Kevin's Watch Religious Composition (Dec. '08)

[[Syl]]

Jedi.

A Gospel According to Yoda

...more than 390,000 people across England and Wales had claimed "Jedi" as their religion on the U.K.'s 2001 census. An Internet campaign may have driven up those numbers, but the results held a deeper meaning for Daniel and his brother Barney. That census report became their impetus to start the U.K. Church of the Jedi.

[Zarathustra]

Jedi.

A Gospel According to Yoda

...more than 390,000 people across England and Wales had claimed "Jedi" as their religion on the U.K.'s 2001 census. An Internet campaign may have driven up those numbers, but the results held a deeper meaning for Daniel and his brother Barney. That census report became their impetus to start the U.K. Church of the Jedi.

Genius! They are going to get rich.

After the success of Scientology, I don't see why more science fiction or fantasy writers don't start their own religion. Scientology is one of the best legal scams ever invented.

[Lord Mhoram]

I imagine they don't do it because most novelists don't want to control people's lives.

[Zarathustra]

I imagine they don't do it because most novelists don't want to control people's lives.

There you go, not being able to tell when I'm joking, again.

To be fair, I did leave off the emoticon this time.

[The Laughing Man]

Jedi.

A Gospel According to Yoda

...more than 390,000 people across England and Wales had claimed "Jedi" as their religion on the U.K.'s 2001 census. An Internet campaign may have driven up those numbers, but the results held a deeper meaning for Daniel and his brother Barney. That census report became their impetus to start the U.K. Church of the Jedi.

There is no emotion; there is peace.
There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.
There is no passion; there is serenity.
There is no chaos; there is harmony.
There is no death; there is the Force.
— The Jedi Code

fyi, there's been considerable discussion over Castaneda's influence on Lucas, to the point that Don Juan Matus is widely considered to be the base character model for Yoda himself, and that the "Force" Yoda describes is comparative to the force of "Intent" as discovered and described by Don Juan and the Toltecs...

[Fist and Faith]

At the very least, we are the universe waking up to itself.

This is why I'm most grateful that you're at the Watch, Malik. I had never looked at it quite this way before you were talking about it some time ago. A truly breathtaking concept!

[Avatar]

Still a Christian majority I see.

--A

[Loredoctor]

Still a Christian majority I see.

--A

Is Rusmeister aware of this, given his claim that most watchers are atheists or agnostics?

[Avatar]

I'm sure he'll notice.

--A

[lucimay]

At the very least, we are the universe waking up to itself.

This is why I'm most grateful that you're at the Watch, Malik. I had never looked at it quite this way before you were talking about it some time ago. A truly breathtaking concept!

i know! he's a most insightful man, idden he! (check my sig)

[Reisheiruhime]

Mathy pagan... I have a little triangle on my altar in honor of Pythagoras...

I think the FSM falls under pagan jurisdiction, tho... It's basically worship, honor, love and/or swear at under your breath whomever you please down here. Who - or what - ever floats your boat. I switch around between Inanna, Anubis, a fluffy blonde demon named Andrios, and Moksha raver, so... The FSM is friggin' sweet!

Spoiler

And my group seems to think Jesus might have been a witch, given his - or do y'all prefer His for Jesus? - policies regarding human nature. Think about it. "An' it harm none" applies to the modern Christian faith as much as any of their own scripture! His miracles, if you suspend belief in the Heavenly Father for a moment, sound like mega-pumped witchery. And if you look at it from the scientific - or pseudoscientific - angle, then his myriad followers allowed him their strength with which to perform more miracles. Keep in mind that the Bible was written by men of varying character, and that numerous books of the Bible have been destroyed and edited over the years, so we're getting about a fourth of the real story. I believe that there was a Jesus. I believe he was a cool dude. I believe that there may have been Someone behind him, guiding him, acting as his Heavenly Father, for the greater good that Christianity has brought. I'm not saying its all good - i.e. the conversion of the pagans of Britain, the subjugation of other perfectly happy foreign lands, the pointless Crusades (otherwise known as "let's kill as many of these people as we can, rape their women and young boys, steal their stuff, and then set fire to their homes, and then go home to be hailed as heroes"), the Burning Times, the persecutions today... Okay that was way too long of a list. Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts. Okay. But there are good things. Missions that provide clean food and water to starving, sick children. Education. Hospitals. (The school where I want to do my graduate work is a Roman Catholic organization. That's going to be interesting. I didn't know they'd let other people (non-Catholics) in, but apparently they do, so... *shrug* It's cool.) Monks in abbeys preserved most of the knowledge we have of the "olden days". These guys would sit on uncomfortable stools in drafty robes, painstakingly copying texts. And they gave us really good beer! Beer is GREAT! And the molestation of the little boys is the product of a few sick people, not the Church. It's not cool to blame the religion for the failings of people. Not cool at all. It's like me blaming Inanna because the biscuits I'm baking don't turn out. Totally not her fault. I asked for her blessings on my endeavors in baking, and then I do the recipes wrong. My fault. Totally my fault. And then some moron comes along and suggests that it's her fault. Moron doesn't get any of the pizza I order to make up for failed baked goods. Hmmph. So yeah. End rant. Pray to the FSM that no extremists of any sort read this and want to harm me textually. Hehe. That looks dirty.

