi. Rock on down. Good Onya, mates!
Shame on you, Jedi (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, though, Australia has no real concept of state-church separation (we have an official religion - the world's most boring religion: Anglicanism) yet it is America, despite the first amendment, where sectarian forces are the bigger political threat.
(*) Pre Jar-Jar
jedi is very similar to hinduism (Score:3, Interesting)
A Real Jedi Response (Score:5, Funny)
You don't need to fill out our silly forms.
"All you need to do is count how many people live here."
All we need to do is count how many people live here.
"Just move along."
I'll just move along.
Urban Legend (Score:3, Informative)
Geek Orthodox (Score:5, Funny)
Urban Legend (Score:4, Informative)
What made some people believe that it was true was that, in Britain, it was eventually revealed that "Jedi" was getting a specific response code assigned to it (e.g., people who wrote in "Jedi" as their response were getting assigned a value such as "746" for their religion). The fact that the "Jedi" responses were being recorded made some people believe that the hoax was true.
However, in many surveys, responses that pass a certain numerical threshold are often assigned a distinct numerical code. This doesn't actually mean anything; it's simply to aid in the tabulation of the results. For analysis purposes, "Jedi" was always going to be grouped into "N/A" or "Other" or "Refused to Answer" (I'm not realy sure which; depends upon how they want to deal with it).
All the details can be found here [snopes.com].
The census is irritating (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of people here seem to have a healthy contempt for these 70,000 Australians. I'd like to point out that it's not quite as sad as it seems. We're not talking about something that takes a lot of effort. And in particular, these people weren't trying to make any sort of serious point.
Simply put, the census is a royal pain in the ass and if your typical Australian knows of a way to poke fun at it without criminal sanction, he'll do so.
Is the question even meaningful? (Score:4, Insightful)
So if asked a bizarre question about religion, dragons or anything else, I'd feel perfectly entitled to put a bizarre answer. Cargo cults believed that planes were linked to God, why shouldn't I think a film is?
Definition of a religion under US law (Score:3, Insightful)
The organization must be organized and operated exclusively for religious, educational,
scientific, or other charitable purposes,
Net earnings may not inure to the benefit of any private individual or shareholder,
No substantial part of its activity may be attempting to influence legislation,
The organization may not intervene in political campaigns, and
No part of the organization's purposes or activities may be illegal or violate fundamental public policy.
And that's it. So under US laws the Jedi church would qualify (if it existed in the US).
Re:Definition of a religion under US law (Score:3, Interesting)
Such as influencing abortion, stem cell research or homosexual marriage legislation, for example?
Do they accept Scientology? (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you noticed... (Score:3, Insightful)
All religions are basically fictions (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, nation states themselves are in large part fictions. So which other fictions should they associate with and invest in? Should a state appropriate, even nationalize, a good fiction when one comes along? Should George II wear his Mickey Mouse hat on state occassions? Should he carry a cross? Should Saddam be let to live a few more years if he'll just play along and dress like Darth?
Even the most "realistic" views of the world are largely fictions. It's time to take conscious control of our choices here; and more than anything it's time for some new religions which are compatible with, but broader than, science. The precise place to find these is the field known as science fiction - duh.
They Did Not Lie On Their Forms (Score:3, Insightful)
They scoff at anything outside their narrowly-defined concept of a "genuine" religion. "That's not a real relgion, it's just an excuse to _____." "They're just thumbing their noses at us devout _____s, they're not religious." "I've never heard of anyone belonging to _____; it must be a fake."
Religion is much broader than that. Religion is about closely-held beliefs. In the United States we have what's known as "Freedom of Religion." Many people interpret this to simply mean that the government cannot prevent you from going to church/praying/etc. The Constitutional amendment which provides "Freedom of Religion" is also focused on "Freedom of Speech." The whole idea is "Freedom of Ideas." The government cannot tell you your your beliefs are wrong without solid proof
"Your belief that God is dead is wrong because God lives in every man," doesn't fly. "Your belief that you have a mandate from God to murder people of other religions is wrong, because you are harming another person," is valid.
This distinction is very important. When a government can condemn ideas or mandate ideas without the burden of proof, its leaders attain totalitarian power. The power to define valid religions/beliefs translates into the power to define facts and reality, and the government will evolve into a self-serving dictatorship.
I don't care for Star Wars, and I don't think any one of these people can levitate rocks. But I do believe there are many people who are religiously fanatical about Star Wars. I'm not going to ridicule people for claiming Jedi as their religion or accuse them of lying about their beliefs, because their beliefs are just as valid as yours and mine.
I don't pity these "Jedi" for their beliefs. I pity them for living in Australia. In the U.S., the government doesn't have the right to suppress beliefs by calling them lies.
Australian Officials (Score:3, Insightful)
If Australian officials don't like the answer they shouldn't ask the queston in the first place.
Aboriginal religions, languages (Score:3, Informative)
Neither the religion nor the language sections explicitly mention Aboriginal religions or languages, though about 7000 people wrote that in on the 1996 form, and a number of other people wrote in "Nature Religions", which may include some aboriginals as well as neo-pagans. The Ancestry section does include "Australian", and there is also an explicit question asking if you're an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, and there are some specific instructions for Australian South Sea Islanders as well.
Same story as for New Zealand (Score:4, Interesting)
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Thanks for your enquiry. There were 53,715 people who identified
themselves as Jedi in response to the question on religious affiliation.
This was 1.5 % of the people who responded to the question.
For your information, most people realise the importance of the Census
and therefore provide meaningful and accurate answers. The religion
question, which has been asked in the Census since 1851, asks people
to identify what religion, if any, they affiliate with. They may elect
not to answer this question. If people's belief system was genuinely
Jedi, they could mark the "other" box and write Jedi in the space
provided. These data were captured during the processing phase but have
been coded as "Response outside Scope". Jedi is not part of the
agreed list of religious affiliations noted in the New Zealand Standard
classification. Hence it will not appear in the official results from
the Census.
What were the other choices? (Score:3)
Why do people assume that it is a joke when people claim Jedi as their religion? I'm not at all sure that it is. Religions can probably start in many ways, I have know devout members of "The Church of All Worlds". I didn't think that they understood the revealed doctrine (see Stranger in a Strange Land) very well, but they were sincerely misguided. And devout. Some of them did jail time over it.
I'm sure that many entered the term Jedi as a joke, but I see no reason to believe that all did, and even so I would bet that many who entered it as a joke were as devout as many of those who entered Anglican (Episcopal?).
Not illegal in the UK (Score:3, Interesting)
Jedi recognised in UK (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census200
However what I found really interesting was some of the other choices in the ~150 different categories including:
Scientology
Nearly 100 different versions of Christianity.
Heathen, Atheist, Agnostic, Realist, Idealist, Rationalist, Humanist, Secularist.
Re:Question for the Aussies here... (Score:2)
Power of the Force (Score:3, Funny)
they weren't sued by George Lucas!
Just remember what Vader once said: "The ability of the Australian officials to impose a $1,000 fine is insignificant next to the power of LucasFilm."
GMD