The Register: When Cory Doctorow, creative freedoms campaigner, author of Little Brother and co-editor of the massive Boing Boing blog, tweeted yesterday that “we’re all going to put our #religion down as #Jedi”, the response was instantaneous.
A flurry of counter-tweets followed, with reaction typified by the likes of Andrew Carter, who tweeted: “NO! It screws up the demographics and makes it look like there are fewer ‘Non-religious’ than there are!”
Doctorow thought about it, and shortly after, his blog conceded an absolute about-turn. He wrote: “When I joked on Twitter that my family were going to list ourselves as Jedi, I was deluged with outraged responses from atheists asking me to tick the ‘no religion’ box; this is part of a larger campaign to get people who tick ‘Christian’ out of habit (though they have no faith) to switch to ‘no religion’ as well, as some atheists believe that the number of religious people in the UK is misreported through a combination of habitual box-ticking and smart-alecky ‘Jedi’ like me.” He concluded: “I’m convinced; we’re atheists and we will list ourselves as such.”
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Hopefully more people will open their eyes and take the census sensibly. Too much government money is wasted on religion when people don’t need it or want it. So by ticking no religion you allow the government to see just how many non believers there really are and then hopefully the money will go to proper things like policing, schools, health service etc.
Well, I was born a Pastafarian and I’ll die a Pastafarian.
Cory is awesome. We need more people like him to save us from our apathetic stupor.
I was already convinced not to call myself Jedi by this campaign. However, I keep wondering how hard could it be for politicians to look at religious figures and realise that maybe all these Jedi aren’t to be taken seriously.
Wow. Cory Doctorow, it must be important. Seriously, why report on something this half-wit tweets? He’s about as far removed from reality as it gets. Seems to think companies are evil and out to get everyone for using glue instead of screws. Let’s all work for free or give away our products for free, write a book about it and then tour the talk show circuit. *yawn*
My Son and I have both put JEDI on the 2011 census form .
Neither of us believe in a Deaity or Organsied religion and after looking at the Jedi religion website is the nearest to my thoughts.
There is no choice for agnostic but I have some thoughts on afterlife etc so that is not a option either.
Gary, there isn’t a choice for Agnostic? I’m from the States and I have not had the honor of filling out a census form yet (still live at home, thanks Republicans for destroying the economy before graduation) so I’m not sure if they have it on the U.S. one either.
Cannot believe that a decade has passed since that “Hilarious Jedi Census” stuff began in a galaxy far, far away…….I noted that the section on the form was voluntary, not legal (quite rightly), and so declined a reply because it’s no-one else’s effin business! We live in an Age when it is noble to speak out against Fundamentalisms, but don’t necessarily have to put ourselves into a pigeon-hole for the current government or children a 100 years hence………more to the point, what really happened in WW1 ?!!!! 3 or 7 more years and we may know…………
Census? Good joke. Haven’t received one. Don’t open door to strangers. End of.