[Mysteweave]

Christian.

[Cleburne]

I voted Christian and Roman Catholic to booth Sorry I is Irish our faith was drilled in to us from an early age , and I was an altar boy for 4 years I do believe this is my first post on the Close

[Zarathustra]

At the very least, we are the universe waking up to itself.

This is why I'm most grateful that you're at the Watch, Malik. I had never looked at it quite this way before you were talking about it some time ago. A truly breathtaking concept!

i know! he's a most insightful man, idden he! (check my sig)

Gosh, thanks!

It still blows my mind so much, that I feel like I can't really take credit for simply typing it. Not trying to toot my own horn here . . . I'm in awe of Being-in-itself, not my pitiful attempts at coming to grips with it . . . but what really blows my mind is that this isn't figurative or metaphorical at all. It's entirely literal. It's not a quasi-religious sentiment, it's a blatant fact. We are bits of the universe which have become aware of both a) those bits themselves and b) the universe itself. Through us, we have irrefutable, obvious proof that the universe itself has the capacity to awaken. It is "written" in the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, etc.--all the principles which led matter to arrange itself into conscious beings. If you look at protons, electrons, and energy, this is the most startling thing you could discover about them: they have the capacity to realize that they are protons, electrons, and energy.

So--literally--matter can know itself. That's what we are. Stardust that has Awoken. CSN&Y songs aside ( ), that's pretty awesome. That blows my mind, that the possibility of consciousness is written into the laws of matter. The universe is such a place where the basic, most fundamental rules of existence spontaneously lead to pockets of transcendence. And then these pockets link up to form even larger groups of consciousness (families, friends, civilizations) whenever we are aware of each other through communication and empathy. And hopefully, we'll one day link our interlinked earthly consciousness to larger alien groups. In fact, there are some events and phenomena which make me suspect some of us already have. And this process is what I've been calling, "god being born," when the consciousness of this universe tends to higher and higher levels of organization.

It's all right there in Asimov's "The Last Question."

The accident of our development isn't nearly as astonishing to me as the fact that this potential had to have been there from the beginning. It's an inherent feature of the universe that it can become alive. Surely this means something, above and beyond the mere contingent fact that we happened to evolve when the conditions were right. Our production was a long string of accidents leading to one specific example of intelligent sentience (i.e. "earth-bound") . . . but the fact that it was possible at all means that this potential is universal feature of Being, lurking in the dark eons for the right conditions to happen.

[kevinswatch]

Don't know / All of the above / None of the above.

-jay

[Zarathustra]

Still a Christian majority I see.

--A

Well, if you lump atheists and agnostics together, it's a virtual tie! It's not an entirely illogical grouping. If you can put an Eastern Kentucky snake-handler Christian in the same poll category as an Orthodox Christian (a possibility we'd have to acknowledge given the choices here), then I see no reason not to lump together atheists and agnostics, too.

[Waddley]

Scientologist.

(But not really. I'll throw my lot in with Malik and Loremaster...)

[Loredoctor]

Scientologist.

(But not really. I'll throw my lot in with Malik and Loremaster...)

You have great taste, Waddley.

[Avatar]

...then I see no reason not to lump together atheists and agnostics, too.

Don't think I can agree with that. Atheism is the absence of belief. Agnostics still believe something, they just don't know what. In belief scales, agnostics are closer to any kind of theist than atheists are.

--A

[Loredoctor]

...then I see no reason not to lump together atheists and agnostics, too.

Don't think I can agree with that. Atheism is the absence of belief. Agnostics still believe something, they just don't know what. In belief scales, agnostics are closer to any kind of theist than atheists are.

--A

You're entering into uncertain grounds. I've always seen agnosticism as existing midway between atheism and theism, given that the core belief is that any metaphysical claim of an afterlife or God or hell is unknown or impossible to prove or disprove. You could say they are closer to a theist than an atheist, but you could also say that they are closer to an atheist than a theist