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Jedi (Census)The Jedi religion, based on a belief system from the Star Wars films, has shown up in the results of several censuses, due to a grassroots movement which urged people to declare their religious affiliation as Jedi. In Australia more than 70,000 people declared themselves members of the Jedi in the 2001 census, while 53,000 listed themselves as Jedi in New Zealand. In England and Wales 390,000 people (0.7%) stated their religion as Jedi on their 2001 Census forms as their religion, which would make it the 4th largest religion in the country although, in practice, it is difficult to be certain about their reasons for stating 'Jedi'. The highest such responses were typically in cities with high student populations. The percentages of religious affiliations (excluding atheists and non-respondents) were: - Christian: 94.0%
- Muslim: 3.1%
- Hindu: 1.1%
- Jedi: 0.7%
Jedi is still not recognised as an "official" religion, however it has been assigned its own code for the census processing team to use. But officials from the British Office of National Statistics have pointed out that just because Jedi Knight has been given its own code, that does not confer on it the status of official recognition: it merely means that it has been registered as a common answer to the "religion" statistic. Reasons It is unclear as to why so many people chose to enter "Jedi" on their census return. Possible reasons that have been suggested for this behaviour have included: - Frivolity
- To protest about the inclusion of religion on the census or mock religion generally
- To mock the census
- To indicate they do not take religion seriously
- To indicate they do not take the census seriously
- To indicate their devotion to Star Wars
- To indicate that they are actually a Jedi
- So they can claim to be a Jedi Knight
- As an iconoclastic act
- Because "Jedi" is the closest match to their personal beliefs
- Because they felt (inspired by online urban legends) that this would cause official listing as a religion
See also External links
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