Food for thought: Is being a Jedi a sufficient “nexus with religion” (see Syndicat Northcrest v. Amselem, [2004] 2 SCR 551) to invoke freedom of religion protection?
The Guardian reports of a Jedi Knight refused to dehood in the workplace, and earned an apology from his employer. But unsatisfied, he intends now to sue for discrimination. The UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission does not include Jediism in its enumerated list of religions, even though it is statistically the fourth most common religion in the UK & Wales, with nearly 400,000 adherents. (Canada, on the other hand, has a comparatively paltry 55,000 Jedi.)
At the very least we can be fairly certain that because the Jedi hood does not obscure the face, it would not violate Quebec’s proposed anti-niqab legislation.
“Is being a Jedi a sufficient “nexus with religion†(see Syndicat Northcrest v. Amselem, [2004] 2 SCR 551) to invoke freedom of religion protection?”
I don’t see why not. What separates it from other religious beliefs?
Well, most of the other major world religions weren’t founded by George Lucas in 1977, for starters. Certainly the necessary sincerity of belief is present in the British subject’s situation. But I think that it would be an interesting debate of whether Jediism is a sufficient religion.
What is especially interesting about this question is whether sincere belief is even possible when adherents presumably concede its origins are entirely fictitious.
Omar, I’m sure it is possible to be a sincere adherent of a religion even while acknowledging that its origins are fictitious. You can fully and wholeheartedly embrace the values espoused by a religion regardless of its origins.
Scientology, by the way, pretty much grew in the 1950s out of science fiction written by L. Ron Hubbard.
Another, slightly more silly argument can be made that George Lucas merely discovered or explained an independently existing supernatural system. The same argument might be made about many other world religions that were popularized by very human “prophets” who brought the message of an independently existing supernatural being to the public.
I’m sure it’s possible – I just want to see the argument made with a straight face.
This is where I personally run into huge issues with freedom of religion. Omar raises the question “whether sincere belief is even possible when adherents presumably concede its origins are entirely fictitious”. Quite frankly from my study the “origins” of all of the major religions is pretty shakey, but people still cling to them as absolute truth. I have a real problem not extending the same protections to every other belief system. The fact that Star Wars was fiction doesnt prevent a “Jedi” from arguing that it was somehow divinely inspired. It doesnt make sense to me to limit “freedom of religion” to those belief systems whose origins are clouded by the passage of time.
Maybe in Canada this is an opportunity to test out the extent of “freedom of conscience”. I’ve never understood why values and beliefs inspired by the will of deities is any more deserving of protection than values and beliefs from other, more secular sources.
KC,
The simple answer to that is the history of religious-based human conflict.
Our goal in Canada is to hopefully create an atmosphere of a more peaceful co-existence. Which usually means letting people who believe in different things than you believe in whatever fiction they choose.
I don’t think I go as far as Lawrence with the Scientology example – despite Hubbard’s novelist background, his subsequent work was presented as serious fare. What makes this case interesting is the contemporary creation of the fictitious beliefs.
“The simple answer to that is the history of religious-based human conflict.
Our goal in Canada is to hopefully create an atmosphere of a more peaceful co-existence.”
That is certainly a narrow instrumentalist justification for “freedom of religion” but I think there is more to it than that. My understanding (and I think the jurisprudence speaks to this but I dont have the time to do the research) is that freedom of religion is based on the proposition that it is fundamentally wrong to make one do something that is contrary to their core values and beliefs. In that light I think there should be more room for a freedom of conscience based on other.
In other words I think your instrumentalist, peaceful coexistence theory of freedom of religion is unduly narrow. From that perspective it would be justifiable to oppress a religion that is small enough in numbers that it can’t pose a threat to “peaceful coexistence”. Certainly not something I could support.
To be clear I think the “sincere belief” aspect of the test is a good idea. I’m just not convinced that we can conclude that there is no “sincere belief” merely on the basis that the claim has an air of fiction to it.
KC, it’s a reason, which is why I started with a simple answer.
I’m not averse to freedom of conscience arguments either.
Considering what we’ve accomplished so far though, I think we’re not that bad (current administration notwithstanding).
I’m clergy. I’ve spent 14 years getting to the point where I can consider myself qualified to teach others. In that time, I’ve experienced all of the hallmarks of religious intolerance, right down to violence being done against my person and my family because of the beliefs that I hold (and which my children share, though my wife does not–though she supports me in them)… beliefs which I find beautiful, personal, and spiritual in nature.
They are beliefs which, if people understood them, would allow us to coexist in a world which is struggling to find new perspectives of spirituality, and yet rejecting anything which appears to be spiritual on the surface. Not everyone would agree to the Jedi beliefs–not everyone should. But learning about them would at least be a step in the direction of reducing the uneducated intolerance which has been on display here and other places.
The fictitious origins of the religion do not negate the fact that the principles behind the belief are in fact real: beliefs such as the practice of connectedness and the need for tolerance. These beliefs are tantamount to our search for truth, and so we hold up Star Wars as a means of bringing people closer to living a spiritual life. The actions of a few zealots within the Jediist community notwithstanding, this search for truth is ultimately the very basis on which all religions are founded.
As a real, certified, qualified, and practicing Jedi Master, I would like to say that there are a portion of Jedi adherents who engage in capricious dogmas as a part of their training (training which is highly individualized and religious in nature, so that we can free people of their own internally-generated “emotional baggage”).
The lawsuit against the guy’s employer is good media circus, to be sure, but the reasoning behind it is that nobody would take us seriously if we just decided to live it as a way of life, and so we’re forced to make it a religion because of exactly the kinds of attitudes displayed here–nobody can apparently take it seriously until the world is educated about it.
If we look at Scientology as a comparison (which, by the way, tends to offend a lot of Jedi), their belief holds up L. Ron Hubbard as a religious figure, while Jediism does not hold up either George Lucas or the person who really refined the fictional Jedi (Dr. Joseph Campbell). We don’t hang on their every word; rather we use what these people have produced as a path to refine our understanding of spirituality at an intellectual level. The main difference is that while we do accept donations on a “whatever you think you can give” basis at many places, we certainly do not charge a tithe, nor do we require that payment is given to our members who want spirituality. This isn’t a “money train” or any kind of vehicle to get rich with; it’s a solemnly-held religious belief which is combined with a deep non-theistic spirituality.
I can be contacted through quite a number of the Jedi web sites if there are any further questions about the religion, so long as it’s clear that I’m not really a legal expert. I welcome such contact, because education about the topic means acceptance that others believe it. This can also help solve the debate by demonstrating whether or not the belief system passes the litmus test of religion.
We Jedi want to benefit the world in any way we know how.
That’s about as straight-faced as it gets.