Official Jedi Knight discussion thread.

Articles pertaining to the Jedi being more than just sad devotees to an ancient religion.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/...
(The official uk census)

At the time the Census was carried out, there was an internet campaign that encouraged people to answer the religion question "Jedi Knight". The number of people who stated Jedi was 390,000 (0.7 per cent of the population).

Top religions in the UK:

Christian: 72.0%
No religion: 14.7%
Chose not to respond: 7.8%
Muslim: 3.1%
Hindu: 1.1%
Jedi: 0.79% (390,000)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/hom...

So many people entered "Jedi Knight" on their census form that the Office of National Statistics has given the creed an official numerical code, denoting it as a religion within the "other" category.

The census number-crunchers learnt the hard way that those who stand in the way of the Jedi are doomed to fail. They dismissed as a lunatic fringe the Star Wars fans who responded to the question on religion in this year's census with the answer "Jedi Knight".

But they were up against a power they did not understand. Self-proclaimed Jedis were using e-mail to persuade followers of the creed that they must make their allegiance public and stand up for their faith.

And even if they were taking George Lucas' sci-fi saga a touch too seriously, the Force must have been with them, because they have triumphed over the ONS.

During the e-mail campaign, potential Jedis were told that if 10,000 people claimed to be followers the religion would become official, but the ONS was insistent last night that it did not mean the Government had recognised Jedis or "the Force" as a new religious group.

Yet somewhere in Whitehall a computer now lists hundreds or possibly thousands of people under the classification "896" for Jedi Knight.

A somewhat weary spokesman for the ONS refused to state how many Jedi Knights the census had recorded, saying that information would not be available until autumn next year, and then only to those willing to pay an unspecified fee.

The spokesman said: "We were trying to get the census taken seriously but we recognise that there was this mood where people would put this answer in the 'other' section whether we wanted them to or not.

"A sufficient number put it in that we felt it was appropriate to give them a code for administrative purposes just so it was quicker to put the information through the machines. It is not a recognition of anything."

The spokesman added that it was not yet clear if the Jedis had warped the view of the religious make-up of Britain provided by the census. "That is for others to decide. We just count the numbers," he said.

Official government release: 390,000 Jedis There Are
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget....

In New Zealand and Australia.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/articl...

Despite only one week's notice, 53,715 people did just that - unofficially showing this country has more Jedi Knights than Buddhist, Baptists, Mormons, Hindu and Ratana Christians.

Australian Star Wars Appreciation Society president Chris Brennan doubted there were many true believers among the more than 70,000 wannabe Skywalkers.

He told ABC Radio last week that only about 5000 would be "true hard-core people that would believe the Jedi religion carte blanche".

2001 NZ census top religions:

Christian: 58.9%
No religion: 29.6%
Object to answering: 6.9%
Jedi: 1.5%
Buddhism: 1.2%
Hindu: 1.2%
(Wiki)

In the 2006 census the number of Jedi fell to 20,000 in NZ.

Only around 0.1% of Canadians admitted to being Jedi in their census. It is however an aided census with checkboxes for some religions and not others.

Lori