The Atheist Foundation Is Mad That People Still List ‘Jedi’ As Their Religion In The Census
They don't want you to do it this time, even if you think it's really, really funny.
The census is coming and people are already cranky about it. You can understand why — it’s a very boring activity and it’s not always accurate! However one bright spark in the endless sea of paper and little white boxes, is the simple and precious joy of being able to list your religion as ‘Jedi’.
See: A Jedi.
Apparently though, some people reckon that this seemingly innocent gag (unless it’s not a gag, and I’m sorry to minimise any Star Wars-loving zealots out there because I hear you) has pretty catastrophic repercussions. The president of the Atheist Foundation of Australia, Kylie Sturgess, is campaigning for people to stop listing Jedi as their religion because when the census is actually counted, the religion itself is dismissed but it is still counted as ‘other’; meaning that Australia ends up looking more religious than it actually is.
“People shouldn’t waste their answer,” she said. “Answering the religion question thoughtfully and honestly matters because it benefits all Australians when decisions on how to spend taxpayer dollars are made on sound data that accurately reflects modern day Australia.”
This might seem like a pretty innocuous complaint but according to the Brisbane Times, in the 2011 census a whopping 64,390 Australians marked Jedi as their religion, putting it above Seventh Day Adventists and just below Sikhs. The Jedi census gag started in 2001, when an email campaign (so 2001!) and a joke website claimed that Jedi was on the edge of being recognised as a legitimate religion (the Australian Bureau of Statistics were not jazzed about this). In 2006 there were even reports saying that people could receive a fine for giving “misleading or false information”, but this turned out to be a bit of a beat up.
The census will take place on August 9. May the force be with you, Australia!
