The Church of England meets Star Wars

[EnderAndrew]

The Government is not recognising that Jedi is a religion.  They are recognising that a lot of people claimed it was their religion.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So they officially recognized it on the census, but they're not officially recognizing it?

 

Again, at what point does the government tell people that their religion isn't real and doesn't count? Can't we do this to the Raelian cult? ( http://www.rael.org/ )

Can't we do this to Scientoligists, Christian Scientists, or any number of new religions that sprung up within the past 50 years?

 

Hell, why don't we go so far as to not recognize any religion other than the 5 big ones?

 

If enough people say that they truly believe in the Force, who is really to say they don't?

[SteveThaiBinh]

Nobody actually practises this religion. Who or what would the government recognise?

 

If people really believe in the Force, let them organise a religion around it and then apply for official status. I'm sure the government would recognise it then...

[EnderAndrew]

Actually, there is a Jedi Academy in California where "sermons" of the Force are given, people meditate on the Force, and lightsaber techniques are taught.

 

People do really practice the religion.

 

Edit: Here's another Jedi Academy in Romania.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/31/ro...n_jedi_academy/

 

Also, 390,000 registered as Jedi in England, 70,000 in Australia, 58,000 in New Zealand, etc.

[Reveilled]

The Government is not recognising that Jedi is a religion.  They are recognising that a lot of people claimed it was their religion.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So they officially recognized it on the census, but they're not officially recognizing it?

 

Again, at what point does the government tell people that their religion isn't real and doesn't count? Can't we do this to the Raelian cult? ( http://www.rael.org/ )

Can't we do this to Scientoligists, Christian Scientists, or any number of new religions that sprung up within the past 50 years?

 

Hell, why don't we go so far as to not recognize any religion other than the 5 big ones?

 

If enough people say that they truly believe in the Force, who is really to say they don't?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No one is saying they really don't.

 

The government doesn't offically recognise religions at all. It's a code on the census, just like "Other Christian", "Catholic", "Anglican", "Druidism", "Hinduism" and so on. That's all. With regard to the census, Jedi has the same status as any of them: that of a code for easy categorisation of the data. In terms of being recognised as a religion, Jedi has exactly the same status as any of the above: none at all.

 

However, what the government does do is recognise certain organisations as "organised religions". Organised religions get special tax breaks and other benefits. Being an organised religion clearly does have a higher standard of proof than that of merely being a religion. In order to be an organised religion, you have to, among other things, have a specific structure of internal government that actually exists, you have to have centralised places of worship, and I believe you also have to hold ceremonies. Jedi is not an organised religion because it does not do any of these things. If it did, and it could prove it, then it would indeed be recognised as an organised religion by the government. Until then, the census lists those people who claim to be Jedi, just as it lists those people who claim to be Anglican, Catholic, Buddhist or Jewish.

 

The situation is no different with politics. The government doesn't recognise Conservative, Social Democrat, or Libertarian as political philosophies, but it recognises The Cnservative Party and the Labour Party as political parties. The fact that it doesn't recognise the Libertarian Party as a political party doesn't mean it is saying that people who claim to be Libertarian don't actually believe what they say they do, it means that people who claim to be Libertarian don't have a political party. Similarly, the Jedi don't have an organised religion (at least here in the UK), so the government can't recognise it as such. And it can't recognise it as an unorganised religion because the government doesn't do that at all.

 

Oh, and Scientology isn't a joke. Only people who have only heard about it through celebrities believe that. Scientology is neither a joke nor a religion, it is a cult of murderers.

 

Also, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism. I count a big six.

[SteveThaiBinh]

Actually, there is a Jedi Academy in California where "sermons" of the Force are given, people meditate on the Force, and lightsaber techniques are taught.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

California doesn't count - in so many ways, the geographical being the least of them.

 

People do really practice the religion.

 

Edit: Here's another Jedi Academy in Romania.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/31/ro...n_jedi_academy/

 

Also, 390,000 registered as Jedi in England, 70,000 in Australia, 58,000 in New Zealand, etc.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not registered in England (the UK, I think you mean). Ticking the Jedi box on the census is not the same as registering with a religious organisation - especially as no such organisation exists in the UK, at least to my knowledge.

 

I can't say I have an exhaustive knowledge of the procedure for registering as a religion, but I suspect that if a Jedi Academy were to open in the UK and were able to demonstrate that it was more serious than just a couple of obsessed fans having a laugh, they would be able to register as an official religion. God help us.

