The Jedi

[windhound]

 http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.as...ank=2&Rank=1000

390,000 Jedis There Are
But did hoax campaign boost response in teens and 20s?

Seven people in every thousand in England and Wales gave their religion as 'Jedi' in the 2001 Census.

The Census form's question on religion - the only question where a response was not compulsory - offered a series of tick-boxes for the major religions in the UK (Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh); a tick-box for 'none'; and a free space to write in 'any other religion'. This was the first time a religion question was included in a Census.

A campaign on the internet claimed - wrongly - that Jedi, the belief system at the heart of the Star Wars films, would receive official government recognition as a religion if enough people quoted it on their Census forms. An email in support of the campaign, quoted by BBC News, invited people to 'do it because you love Star Wars... or just to annoy people.'

Just over 390,000 of the 52,000,000 people in England and Wales wrote in 'Jedi' on their census form.

The 'Jedi' response was most popular in Brighton and Hove, with 2.6 per cent of Census respondents quoting it, followed by Oxford (2.0 per cent), Wandsworth (1.9), Cambridge (1.9), Southampton (1.8) and Lambeth (1.8).

It was least popular in Easington, on the north-east coast of England between Sunderland and Hartlepool, where it was quoted by only 0.16 per cent of respondents. Sedgefield, Knowsley, Blaenau Gwent, Merthyr Tydfil and Wear Valley all show less than 0.2 per cent of respondents quoting 'Jedi'.

Director of reporting and analysis at the Office for National Statistics, John Pullinger said: 'Whatever its motive, the Jedi campaign may have worked in favour of the Census exercise. Census agencies worldwide report difficulties encouraging those in their late teens and twenties to complete their forms.

'We suspect that the Jedi response was most common in precisely this age group. The campaign may well have encouraged people to complete their forms and help us get the best possible overall response.'

...
amusing

[Aqualis]

 lol

[Klowd19]

 From what I read quite some time ago this occured in Australia or New Zealand or some such a few years back and the amount of people who placed 'Jedi' as their religion caused the government to be required to accept it as an official religion.  Not sure if the end result is really true or not, though.

[windhound]

 

2001 Census.

;)

and that was an internet misconception

[Menatus]

 Yep, it was stated as 'wrongly'.

[Nohcnonk]

 Haha, that's great.

[RazorClaw]

 Why is this ancient article being posted now? Just because it's still funny.  

[Blademaster]

 The power of Email

[windhound]

 its bein posted now 'cause the last Star Wars just came out, and I just found the artical lurking

how many others had already heard of this?  
I knew that it was a 'religion' of some sorts, but I didnt know that people, a large amount of people, actually /voted/ in a census
^_^

[Daryn]

heh
i found this when a guest was looking at it
*dig dig dig

[Juska]

I was like [What The Ferret], Razorclaw?

Was funny, but maybe you should dig through old topics, quote them and make a new topic with all the funny stuff you found in old topics. That would be better than this constant  thread necromancy.

[Krowdon]

Jedi as a Religion? wat?