Power of force leads to census farce

[Jake the Dog]

Australia - Copyright 2002 The Associated Press.

May the Force be with you. Amen.

Despite the efforts of many, Jedi will not become an officially recognized religion in Australia. More than 70,000 fans of the "Star Wars" movies have upset Australia's statistics agency by identifying their religion as "Jedi" during last year's national census.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday that 0.37 percent of the nation's population of 19 million, or 70,509 people, had written "Jedi" or a related response to an optional question about their faith when the head count was taken last August.

Jedi is a mystical faith followed by some of the central characters in the "Star Wars" films.

The prank began early last year when "Star Wars" fans circulated an e-mail across Australia saying the government would be forced to recognize Jedi as an official religion if at least 10,000 people named it on the census. When made aware of the campaign, the statistics agency announced that respondents faced a fine of Aust. $1,000 ($540) if they were found to have given false information.

In a statement Tuesday on its Internet site, the agency did not say if it would try to fine the Jedi faithful. But it warned that the Australian public ultimately paid the price for census-related pranks.

"The cost of wrong information is to the current and potential users of these services," the agency said. "If, for example, people of a particular religious affiliation do not provide the correct information, certain facilities might not be built that otherwise would be."

Data recorded in the five-yearly national head count is used by government to determine population levels and to assist in policy making. The bureau said that the Jedi response was categorized as "not defined" for census purposes. The criteria for recognizing a religion go "beyond the number of responses a particular answer receives in the census," it said.

Heads of households, who are required to fill out the form must by law take responsibility for their answers. But individuals can be difficult to track down as names and addresses are only required under some circumstances. Once processing is completed all information on names and addresses is destroyed.

Christianity remains the country's largest religion with more than 12.8 million followers.

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did any of the aussies here put jedi down as a religion? i did however not at all because i'm some sort of star wars fanatic, which i'm not, rather i want to keep such details about myself private. the govt already knows more about me than i would care for them, or anyone to know and privacy is a scarce thing these days.

 

[Tea]

Insofar as religion is an all encompassing world view (which is essentially what religion - any religion - is), "Jedi" is a perfectly acceptable and responsible thing to put on the census form. The response of the 70,000 people who wrote "Jedi" tells us a good deal more about those people than does the response of the ... oh, call it 8 million ... mindless sheep who are not actually Christians at all but wrote "Christian" on the census form just the same.

In reality, the majority religion here is not Christianity, it is not that relatively reasoned and thoughtful stance that some supporters and a great many detractors call "secular humanisim", it is not Atheism, it is simple unquestioning acceptance of whatever happens to be going on around one. The correct answer for most people, the "true" answer, if you like, is "religion: none". Oddly enough, most people who do write "none" are rather different: on the whole people who actually write "no religion" have given the matter some thought and ought to be considered in a different category from the ones who have no religion but write "Christian".

Or, to put matters in a nutshell, self report questionaire survey data isn't worth the paper it's writen on.

 

[slo crostic]

I specified my religion as 'none' in the census because I don't really have a religion as such, but simply take the good notes from all the religions I come across and live my life by what feels right to me. The other reason I filled out the census this way is because I don't like to be categorised or 'pigeon-holed' in any way.
As for the jedi, I think if the government recognised it as a religion it would have harsh side effects in years to come. If the precedent was set then all sorts of minority groups could take advantage, and who knows what we might have next census....... 'the church of chocolate lovers', 'football religion', 'Jim Beamism'..............

I sense too many pranks to come

 

[Jake the Dog]

I specified my religion as 'none' in the census because I don't really have a religion as such, but simply take the good notes from all the religions I come across and live my life by what feels right to me. The other reason I filled out the census this way is because I don't like to be categorised or 'pigeon-holed' in any way.

would you then be pidgeon-holed as an atheist?

 

[Tannin]

As for the jedi, I think if the government recognised it as a religion it would have harsh side effects in years to come. If the precedent was set then all sorts of minority groups could take advantage, and who knows what we might have next census....... 'the church of chocolate lovers', 'football religion', 'Jim Beamism'..............

Er ... so what?

Hey, fair is fair. If there is any government sanctioned benefit that accrues to those who profess one or another of the formal religions, then on what grounds can one legitimately refuse to extend those same benefits to other social groups? If they wish to call themselves "religions" that is just fine by me. Or not, as they please.

Bottom line is that, so far as possible, there should be no state-sponsored benefit for any particular belief set. (Or state-sponsored penalty either, of course.) And as to making a value judgement about which belief set is to count as a "religious" belief set, on what grounds does one decide? Rationality is certainly not a criterion, else a good many current formal religions would obviously fail. And irrationality, while it is clearly and by definition an essential part of all religions (if I may use the term in the traditional sense for a moment), is not something on which religious people have a monopoly. In fact, I can't think of any valid reason to discriminate in any way between "religious" and "non-religious" social groups.

Which makes the inclusion of the question in the census rather pointless, it seems. But then, census data being what it is, what does it matter? Questionaire data collection methods are so flawed that no-one who knows anything about social research takes the census too seriously anyway. Certainly not for anything beyond the basics of geographic location. And even these are highly inaccurate measures. You'd be amazed what utter rubbish finds its way into survey data. I remember looking at a study once where they asked hospital paitents a set of really easy, simple questions, which just happened to be amenable to exact checking via formal hospital records. And people consistently made gross errors: even such things as "are you an in-paitent or an out-paitent" or "have you had surgery" were often wrongly answered. The only saving grace of census-type data collection is that such absurdities tend to balance each other out, by and large. But the result is a level of imprecision such tht one might as well just have a guess in the first place, and save all that tedious paperwork.

 

[slo crostic]

In fact, I can't think of any valid reason to discriminate in any way between "religious" and "non-religious" social groups.

Nor, for that matter, between jedi's and civilians.

Good point Tannin, no social group should be discriminated against, or for that matter, encouraged by the government. The government were elected by the people to look after the people. If they were to start 'taking sides' or leaning towards a particular group then this would lead to a lack of faith or a vote of no confidence by the majority, because people would start to wonder why their particular social group wasn't being looked after.

would you then be pidgeon-holed as an atheist?

I would rather be pigeon-holed an atheist than associated with any of the major religions of this world.

Too many bloodstains for me

 

[Pradeep]

[did any of the aussies here put jedi down as a religion? i did however not at all because i'm some sort of star wars fanatic, which i'm not, rather i want to keep such details about myself private. the govt already knows more about me than i would care for them, or anyone to know and privacy is a scarce thing these days.

Yup I did. How could I not after seeing the pic of Little Johnnie and Yoda lol.

 

[James]

Yep, me too.

But what interested me in the article was this:

"The cost of wrong information is to the current and potential users of these services," the agency said. "If, for example, people of a particular religious affiliation do not provide the correct information, certain facilities might not be built that otherwise would be."

What facilities are being built for members of particular religions? The government isn't out there building churches, is it?

 

[time]

Don't get me started on the ABS. Both my wife and I used to work there.

A pompous, pint-sized beaucracy full of self-importance but little wit.

But still not stupid enough to attempt to prosecute anyone over this. There are legions of politicians (and others) who would gleefully draw their daggers and rush to lynch the agency. The ABS is not good at making friends.

 

[Tea]

The "potential users of this service", James, include government agencies but are primarily businesses, and also community groups such as churches. Census data is made freely available to all, much of it at no charge, some of it at a small fee which helps defray costs.