 

Edit: To register as an officially recognised religious organisation, I should have said - Reveilled is correct to make the distinction.

[Nartwak]

God help us. May the Force be with us.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[EnderAndrew]

Sikhism can be considered an off-shoot. That's why I count 5 biggies.

 

Raelians are the biggest joke I've personally seen, and they are recognized as an official religion.

 

You go on to say that governements never recognize a religion so much as they recognize it on the census, and that's it. Each individual church needs to fill out non-profit forms, and the terms for being recognized as a non-profit organization for religious purposes are determined by each state, but largely have more to do with where your money goes than anything else.

 

If the primary means of a government recognizing a religion are acknowledging it on the census, then yes, these governments did recognize it as a religion, but don't really want to admit to it.

 

Let's say that I buy some paint, and paint my fence white. Later I admit that I painted my fence, but then say I didn't really paint my fence, because paint implies pigment and color, and white really doesn't have any pigment, so I didn't actually paint it.

 

Yeah, so we did create a section on our census to recognize Jedi, who actually have more members than Judiaism, but we're not really recognizing them. Yeah, that's the ticket!

 

Edit: And where do people get the idea that the rest of us register officially for a religion somewhere? Do Christians have to get a ballot together to be recognized? Do people sign up somewhere to get on an official Hindu mailing list?

 

The purpose of asking religion on a census is to calculate the percentage of a population that partakes in said religion. When Jedi is the fourth most popular religion, it's hard to discount. If it only got 10,000 members total, then it is easy to dismiss. But in just a few commonwealth countries, it neared a half million. Again, it's the fourth biggest religion in the UK.

 

If Jedi don't count, then apparently Jews don't count either.

[Reveilled]

But the census isn't the means for recognising religions by the government! And you know why? Because the British government does not recognise religions! Full stop! it doesn't. It really, really just doesn't. Honest. It doesn't.

The fact is, before the last census, you weren't even asked about your religion.

 

Jedi is no more recognised by the government as a religion than Christianity is.

 

Christianity is, however, recognised as an "organised religion". A special kind of organisation that requires the organisation to file its existence with the government, just like a charity, a corporation, a youth group, a political party or any other sort of organisation you care to mention. If Jedi wishes to be recognised as an organised religion, then it can file a request with the government.

[EnderAndrew]

That's exactly the point.

 

The closest the government gets to recognizing religion is via the census, and the government went out of their way to recognize it on the census. They admit they recognize it on the census.

 

If that's the only way they recognize a religion, and they did it for Jedi, then they recognized Jedi as a religion.

 

Does that mean the British government respects the belief in the Force as a viable means for living your life? No one is saying that. Regardless, the government doesn't have a place in recommending one religion, or knocking another.

 

However, it us undeniable that they recognized the religion.

 

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=recognized

 

Look at the definition of the word, and you'd be hard pressed to argue they didn't.

 

If you want to argue that Jedi isn't a real religion in your mind, that's fine. If you want to argue that the people who listed Jedi as their religion may have done it as a joke, that's fine. But when you say that I'm wrong, and that I'm making this up by saying the government recognized the religion, that's where we are apparently going to disagree.

[Reveilled]

No, no, no. They did not recognise it as a religion. They recognised it as an answer to the question. That is all. Look, code 896 for commisioned output is "Jedi Knight". Code 899 is "None". Tell me, please, in making "None" a valid answer on the form, has the British government recognised "None" as a religion? Is None a religion? How about "Atheist"? That's code 898. Is Atheism a religion?

 

If they asked what sort of lightbulb you had in your living room, and ten thousand people wrote "I have candles", a sufficient number to warrant its own output code, would "Candles" be a recognised kind of lightbulb? If ten thousand people wrote "France" in answer to the question "How many people live in your house?", would France be a recognised number?

 

I am not denying that some people might consider themselves Jedi Knights. it's not my place to tell them wrong. But the government did not recognise it as a religion. maybe it should have, but it didn't.

[EnderAndrew]

If they asked what sort of lightbulb you had in your living room, and ten thousand people wrote "I have candles", a sufficient number to warrant its own output code, would "Candles" be a recognised kind of lightbulb?  If ten thousand people wrote "France" in answer to the question "How many people live in your house?", would France be a recognised number?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Those are poor analogies. France isn't an answer to the question given. Candles aren't a type of lightbulb.

