Adam Luke

So, Australian census night is only two night away. But this entry can really apply to any country whose census has a question about religion.

The Atheist Foundation of Australia’s “Census No Religion” campaign is primarily aimed at people who don’t take religion seriously. It promotes honest responses to the religion question¹ of the census, suggesting people actually mark “no religion” on the census if they are irreligious.

Why?

The census isn’t completed for no reason. Governments use responses to the religion question to justify spending of taxpayers’ money. Euthanasia and marriage laws, to name two issues, have heavy religious influence and basis. Further, I pay tax and completely object to the fact that religious instruction and school chaplains receive government funding. Teaching of comparative religion in schools by teachers would be a good thing. Not teaching of one specific religion by someone from the church.

All the Census No Religion campaign is asking, is that people consider what their religious convictions actually are, and be honest about them. I hate that the jerktards at the Australian Christian Lobby (one of my least favourite things) get to say that the majority of the country is Christian, even though less than 10% of us go to church, and more than the census figures would have us believe, don’t take religion seriously.

Who is the campaign aimed at?

It may seem obvious to mark “no religion” if you don’t have one, but there are two groups to be considered:

1. Those who write joke answers like “Jedi” and “Pastafarian”. You are not a Jedi, and you are certainly not a Pastafarian. Presumably most people who write such things don’t actually have a religion or don’t take it seriously, so it simply waters down the number of people in the “no religion” category. After all, these answers are actually marked as “not defined”, so there’s no point writing it (even if you really, truly, believe in The Force!).
2. Those who aren’t religious, but put down whatever religion their parents are, or the religion of the faith school they attended, or the religion they were baptised into but don’t actually follow. Pretty sure for previous censuses (censii?), I put down my parents’ religion as my own, despite having never actually had a religion in my life.

So…my advice is to GO FORTH AND SECULARISE ON CENSUS NIGHT! Or, if you are religious, that’s fine too. The campaign is simply promoting honesty.

1. The question asks, “What is the person’s religion?”, which is of course completely biased, but that’s another issue…

I’ve spent the last 40+ hours with no Internet access, which basically never happens unless I’m away. Note, it wasn’t exactly by choice that I didn’t (and at home, still don’t) have Internet access. But when you don’t have the option of using the ‘net, you don’t really have the desire to use it, either.

Of course, it means I’m overwhelmed with all the webcomic updates, LiveJournal entries, and blog posts I’m now supposed to catch up with, but it’s nice not to have to worry about what people are posting, for a couple of days. Also, it means I had more time to do other things, like read.

A real test of my ability, though, would to remove more than just one form of technology.