Anti-religious campaigners smack down census Jedis
First signs that the purity of census results may be swayed by internet campaigning emerged this week, as the Twittersphere declared itself opposed to Jediism. Elsewhere, Jewish organisations were urging people to put themselves down as Jewish, in order to increase pressure for more Jewish faith schools. Earlier this week, as …
This topic is closed for new posts.
@Dr. Mouse
"An Atheist believes there is no god."
OK - you've already b***sed up on the first premise of your argument. It goes downhill from there.
@Richard Wharram
Hang on. What DOES an atheist believe?
We can all agree that believing in one or more gods makes one a theist. (I hope -- if you don't, you're probably just being contrary for the fun of it.) -- definitely not atheism.
Agnosticism is the belief that one cannot know whether there is a god or not, so that's not atheism. It's also used (i.e, lazy agnosticism) as apathy towards the question of the existence of god.
So, if atheism is a position on the (non)-existence of a god or gods, the only one left is that there is no god. How is that different from the premise "An Atheist believes there is no god"? Failing that, where is the flaw in my logic/Dr. Mouse's premise?
The only out I can see is that atheism is not a position on the (non)-existence of a god, which contradicts the terms etymology. Define atheism in a way which is consistent with its roots which would mean that an atheist would not believe that there is no god.
@Steven Knox
"An Atheist believes there is no god."
That statement is ok an a normal piece of English that isn't going to be analysed too deeply but if someone is going to get prissy enough about its meaning to use it in two syllogisms then I'll have to cry foul. It's a 'common-sense' phrase but the meaning taken from it is different to what it says on the surface, like so much of natural language.
Closer to the truth would be something along the lines of:
"An atheist does not believe in God A"
"An atheist does not believe in God B"
"An atheist does not believe in God C"
"An atheist does not believe in God D"
ad infinitum.
To then say that any of those requires 'faith' because they are, by definition, not provable is obviously twisting the meaning of the word 'faith' outside that where it serves a useful purpose in the language.
Write your argument in formal logic and I'll consider it. Otherwise I'll just treat it as sophistry exploiting the multiple meanings that English words and phrases can have in the service of a bullshit argument.
Atheist Options
You're right of course, no religion is the 'correct answer' - but bunging in something like Jedi, Penguin Worshipper or whatever is a better way of showing contempt for the question.
...and its nice to think of it raising a smile in a couple of hundred years if/when your almost certainly atheist descendants are researching their geneology.
No religion
As an atheist I'll be ticking the "No Religion" box. Putting Jedi or anything else in the "Any other religion" field means, as others have pointed out, you will be counted as being religious rather than secular.
Discussions as to whether I'd happier for my position to be labelled as strong or weak atheism, antitheism, non-theism can be left to a later date as its as irrelivant here as to a Christian wanting to say they were Catholic over Christian.
Maybe I've been misinformed.
But I don't get it.
There seems to be a lot of argument (here and elsewhere in this thread) about that phrase.
"An Atheist believes there is no god."
As far as I have always been aware, that is the definition of an Atheist. Not someone who doesn't believe in any of the religions, not one who neither believes nor disbelieves in a god. The whole premise is the belief that there is no god.
Of course we can go into definitions of god, but apart from that I fail to see the flaw. Is my definition of Atheism that wrong?
As to faith... I was brought up in a religious household. Faith, in a religious context, is accepting an idea as fact without proof. There may be much evidence to support the idea, but not enough to stand up to a full logical argument. This is where faith comes in.
So, by all the information I have at hand, my argument was logical. I am not "exploiting the multiple meanings that English words and phrases can have in the service of a bullshit argument".
You are incorrect
Athiests KNOW there is nothing. It's not about a belief in something which cannot be proven.
There is a substantial difference between knowledge and belief.
@AC
"Athiests KNOW there is nothing. It's not about a belief in something which cannot be proven."
Do you wish to prove that there is no god?
@Dr. Mouse
A servicable definition of God that would be amenable to all parties is indeed a major problem. Let's try looking at your argument from another angle.
You are suggesting that any conceivable proposition which can't be proved by someone must require faith. There are an infinite number of such propositions which any of us would immediately dismiss as nonsense without being able to actually prove it. To say that all of these require 'faith' is to trivialise the concept of faith to a meaningless truism.