 

However, there are individuals in the world who truly and honestly treat the Jedi Knights as a religion, and the individuals who answered Jedi on the census were answering the question with a religion, regardless of whether or not they did so under false pretenses.

 

And government officials did say they "recognized" Jedi as a religion on the census. Thusly, it is fair to see they officially recognized the religion, as far as a government will recognize one, which is simply on the census.

 

Your latest arguement is that their answer was absurd and not appropriate as a response. If that's the case, then Raelianism should be discounted as well, and sadly that is recognized as a religion.

[SteveThaiBinh]

The closest the government gets to recognizing religion is via the census, and the government went out of their way to recognize it on the census.  They admit they recognize it on the census.

 

If that's the only way they recognize a religion, and they did it for Jedi, then they recognized Jedi as a religion.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The census has nothing to do with recognising religion. That's not its purpose. The purpose of the census (in this regard) is to allow people to state their religion, enabling the government to count and locate people of certain religions and plan accordingly.

 

You're making the leap from 'the government has written the word Jedi on an official document' to 'the government recognises Jedi as an official religion'. That's not how it works, in the UK at least. The presence of the word Jedi on the census means that the government recognises that there are a significant number of people who wish to declare themselves Jedi on the census. No more, no less.

 

There is a quite separate legal procedure for registering officially as a religious organisation. No Jedi religious organisation has followed that procedure and been granted recognition.

 

I think the problem is that you're talking about the government 'recognising a religion', which is something that doesn't have any meaning in UK law. So we're getting it confused with the law on recognising religious organisations, and going round and round in circles.

[Reveilled]

If they asked what sort of lightbulb you had in your living room, and ten thousand people wrote "I have candles", a sufficient number to warrant its own output code, would "Candles" be a recognised kind of lightbulb?  If ten thousand people wrote "France" in answer to the question "How many people live in your house?", would France be a recognised number?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Those are poor analogies. France isn't an answer to the question given. Candles aren't a type of lightbulb.

 

However, there are individuals in the world who truly and honestly treat the Jedi Knights as a religion, and the individuals who answered Jedi on the census were answering the question with a religion, regardless of whether or not they did so under false pretenses.

 

And government officials did say they "recognized" Jedi as a religion on the census. Thusly, it is fair to see they officially recognized the religion, as far as a government will recognize one, which is simply on the census.

 

Your latest arguement is that their answer was absurd and not appropriate as a response. If that's the case, then Raelianism should be discounted as well, and sadly that is recognized as a religion.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You are putting words in my mouth, as well as cutting parts out of my answers wholesale. Is "none" a religion? Is "Atheism" a religion? Both got their own codes in exactly the same way "Jedi Knight" did.

 

Their answer was not absurd or inappropriate. Their answer was a perfectly normal and valid one, and I believe that many people honestly consider themselves to be Jedi Knights. But the fact that they gave that answer in sufficient numbers to warrant a code does not mean that the government recognises it as a religion. The fact that so many people answered with a variation of "Christian" to warrant one hundred and twenty codes does not mean that the government recognises Christianity as a religion. All it means is that it was considered an answer to the question that might be given in large numbers.

 

Finally, Raelianism did not get its own code, so even by your own definition Raelianism is not recognised as a religion.

[SteveThaiBinh]

I wasn't in the country for the 2001 census, so I didn't fill it in.

 

A quick look at the Census 2001 website has the forms, and Jedi doesn't appear as an option (page 6). Are these samples inaccurate, or did people just write "Jedi" in the space below?

 

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pdfs/H1.pdf

[Reveilled]

I wasn't in the country for the 2001 census, so I didn't fill it in.

 

A quick look at the Census 2001 website has the forms, and Jedi doesn't appear as an option (page 6).  Are these samples inaccurate, or did people just write "Jedi" in the space below?

 

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pdfs/H1.pdf

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

people wrote "Jedi Knight" in the space below, and due to the circulatory email prior to the census, the Census office expected a lot of people to write "Jedi Knight" and so gave "Jedi Knight" its own output code so that the census could be processed faster, and be more specific in the data it returned.

[SteveThaiBinh]

So it's only there as a code for purposes of internal data processing. Even if the government did officially recognise religions (which it doesn't), that wouldn't count as recognition, I think.

