Jedi is a religion now?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I can’t remember how the subject came up, but today during a lull in the action I was talking with my soldiers and the subject of religion did come up. I’m relatively new to this unit and they spoke of a guy in our battalion that had the religion of “Jedi Master”. I thought they were kidding, but they all knew this guy, and one of my most reliable and trusted NCOs confirmed this.

Apparently this person, I’ll just call him SGT Skywalker, is a bit of a smartass. Thats not actually a bad thing, since his smartassedness (as I was told) is more to the kind tweaking the noses of higher ups that don’t see the forest for the trees it seems.

So SGT Skywalker in some effort to make some kind of point I’m fuzzy on decided to declare his religion as “Jedi”. it was accepted. Its even on his ID tags. (dogtags)

Now you can be a wiccan, a satanist, a scientologist, etc. in the military. They are legally recognized religions. Theres a soldier in my freaking platoon thats a wiccan. I personally don’t give a crap if he dances naked every midnight around a pine tree. But Jedi?

How the fuck is that recognizable to the military? Seriously, I know they have to be all PC and shit, but Jedi? You can’t even pretend its real with a straight face, can you? I mean, geezus, its from the movies!

I have not done so yet, but I need to research this a bit to understand how the hell this works…how can the army, let alone the military…(because the freedom of religion is in all branches) …accept this? Another one of my NCOs pointed out that the government wouldn’t fight it because who wants a long ass legal battle on this guys religion being denied to him in court…but Jedi? What, will he be offended if he isn’t allowed to pray to Obi Wan four times a day? I need to know what the requirementrs are to b e a religion as far as the miltary is concerned. This got under my skin so much that my reaction made one of my privates fall out of his chair laughing. I couldn’t even get upset about that…I would have laughed too since I’m sure I looked like a crazy man.

Whats next? Jedi Chaplains wielding plastic light sabers? If you allow the religion to be recognized then I suppose you have to allow chaplains of the religion in the military. (I don’t know how many there are or where, but a coworker who was a chaplains assistant earlier in her career told me there are wiccan chaplains…even satanist chaplains)

I know athiests will bring up the point that belief in God can be viewed as fantasy, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster is just as ridiculous, but theres gotta be a line somewhere. I’m all for religious freedom, but to me this is plain silly. the fact tnhat the command would just roll over makes me wonder if they’re just scared of starting a battle they can’t win (because no matter how crazy, the army doesn’t want to be on TV being accused of denying someones right to worship in their own way) or apathetic (as in “fuck it, let him pray to George Lucas”).

I’m thinking of declaring my religion as the Great Pumpkin and telling my superiors that I need extra time off during october to go on my pilgrimage to find gfollow the path of Saint Linus Van Pelt.

If anything SGT skywalker has at least made a point. You can claim anything as a religion. I kind of like that. He’s shaken up the status quo a bit. Biut on the other hand, I think its a bit silly. While I look into the regs on this I guess I need ot figure out why that bothers me. It does, but maybe I have a bigger stick up my own ass than I thought.

2

You are aware that there’s a real philosophy to the Jedi? While we may not have an actual Force in this universe, pretty much everything else applies. “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering, suffering leads to the Dark Side.” You have much of a quibble with that?

3

I thought that was Buddhism. :stuck_out_tongue:

4

I can kind of see your point, but to be honest, I’m not at all comfortable with the US government and its military deciding which religions to recognize and which religions not to recognize. In the end, who the hell cares what the US military thinks about any religion?

5

I remember reading somewhere (no cite, this was awhile ago) that Jedi had become an officially recognized religion in the UK cause so many people put it as their religion on the (2000?) census. As the OP stated, though, an atheist (or in my case an agnostic) can just chime in and say they’re all made up, some are just older than others. Hell, Wiccanism ain’t exactly an old religion, it’s just based on what people think the old celtic druids and such used to do (that might not be entirely correct, that’s just my understanding of it, no offense to any wiccans. I got a few friends who are wiccans and that’s the feeling I get from them). So long as you’ve got a generally peaceful philosophy behind your religion, who cares what it is?

6

The two have much in common; neither is particularly theistic, for example. Buddhism is named for the Buddha, but he isn’t a deity. The Force is not worshipped by the Jedi so much as given great respect. After all, Yoda says “The Force is my ally, and a powerful ally it is.” That, to me, does not sound like the statement of a follower about his god.