@AC 13:47 - "ethnic group" question
Why not put "hominid" or even "mammal"?
"An Atheist believes there is no god."
Wrong, an atheist has no belief in any gods or similar invisible friends is correct.
"Has no belief" is totally different to "believes". Consider the example, A christian believes there is no alien from Betelgeuse 5 or a christian has no belief in an alien from Betelgeuse 5.
Baffled
The willingness of religious and non-religious people to bang on about their affiliation (or lack thereof) never fails to bore me.
Re: Baffled.
The willingness of people to read comments they find boring just so they can whine about it never fails to amaze me.
Why don't you just you fuck off and do something else?
Religion
I for one, and probably two or three depending on my current personality suggest quite heartily that we enact a law whereby any person who notes their religion as "Cullenism" (based on that rather trash series of teen angst, necrophillia, beastiality novels - Twilight) should hitherto be struck down and proclaimed as "Witches" or something, anything which allows us, the general public who believe vampires (if they existed) should infact be killed as evil blood suckers (see Vampire in what is, without a shadow of doubt, the best British show of a generation - Being Human), so yes, we deserve the right, nay, the honour of being allowed to destroy and person who lists their religion based on trash novels like Twilight! (Unless the Moderatrix is a closet Jacob fan, in which case, I didn't write this, the guy who posted below me did).
Is SB a closet sparkles fan ?
That is a question for an entire thread I think.
You do owe me a new keyboard though as you actually made me laugh out loud.
Why the fuck does it matter?
I can claim any religion I wish to claim. So can you.
More importantly, you can't prove me wrong, nor can I prove you wrong. It's called "faith", and is irrational and not empirical, nor is it up for scientific examination.
So why, exactly, does the government think that they need to know my faith (if any?) ... It can only be for control purposes, because there is certainly no other rational reason. I rather suspect that it'd make a lot more sense, for everybody, if we all politely declined to state.
you can't prove me wrong, nor can I prove you wrong
I think you mean science cannot prove religion is wrong (and is quite happy to say so), but it can prove that lots and lots of science is right* and also that there is no actual need to invoke religious propositions for the universe to work as expected. This implies that religion has an uphill struggle trying to gain recognition in the real world outside of it's core believers who are happy without any kind of evidence.
Religion on the other hand cannot prove if it is right OR wrong. As religion is the one coming up with the amazing propositions (gods, miracles etc), then I think the onus is on religion to show some evidence for it or put up with being ignored.
*For a very high threshold of rightness or until something even righter comes along.
right on
Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence
true for science, true for religion.
because they say it matters
If you are silent then you have no voice in the shaping of your country. And it does shape it through the laws already in the books and the ones yet to be made. So, by not giving an answer you potentially weaken a side you sympathize with or at best remain irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I like that I have at least a small say in the matter and exercise it whenever I can.
The loud minorities have proven that it can reshape our world.
@AC13:48 ... you miss the point.
Proving a negative is a fallacy ... argument from ignorance never works.
or even
All Claims Require Evidence
true for science, true for religion.
No more Jedi
Good, i'm sure many people in here are a fan of that idiotic movie franchise. But not all of us are.
As a protest it was a pathetic attempt, influence nothing and just showed there were hundreds of thousands of sad acts in the country. We all knew that anyway, we've all see them in HMV getting all excited about the latest peice of corporate tat which they thought made them edgy.
Guess what folks - it didn't - it made you into a strereotype, a cliche, a jerk!
As for how it would be viewed if the Archbishop of Canterbury asked for people to say they were Christian, thats a nonsense. An argument which does not fit within the context of the situation.
Bugger the title...
My religion is going down as "Smoker".
Err
"The battle for the nation's soul is definitely hotting up with the Board of Deputies of British Jews advising that "British Jews could miss out on funding and facilities in the coming years if community members fail to indicate their religion in next month's census"."
Why should anyone get funding and facilities based on religious affiliation? Faith based schools are a disaster, fostering divisions in society. And I say that from experience as I went to a Catholic school for two years before my parents thankfully moved me to the local comprehensive.
Since I believe in science,
should I put myself down as a "scientist"?
Aaargh!