[EnderAndrew]

The census has nothing to do with recognising religion.  That's not its purpose.  The purpose of the census (in this regard) is to allow people to state their religion, enabling the government to count and locate people of certain religions and plan accordingly.

No, it has been established that the government does not recognize religion in any other fashion, and thusly this is the closest they come to recognizing a religion.

You're making the leap from 'the government has written the word Jedi  on an official document' to 'the government recognises Jedi  as an official religion'.  That's not how it works, in the UK at least.  The presence of the word Jedi on the census means that the government recognises that there are a significant number of people who wish to declare themselves Jedi on the census.  No more, no less.

Again, in a civil debate it is important to establish terms. I think most people here are having problems with the term recognize. They think recognize means acknowledge the worth of, where as recognize simply means recognize. You may wish to go back to where I listed a link to a dictionary definition.

There is a quite separate legal procedure for registering officially as a religious organisation.  No Jedi religious organisation has followed that procedure and been granted recognition.

Really, and what is that process? I've never seen of it, or heard of it. Your fellow country mates have said the UK doesn't do anything to recognize any religion, and it's not like Christians have to sign a waiver to prove they are really Christian, and that the religion is valid. New religions pop up all the time. From a legal standpoint, governments may recognize the non-profit status of a specific church, but they don't go out of their way to say one belief is valid, and another belief is not valid.

 

That is at the heart of this arguement. We're not talking about the validity of being Jedi. We're talking about whether or not the government, who has no connection with authorizing, giving their approval on, or validating religion in any other way other than the census, did recognize the religion on their census.

 

Did they recognize it on their census? Yes. Is it fair to say they then recognized the religion? Yes. Did I state it so much as to say, they only recognized it as much as they recognize any other religion on the census? Yes. Did I try to say they espoused the beliefs, or made some effort to acknowledge the validity of said beliefs? No. These aren't opinions. These are facts.

I think the problem is that you're talking about the government 'recognising a religion', which is something that doesn't have any meaning in UK law.  So we're getting it confused with the law on recognising religious organisations, and going round and round in circles.

Oddly enough you said a few paragraphs up that there is specific UK law on being recognized. Now you contradict yourself.

 

Noticing and paying attention to count as being recognized. Apparently everyone is missing that. The government went out of their way to notice and recognize the 390,000 people in England/Wales alone who called themselves Jedi. That is fact.

[Reveilled]

Sigh. We are not disputing that the Government recognised Jedi Knight. We are disputing what it was recognised as.

 

As to establishing terms, both Steve and I are using the terms "religion" and "religious organisation" to mean different things. You are using them to both mean the same thing. There is no process to be recognised as a religion. There is a process to be recognised as a religious organisation. This is the same as the difference between a political philosophy and a political party. The government does not recognise the existence of the former, but does the latter.

[SteveThaiBinh]

Oddly enough you said a few paragraphs up that there is specific UK law on being recognized.  Now you contradict yourself.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As I said, there is a law which allows religious organisation to be 'officially recognised' - 'officially registered' might be a better way of putting it. There's no law and no way for a religion (the belief system itself) to be recognised. Not a contradiction at all.

 

[quote name='Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary' date='

[Darth Flatus]

Sikhism can be considered an off-shoot.  That's why I count 5 biggies.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Sikhism is an offshoot of Hinduism in the same way that Christianity is an off shoot of Judaism.

[metadigital]

...

Look here. Its from the department that actaully handle the data and it is more up to date than the BBC article posted by steve.

...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Interesting, what we can extrapolate (with whatever degree of precision and accuracy you wish to ascribe ) is the exitence, prevalence and (eventually) the life cycle of a meme!

 

I expect the "Jedi" response will fade with the popularity of the films and the ageing of the respondents, so we will see this meme's presence in society gradually fade.

 

Fascinating. We have no idea what future generations will be mining from our data.

 

[Darth Flatus]

That is an interesting point - in 2101 will ppl look back and wonder?

 

"wtf was a jedi? By the Goddess Paris hilton! those 21st century farqlenarbs really must have schnazzed on some creely croooms"

[metadigital]

I pray that the Lord God Albert Einstein will save us from such a fate ...

[Calax]

Einstine vs Hilton

Ready?

Start

Einstine wins with a brain

[Reveilled]

I don't know what everyone's got against Paris Hilton. I mean, she's beautiful, loose, and rich. What more could you possibly want in a woman?