Australians urged not to pledge ‘Jedi’ as their religion in Census

Let's substitute a different word for Jedi. How about "Christian"? How many people profess Christianity yet do not attend church (except for Easter and Christmas), do not read their scripture, do not pray, do not behave according to Christian philosophy, do not give any indication in their lives whatsoever that they are a Christian beyond saying so when asked? Yet no one blinks an eye when they mark "Christian" on a census. If you identify yourself as such, whatever your motivation or reasoning or commitment may be, then you identify yourself as such.

If someones genuine religion is Jedi, then I believe that is what you put. It's when you get the people who think its funny to put themselves down as Jedi when they're not that is wrong.

Ultimately, your decision is your decision though, and some people will still jokingly put 'Jedi' down; there isn't a thing that we can do to change that. The best thing to do, I feel,is to put what you deem right and just move on

Jedi Druid wrote: Let's substitute a different word for Jedi. How about "Christian"? How many people profess Christianity yet do not attend church (except for Easter and Christmas), do not read their scripture, do not pray, do not behave according to Christian philosophy, do not give any indication in their lives whatsoever that they are a Christian beyond saying so when asked? Yet no one blinks an eye when they mark "Christian" on a census. If you identify yourself as such, whatever your motivation or reasoning or commitment may be, then you identify yourself as such.

Not sure these two situations are directly comparable. People probably don't put Christian intentionally as a joke.

Akkarin wrote:

Jedi Druid wrote: Let's substitute a different word for Jedi. How about "Christian"? How many people profess Christianity yet do not attend church (except for Easter and Christmas), do not read their scripture, do not pray, do not behave according to Christian philosophy, do not give any indication in their lives whatsoever that they are a Christian beyond saying so when asked? Yet no one blinks an eye when they mark "Christian" on a census. If you identify yourself as such, whatever your motivation or reasoning or commitment may be, then you identify yourself as such.

Not sure these two situations are directly comparable. People probably don't put Christian intentionally as a joke.

I get what he's saying. Not necessarily everyone responding to the census may have been looking at it as a joke. Spend any time on twitter? (I know, I spend less and less the older I get lol). Point being, hashtag jediiism, and count how many people are declaring they are by just stating it over twitter. Now count (if such a thing could be possible) how many of those will actually take any actions toward living a life worth that of a Jedi. Even if such a thing were possible, you still couldn't because the numbers are astronomical.

There are quite a number of people claiming to to be Jedi simply because of the brief three to five second self gratification it gives them, which btw is totally contrary to the nature of what this is, isn't it? Whereas some "christians," (not picking a fight) show little in the way of showing support for their faith in the way of lifestyle, more out of brain washing and fear (again not picking fights, this is referring to those who do nothing in the way of practicing any form of regular worship), people picking jeddism on a census may be taking it just one step from declaring themselves Jedi on twitter.

Perhaps one in a thousand of these Individuals will one day sit down and try not thinking for five minutes, perhaps one day it will catch on. Hopefully at that point it wont become a trend, like people collecting yoga mats and talking about how spiritual they are because of what they eat, lol...

Akkarin wrote:

Jedi Druid wrote: Let's substitute a different word for Jedi. How about "Christian"? How many people profess Christianity yet do not attend church (except for Easter and Christmas), do not read their scripture, do not pray, do not behave according to Christian philosophy, do not give any indication in their lives whatsoever that they are a Christian beyond saying so when asked? Yet no one blinks an eye when they mark "Christian" on a census. If you identify yourself as such, whatever your motivation or reasoning or commitment may be, then you identify yourself as such.

Not sure these two situations are directly comparable. People probably don't put Christian intentionally as a joke.

I should've known this'd be a topic here. It's been... interesting at Jedi Church Online. People aren't putting Christian as a joke but are being urge by hate groups to respond with their religion as Christian, or else the Muslims will build mosques, which are actually ISIS recruitment farms, next to your children's school. It's pretty sickening.

carlos.martinez3 wrote: 70,000 isn't a joke nor does that sound like a typo.... that's ALOT...

Something like 69,900 of those are a joke though and that's the thing. Most people respond to it as a joke, and did it as a hoax after NZ and the UK did it. So naturally it's not taken seriously, even those of us who do walk the path and have for some time have a hard time trying to have a serious discussion about it. Most folk reckon it's a cosplay thing or just some group of nerds who sit around and talk about Star Wars, which, candidly, some groups can be like.

If you take the roughly thirty Australian members at Jedi Church Online, added to the 73 the A/NZ group has here, you've only got about a hundred, and I'd wager about half that number are active members, considering how easily you could discount the Jedi Church Facebook Page members.

Brenna wrote: I'm not sure if the Aussies did it for the same reasons) was that we didn't think we should have to disclose whether or not we had a faith of any kind and that it was not only invasive but also irrelevant.

Safe to say that we did it for the lulz

The census helps to direct government spending, policy and city planning. It also gives the statistics bureau an idea of the nation's zeitgeist. Australia is becoming a more secular nation and this needs to be reflected in the statistical information, especially to counteract the aforementioned hate groups encouraging people to misinform the ABS about their own religious beliefs.

I saw last night you can bet on it, at online sport betting agencies... how many Jedi will be counted in this census :laugh: :S

Adder wrote: I saw last night you can bet on it, at online sport betting agencies... how many Jedi will be counted in this census :laugh: :S

Those dudes will take bets on anything. You can bet on the end of the latest Game of Thrones season, or which public monument will be removed from Pokemon Go first.