There is only one God and I have been touched by his noodly apendage.
Mines a pint from the beer volcano
But
They would probably see it as a spelling mistake and include you with the Rastas
Touched by his noodly appendage?
I hear that happens in a lot of religions.
Misconceived indeed
> Theos criticised the BHA’s campaign as "misconceived" and "unnecessary"
I hope the BHA pointed out that was god in a nutshell.
I, for one
Am looking forward to the introduction of our Jedi faith schools. Until Anakin drops by and murders all the students, along with the franchise.
Why the fuck does it matter? #
Maybe so there is some kind of record of how many people (claim) to belong to a specific religion and when, so the demographic can be charted as changing over time?
my default question always is... If you aren't willing to tell, what are you wanting to hide?
Defaults.
"my default question always is... If you aren't willing to tell, what are you wanting to hide?"
Why do you have curtains on your windows, and a door to your bathroom/toilet? Hiding anything?
It matters...
"my default question always is... If you aren't willing to tell, what are you wanting to hide?"
We have a right to privacy and can exercise this whenever we feel it necessary. The "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" mantra is idiotic.
Many posters on these forums claim they dislike Google due to it's broad data collection and retention practises and they choose not to use Google as a result. These people may not have anything to hide; they simply don't like being watched or tracked.
RE: Why the fuck does it matter?
It matters for a few reasons:
As has been pointed out, and is part of the reason for the article itself, if people tick that they are religious it may result in faith-based schools receiving more funding. I suppose that if a lot more people suddenly put down "Hindu", for example, then projects benefiting this religion may receive more funding or encouragement.
If the census is filled with "Jedi" then people in the future won't have an accurate record of which religions were present during this period in this country.
On the other hand, there are worries:
If the data leaks in some way (even just a family member seeing you put down that you are not religious) then it could cause embarrassment or harassment.
If the Bigoted-Fuckwit Party, oops I mean BNP, get into power in the next few years then they'll have a nice list of people to deport or refuse to extend government help to.
Personally though I don't think it should matter or be recorded -- since no money or exceptions should be given to schools because they are based on faith, regardless of how good the school is. Also, no government money should go to build any places of worship for anyone -- including Jedii.
Religion is a matter of personal belief and should never, ever, have any bearing on anything done by a government.
As Doug Stanhope says
"Ninety percent of every war that's ever been fought is because of some made-up, mind control, completely fictional religion. You never hear in the news, "200 killed today when Atheist rebels took heavy shelling from the Agnostic stronghold in the north". No, it's because you got a silly, placebo religion cuz you don't want to admit that you don't fucking know."
Jedi?? Religion??
Well, perhaps. If enough people say so. But they're wrong. Jedi was never a religion. It was an order, like the Samurai - the actual inspiration for the Jedi Knights - who's faith system is actually Buddhist or Zen (predominantly).
Having said that, Christianity (and other faiths) seems to be based on fictitious characters performing all manner of bizarre actions and taking advice from talking bushes of fire, so believing in a faith that allows you to choke people at a distance or raise downed X-Wing Fighters from swamps isn't too far off the mark!
Right, as taken from Roger's Profanisaurus, I'm off for a Jedi right now!
Fix the questions
Just ask when was the last time attended [place of religion] or worshipped.
Simples.
What no Pastafarians?
Where do I put this down.. its on my car badge so I suppose it should go on the form...
all hail his noodley apendages.
I'm twice as athiest as you!
Well I've already had TWO census forms through my letterbox - and could fill in a third as they have sent one to Flat 7..and there have only ever been 6 flats in my building.
You might be on to a winner
If you fill out all the forms with the same religion you - YES YOU - might be the lucky winner of a brand new faith school.
I really am a Jedi
No, really I am but what can I do? I get lumped in with hundreds of pasty wimps that don't represent my views at all. I think I'll tick Jew since it contains some similar letters and circumcision hurts like having a mishap with a light sabre.
Re: Circumcision
"Jewish boys are circumcised as babies."
As was my Dad, who isn't Jewish. He was born at a hospital in a largely Jewish part of London, and when the Rabbi came round to do circumcisions my Nan thought it was something all the boys had done. My Mum let slip this bit of info one Christmas after one too many dry sherrys.
This topic is closed for new posts.
