A follow-up to the UK census post: the Atheist Foundation of Australia has launched the “Mark ‘No Religion’” campaign.
The AFA will be unveiling billboards across the nation in major cities stating “Census 2011: Not religious now? Mark ‘No religion’ and take religion out of politics.”
“It is time the Australian community questioned whether they hold religious beliefs or not. How they answer this question in the Census will influence decisions by Australian governments. Often the transfer of taxpayer money to religious organisations is justified on the basis of the Census results, as are special concessions and exemptions including the right to discriminate against some groups.
Of course, the ‘No Religion’ box is for the people who haven’t quite made it all the way to ‘Atheist’ yet. If you do identify as ‘Atheist’ or even ‘Agnostic’, feel free to write that in. Both categories are recognised on the census, so commentators can include them in with the non-religious vote.
One thing isn’t clear: what happens to joke answers like ‘Jedi’ et al. I can’t tell if they get dumped into the ‘did not answer’ bin, so don’t write them and risk not being counted. Let’s make the number of non-religious Australians zoom up this year.
11 February 2011 at 1:08 am
Hi Daniel,
I just noticed your blog on the census. In case you were interested The ABS released stats about the answer "Jedi" in relation to the religion question. In the 2001 census some 0.37% of people respond this way. That is 70509 Jedis in Australia. So the figures don't just go in the bin!!
I must say, however, I am a little intrigued and miffed to the "no religion" campaign. The ABS used to keep a page on their website detailing why they asked the quetion. They wrote it was because "outside of government, religious organisations are the biggest provider of a range of services to the community, such as education, hospitals, and aged care facilities." The reality is that churches are the biggest social welfare providers there are. I know this does not fit the current "all religion does is cause war" paradigm.
Finding out where a person's, even traditional, affiliations are help in the planning. S when it comes to answering Jedi the figures kept may as well be thrown in the bin, unless Government is starting to plan a new defence against death stars, or the Jedis are thinking of starting a retirement home or hospital.
The answer "no religion" may not be much better, becauase religious organisations will continue to provide these community services, while sadly I think the secular humanist and atheist movements aren't about to go into the social welfare business.
Perhaps there is a little bit of "conspiracy theory" thinking going on here. Religious groups never campaigns people to answer a certain way in a census, to my knowledge anyway. There would be a rightful outcry if they did. Can you give me a good reason for the campaign, becuase other than an attempt to increase the influence of the atheist lobby I can't think of a good reason.