"The BBC reported three years ago, timed with the release of the last film in the Star Wars series, that at least 70,000 people in Australia declared themselves as followers of the Jedi “faith” in the last Australian census. They wrote-in “Jedi” as their response under the category of religion on the census form. Hard-core fans of the films have been trying to have Jedi declared an official religion around the English-speaking world for years now.
The same situation occurred in New Zealand in their census taking of 2001. Similarly, more than 390,000 people in England declared themselves Jedi in their census of the same year—a shocking number when you consider that only 260,000 people in England declared themselves to be Jewish. There are various Internet campaigns going on now that encourage voters in the U.S. to petition for Jedi as an official religion on the next U.S. census form."
That had to be my favorite part of the entire article. I cracked up about there being more Jedi than Jewish in New Zealand. Now don't get me wrong, Sci-Fi has gotten me interested in a lot of things, but religion has never been one of them. I like the whole Jedi deal with the lightsabers and the Force -- telekinesis and ESP seem like a lot of fun -- but I wouldn't change my religion based on fiction written by an ordinary geek like myself. :-)
Crisp
Wed Jun 22nd 18:40:29 2005
*More Jews than Jedi in England
I think it's hillarious, although I have no doubt that the hardcore amongst them who claim that they're Jedi in all seriousness represent only a small percentage of the overall figures. There are probably a large portion of people doing it because they have no faith and thought it would be amusing, another chunk of people doing it to piss off the government, and a small % of people doing it seriously. Fair play though, freedom of expression and al that. Freaks ;)