If you're thinking of joking/putting down JEDI in the 2011 census, don't. Here's why...

hurfdurf · 10 Mar 2011 at 21:59

dmpoole said:
And what the hell as that got to do with voting Jedi?

Jedi gets you classed as being religious, the more religious people in the country the more clout stupid religious groups have when they claim to represent X number of people.

Hence they oppose sex education (despite ours being the worst in Europe and us having statistically the highest teen pregnancy/STD rate) and can claim that so our everyone who put Jedi down based on religious grounds.

Nitefly · 10 Mar 2011 at 22:05

Not really sure why anyone would lie on the census, just seems a bit lame to me.

Cosimo · 27 Mar 2011 at 12:24

Today is the official Census Day.

krooton · 27 Mar 2011 at 13:08

Just did it online, took 6 minutes.

bhavv · 29 Mar 2011 at 16:39

I never got my own census to fill out, they only send out one to the householder to fill in and Im pretty sure that my dad will have filled in that I'm a Hindu.

And people wonder why the results dont show many Atheists living in the UK, at least do it right and send a form out to each individual person.

I requested my own form online, I would have filled it in online, but I didnt have a super long password and it was easier to request an individual form by post.

SexyGreyFox · 29 Mar 2011 at 18:32

hurfdurf said:
Jedi gets you classed as being religious, the more religious people in the country the more clout stupid religious groups have when they claim to represent X number of people.
.

You must have missed the million posts on this.
Writing Jedi would be ignored.

vicisthebest · 29 Mar 2011 at 18:39

bhavv said:
I never got my own census to fill out, they only send out one to the householder to fill in and Im pretty sure that my dad will have filled in that I'm a Hindu.

And people wonder why the results dont show many Atheists living in the UK, at least do it right and send a form out to each individual person.

I requested my own form online, I would have filled it in online, but I didnt have a super long password and it was easier to request an individual form by post.

Each person in the household (apart from small children afaik) was supposed to fill in the questions - you should have done it yourself. You could have requested for them to send you the sections to fill in yourself.

MrMoonX · 29 Mar 2011 at 18:42

according to the internet it costs the american lockhead martin £4 for you to not do it online and £25 if their computer cant read your form

blue pen anyone? lol, still havent done mine

Briton · 29 Mar 2011 at 20:04

I was previously thinking of putting Pastafarian but I had seen the Humanist Society campaign that pointed out this kind of silliness could be used to bolster supposed religious numbers and that they are already being warped by the way the question is asked.

bhavv · 29 Mar 2011 at 20:23

vicisthebest said:
Each person in the household (apart from small children afaik) was supposed to fill in the questions - you should have done it yourself. You could have requested for them to send you the sections to fill in yourself.

Thats what I did request, I asked for an individual form, hopefully it will arrive soon. My dad couldnt care less about that, he just fills it in for everyone and posts it off.

dmpoole said:
You must have missed the million posts on this.
Writing Jedi would be ignored.

No, when they come up with the figures saying 'This percentage of people are religious, and this percent are atheist', they count the jedi / pastafarian answers as being religious.

Also as a result, the proportion of Atheists is far underweighed by this census, thats why I wanted to at least fill one in myself this year, damn the stupid parents.

Castiel · 29 Mar 2011 at 20:36

bhavv said:
No, when they come up with the figures saying 'This percentage of people are religious, and this percent are atheist', they count the jedi / pastafarian answers as being religious.

Also as a result, the proportion of Atheists is far underweighed by this census, thats why I wanted to at least fill one in myself this year, damn the stupid parents.

You can say No as authoritatively as you like, you are still wrong.

Only recognised religions are counted and "joke" or "protest" remarks such as Jedi are discarded.

It was given a "code" in the last census because of the number of respondents who put Jedi down, and this is confused with it being recognised as a religion and counted as such in the census.

It is not. I asked my Local MP for clarification on certain aspects of the question and this was one of them and his answer was as above.

dannyjo22 · 29 Mar 2011 at 20:46

dmpoole said:
Writing Jedi would be ignored.

And rightly so Sith is the only way. My son though was a Jedi Padawan.

Briefly describe what you do in your main job.

Watch TV and Xbox, occassionally fix aircraft.

SexyGreyFox · 29 Mar 2011 at 20:46

bhavv said:
No, when they come up with the figures saying 'This percentage of people are religious, and this percent are atheist', they count the jedi / pastafarian answers as being religious..

It's a myth and you fell for it

bhavv · 29 Mar 2011 at 20:52

Castiel said:
Only recognised religions are counted and "joke" or "protest" remarks such as Jedi are discarded.

dmpoole said:
It's a myth and you fell for it

Ok, but people who are filling in Jedi instead of no religion still dont get counted towards the number of Atheists which results in them being very under represented by the census, as does one person filling in the whole thing for everyone in their house and listing that they are all religious.

Polls which simply ask whether or not you believe in God see over 50% of Brits answering no, quite a vast difference to the last census that said that around 72% of people in the UK are Christians.

A lot of people also fill in a religion as a social identity that they associate themselves with, regardless of whether or not they actually practice that religion or believe in God.

SexyGreyFox · 29 Mar 2011 at 21:13

bhavv said:
Ok, but people who are filling in Jedi instead of no religion still dont get counted towards the number of Atheists

But there was no 'Atheist' option otherwise I would have ticked it :confused:

Castiel · 29 Mar 2011 at 21:18

bhavv said:
Ok, but people who are filling in Jedi instead of no religion still dont get counted towards the number of Atheists which results in them being very under represented by the census, as does one person filling in the whole thing for everyone in their house and listing that they are all religious.

That is simply because having No Religion doesn't mean that you are an atheist.

This type of assumption is why I (and Meghatronic) ignored the question entirely and left it blank.

ZombieFan · 29 Mar 2011 at 21:18

dmpoole said:
But there was no 'Atheist' option otherwise I would have ticked it

But there was a 'no religion' option...

[edit] to expand on that, if you think Atheism is a religion, then you should have selected other religion and written 'Atheist' in. If not, you pick no religion. It's simple really.

ZombieFan · 29 Mar 2011 at 21:23

Personally, I ticked 'No Religion'. I consider myself as Agnostic, but that's a point of view rather than a religion.

bhavv · 29 Mar 2011 at 21:36

Castiel said:
That is simply because having No Religion doesn't mean that you are an atheist.

This type of assumption is why I (and Meghatronic) ignored the question entirely and left it blank.

Secular would have been a better word to use in this case than Atheist.

SexyGreyFox · 29 Mar 2011 at 21:52

ZombieFan said:
[edit] to expand on that, if you think Atheism is a religion, then you should have selected other religion and written 'Atheist' in. If not, you pick no religion. It's simple really.

That would mean that atheism would be chucked in the religious box and atheism isn't a religion (here we go again).
I am an atheist, I don't believe in gods or deities.