ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

12 years, 2 months ago - Vasco de Sousa

John, why does a religion want to be recognized at all?

If you have an organization that wants tax advantages and limited liability, then register as a charity. If not, then why bother? To sign passport photos and officiate weddings?

As far as getting on the census, according to the telegraph, it was achieved: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9737886/Jedi-religion-most-popular-alternative-faith.html

In reality, it is counted by the office of National Statistics as a non-religion, but numbers are counted nonetheless.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/what-we-do/FOI/foi-requests/population/religion-classification---jedi/index.html

You can see the numbers are higher than many "recognized" religions. So, it's not a matter of numbers.

The census asked this on religion:


What is your religion?
This question is voluntary
No religion
Christian (including Church of England, Catholic, Protestant and all other Christian denominations)
Buddhist
Hindu
Jewish
Muslim
Sikh
Any other religion, write in

Indonesia recognized Confucianism and has a list of official religions.

12 years, 2 months ago - John Lubran

You're considering the issue from within an intellectual quasi legal construction Vasco. An unreality bubble. Whoever may assert that the Jedi religion is merely a protest vote deserving to be dismissed as frivolous, they have no lawful authority to do so. That's why such high-handedness is a legal fiction. George Lucas articulated an existing and ancient spiritual faith when he came up with 'the Force' His apparent invention of the word Jedi to describe a particular group of adherents is unlikely to be the cause of any challenge because the get-around options would create nothing more than a negative impact on anyone claiming the word Jedi as a brand. Despite the ignorant presumption of the state, its placemen and familiars the reason for people asserting their right to be recognised as Jedis' is threefold; some are being merely rebellious because they abhor the totalitarianism and hypocrisy of the state, some because the state has no place in deciding what a bona fide religion is and others because the ethos and spirit of the Jedi really does articulate their own beliefs.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the matter is that it challenges the states authority to amend entrenched constitutional law in any other way than by a Constitutional Instrument, something that cannot be achieved by a mere statute, act or administrative assertion, even though they have managed to get away with such treasons for too long. It's a fundamental challenge and the biggest 'elephant in the room'. Jedi's don't need to play quasi legal games by setting up a charity. What is required is that the state obeys the Law and upholds our constitutional rights. Who do they think they are? Why do we put up with it?

12 years, 2 months ago - John Lubran

The question of whether or not a religion needs to be recognised by the state Vasco is only valid within the structure of our socio-political construct, which includes things like law, human rights, economics and especially the way in which our administrative political system works with a particular focus on our current democracy, which rather like our 'rigged market economy' is a 'rigged pseudo democracy'. You just couldn't make it up that it only takes less than 25% of the electorates votes to produce a powerful and self evidently unrepresentative majority in the Commons, or that the chances of having any representation in Parliament at all if one is not a supporter of the two and a half parties enjoying that monopoly are about zero.

The FOI reply from the 'government' that you link to is an excellent example of the unlawful state. They arbitrarily classify the Jedis' as a group with no religion. In reality the state and it ONS have no power to dismiss the clearly asserted religion of those who put Jedi in the census box.

The census itself, because it is a mechanism of that cartel, represents for many people just another instrument of over reaching power, because compulsion is enforceable by fines and imprisonment, according to that cartel. It should not be forgotten that much of the presumption of the state is based on religion, especially as the Church of England is a formal part of the establishment represented by our head of state and the bishops who sit in the House of Lords. Constitutionally however, freedom of religion is entrenched, including equality under the law, except for the C of E who have exceptional privileges. Most of those who declared themselves to be Jedis' in the census did so as a challenge to the presumption of the state. The Jedi assertion is in reality a part of a much bigger, though largely uncodified, movement which might be called by some 'progressive politics for an enlightened society'. The Jedi assertion is a part of a huge, growing and almost wholly unrepresented movement who know that most of the current state establishment is a deeply corrupt and astonishingly unlawful hypocracy. To have any relevant coherence at all, any analysis of what the Jedi thing is all about must major on those issues rather than how they fit into existing notions of available structures which in themselves are a part of that over reaching and profoundly corrupt establishment.

It's about undermining the bullshit that baffles brains.

12 years, 2 months ago - Vasco de Sousa

It really depends on where. The reason Jedi was not considered in the UK is that it was widely seen as a protest vote on the religion question on the census.

If a small group of people want to register themselves as Jedi, they can start a charity and do so (assuming there are no intellectual property, moral rights, or other legal hassels in doing so.) It's the same process as starting any other charity. The number of people needed is tiny, but the paperwork involved might be more than most people want to deal with.

12 years, 2 months ago - John Lubran

Well a couple of census’s ago the Jedi's caused a stir because they had attained a number that had been accepted for a ‘bona fide religion’. Because of that I'm told that ‘they’ moved the goal posts in some way in order to prevent such frivolous outrages. The fact is though, as with so many other egregious and totalitarian presumptions of the unlawful state, they increasingly use the assertion of frivolousness as a means of preventing lawful challenges and declaration. Corrupt Judges have thrown cases out of court before trial on such a basis, quite unlawfully. The sooner we wake up and stop putting up with these legal fictions the sooner we may begin to evolve a non sociopathic, empathetic government of decency, free from the onerous control of what is in effect a cabal of master criminals conning the population that they know what’s best for us plebeian suckers.