Star Wars and the Force: biggest alternative religion in Britain!!!

The Force and the Jedi comprise the biggest alternative religion in Britain. Beautiful! I never belonged to any religion, but hell, sign me up for this!

A staggering 176,632 listed themselves as answering to the Jedi Knight call. The knights beat out Atheists, Scientologists and… witches.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/jedi-knights-top-british-census-alternative-faith-article-1.1218422#ixzz2EuUDEQiM

 

I'm still waiting for the bounty hunter religion... Long Live Fett

 

That isn't too suprising. Jedism is a really popular thing in the States as well. There are three temples within 30min of where I live. You will be walking down the street and see someone wearing a brown or black robe with the hood up and they will claim to be a Jedi. Most dont call themselves Jedi Knights but they are all 'Jedi' like they skip being a padawan or something. I havent actually been to one of the temples but last year the May the Fourth Be With You event in my area was funded by the larger temple.

 

I'm pretty sure most of the people who marked their faith down as jedi on the census sheet were protesting about the census and not making a genuine statement about their religious beliefs. There would be bound to be a couple of people that genuinely believe in "jedism" as a thing, but I wouldn't take these results to mean that the biggest alternative belief system in the UK is Star Wars based. If it were then I'm getting the first plane to Switzerland.

 

If it were a few thousand, I would believe that, but 176,000? I think they were legit believers. That is DOWN from a poll in 2001 I think it said, where there were over 300,000.

That many people marking a particular thing would have to be a mass, organized type of protests, which I think would have been public knowledge. That would be too much of a coincidence for all of those people just to happen to say Jediism.

Better hold off on the plane to Switzerland though. It may be just as prevelant there. Actually, if you read up on Scientology, and many other religions, Jediism might be one of the more feasible and realistic.

 

Wow, that is awesome. I wonder how many actual believers are in the US.

Also, I wonder how many are on this site?

 

I'm not sure if you are taking the mick, so I'm just going to respond to this as if you're being serious.

This result is down on a census carried out 10 years ago, which was an organised protest against the census. This middle finger towards the government has become infamous in recent history. Obviously people were trying to repeat the "hilarious" results of ten years ago in this decade's census. Also just because it's an organized protest doesn't mean it would be reported on. There was an organised protest to get a song by "Rage Against the Machine" to number 1 in the Christmas album charts not very long ago, and was only reported on when this bizarre and ancient song beat the bookies' favourite to grab the top slot.

I can very comfortably tell you right now that "jedism" is not some major religious movement sweeping through the country, and neither is it through Switzerland.

 

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Isn't_Buddhism_actually_pantheistic]this article

Seems to suggest the force has much in common with Buddhism and Pantheism:
"The fundamental concept that there exists no supreme being but rather an all pervasive energy that is the structure of the whole universe, is common to both Pantheism and Buddhism."

 

I think its become popular because of the films. A lot of people dont want to actually read any religious texts but want to be religious somehow so they go with something that was introduced to them through a movie. I am sure that there are other religious based off of a religion that was introduced or created for a film. Like the religious stuff in the John Carter ( AKA remake of Princess of Mars) could start something if it gets the same cult following that Star Wars has.

 

I was joking about the Switzerland part.
I see some of what you are saying from looking around the media, there is some claim that this was a movement in several English speaking countries during the census.

I saw an interview where George Lucas talks about how Francis Ford Copolla tried to persuade him to make the Force into a religion/cult, and George is like,"No, that is not my thing." He probably could have made it bigtime, a lot of religions are stanger.