7

Near as I can tell, the only relevance is that the military has to know what symbol he’d like on his tombstone, if he should end up in a military cemetery. And presumably, Sgt. Skywalker has already advised them on that, if there isn’t a standard one already.

Beyond that, what possible harm could it cause to let this guy call himself a Jedi if he wants?

8

IIRC, you can put anything you want in that dog tag field. My brother damned near put something equally silly on his.

9

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no substitute for a good M-4 at your side.

10

I understand, and you know, you’re right…but then, so am I, I think. If I he can be a Jedi /master, I can be a Linus Van Peltian and you have to allow me time to sit in a pumpkin patch every friday in october.

See what I mean? Its not so much the religion, its the potential abuse of using religion for crazy stuff. I will not deny that christianity and other religions do the same. I’m just wondering wheres the line…you can declare the Bajoran prophets as a religon obviously, even though we all know its not real.

I won’t say I’m not being a bit nuts or that my christian upbringing isn’t influencing my thinking. I am not very religious. I believe in God, but I’m not a bible thumper and HE knows I’ve broken some commandments.

My wife thinks its cool. she’s telling me to convert to be a jedi. I don’t think OI could ever muster the incentive to do it. Unless you got me really really really drunk on a bet. But then I’d be worshipping the porcelain goddess.

11

It probably makes more sense than Scientology.

12

Isn’t that the opposite of Pastafarianism? :slight_smile:

13

Why is THE FORCE like duct tape?

It has a dark side and a light side, and it holds the Universe together.

14

The Jedi have a well-established belief system. van Pelt, not so much.

If you can come up with some sort of Bajoran Creed, go ahead. I don’t think there is really anything set up in the series, though, other than a racial thing.
You seem to have a problem with Jediism’s origin in a body of fiction. Why? Not everything comes from a respected source. If I were inclined to believe in anything, the Jedi system would be up there. It makes sense and doesn’t have any crazy prohibitions, and it looks like living by its precepts would lead to a happier life.

15

The church, and I believe, the symbol for a headstone.

But what about…

Nah. Too easy.

16

Scientology? People don’t just make fun of it because Hubbard invented it to rake in some cash, they criticize it because of the objective harm it’s done.

17

No harm. I posted it in MPSIMS because its harmless. I might think its a bit wierd, but its no harm, really.

EJsGirl, I know the dog tags are easy to put stuff on. You don’t have to get them from on post, either. I had some made a month ago at one of the many stores that will do it off post. I could have written “Eats Puppies” in the religion field. But this guy, from what I understand, made the leap from silly dog tags to saying he’s a jedi.

It makes me wonder how muchyou can get away with. Can I contact the commander tomorrow and tell him I worship the Norse Gods so I should be allowed to carry a big ass war hammer around since Thor is my patron?

I’m leaning towards I should be allowed to do so, but only if I’m serious…I don’t know where to to draw the line on deciding that though.

This is kind of OT but just so ya’ll know a it of how I feel about religion…I don’t care what religion people follow as long as it does not interfere or harm others. You can worship a grapefruit for all I care. I may have dim views of some religions from my own perspective,(I won’t mention which ones so not to offend anyone.) but I acknowledge that other people do not share my religious beliefs.

But to me at least, declaring jedi as your religion puts you kind of on par with people that are obsessive with Star Trek. A fair comparison? Maybe not…even I can see that. But its my gut reaction.

and grudgingly I’ll admit, I still think its a gutsy and kinda cool move for SGT Skywalker…who by the accounts of my soldiers and coworkers who know him only did it to poke the command staff in the eye.

18

dude, if I saw a guy on the battlefield running around with a huge war hammer in one hand and an assault rifle in the other I’d shit my pants (granted, if I was on a battlefield to begin with my pants would probably be pretty well-soiled). I’m personally all for it :smiley:

19

It showed up in a lot of news outlets, but, unfortunately, it was another bogus factoid that was reported as real because news outlets never fact-check stories that are too good to be true. Snopes covers the whole thing and its various reiterations, Wikipedia has a little more to say on the subject.

Basically the confusion arose from the fact that “Jedi” was assigned a processing code to make counting the entry easier in the future. It’s not the same as being recognized as an official religion.

20

gotcha.

But if x amount of people all claim it as a religion, does it not then get recognized as one?