Australians - May the Force Be With You

Atheists are asking Australians not to describe themselves as “Jedi” in the upcoming census, because doing so makes the country appear more religious than it really is.

The Atheist Foundation of Australia has requested citizens mark themselves down as having “no religion” if they do not consider themselves tied to a faith.

“If old religious men in robes do not represent you... don’t mark yourself as ‘Jedi’,” says a campaign poster featuring Yoda and two other Jedi masters.

“’Jedi’ and other joke religions are not placed in the ‘No Religion’ category but in ‘Not Defined’. This makes Australia seem more religious than it really is.”

The joke has been around for years, when an email campaign wrongly claimed that if 8,000 people put themselves down as Jedi it would have to be officially recognised as a religion.

At the 2001 Australian census, more than 70,500 people listed their faith as “Jedi knight” or something like it, which would look like the country had nearly as many believers in the “Force” as it had members of the Salvation Army.

“Whether or not people took the claim seriously, it was the start of a reporting phenomenon that gained speed internationally,” the Australian Bureau of Statistics said in 2013, adding that New Zealand, Canada, England and Wales subsequently reported large Jedi contingents.

May the force be with you...

What It Feels Like To Still Be Judged For Not Following Any Religion

Rachel Yen wrote an interesting personal story about not following a religion and the judgments that come with that.

"In the sixth grade, as I knelt down by my locker, my friend asked me what religion I practiced. My mind froze.

This was the worst possible question I could have been asked. At 14 years old, my values were far from formed, although I did have a hint about what I believed.

Instead of answering truthfully, I pretended to not know what religion really meant. I stammered, “Um, I’m Chinese.” I ran away before she could press further and see through my feigned cluelessness. Ignorance became my defense mechanism.

To begin with, I am in no way claiming that Christianity – or any religion, for that matter – is detrimental. Instead, I’m highlighting the continued prejudices against atheists and their assumed “culture.”

At an early age, I already felt like I had to hide being an atheist. In my 14 short years, without any influence from my parents, I at least had that much sense about what I believed.

I was embarrassed to be an atheist. Why did I feel like my atheism was the equivalent of having a dark and sinister secret?

Living in the Bible Belt, it seemed like being anything other than Christian was wrong. I realized that whenever someone found out I was an atheist, I was immediately assumed to be immoral.

The scorn on these people’s faces was as plain as day.

As I got older, I began to slowly reveal parts of my beliefs. But I was far from revealing the full truth. I claimed that I didn’t know, just “wasn’t spiritual” or wasn’t religious..." 

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Evangelist Graham Lays Down the Graham Law

Evangelist Franklin Graham laid down the law on his Facebook page this week about the Reason Rally — the atheist event at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday.

On his Facebook page, Graham said the irony that he saw with the event’s chosen location, specifically pointing out that there’s a reference to the Almighty that was placed inside of the memorial.

“Isn’t it ironic that they met on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial where these words are engraved in stone: ‘We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation UNDER GOD shall have a new birth of freedom,’” Graham wrote. “President Abraham Lincoln acknowledged the inherent role God plays in establishing our rights and freedoms and so did many of our founding fathers.”

The evangelist also complained about the issues that Reason Rally organizers pinpointed as important to their cause prior to the event: climate change, gay and lesbian issues and reproductive rights, detailing his concern with their issues.

“The atheists said this was definitely a political event, and they are holding it in an election year because, they ‘want to see reason taking precedence over religious-driven ideology,” Graham wrote. ”This liberal godless kind of what they call ‘reason’ should concern every freedom-loving American.”

He said that the atheists behind the event want to “strip God out of America’s past, present and future,” and he offered up a warning: “If you remove God, you remove God’s hand of blessing. That’s been shown over and over throughout history.”

In his blog post, Graham, who is also the president of the humanitarian organization Samaritan's Purse, urged Christians to pushback against the secular agenda by continuing to evangelize in the "ever-growing secular world."

"Now these atheists promoting secularism want to strip God out of America's past, present and future," Graham added. "Here's a warning — If you remove God, you remove God's hand of blessing. That's been shown over and over throughout history."

"One day each of these people is going to stand before the God that they disown, and they will face an eternity in Hell if they have not trusted Christ as their Savior," Graham added. "That's where this kind of 'reason' will get them. The Bible says, 'There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death,' (Proverbs 14:12)."

The Reason Rally 2016

Thousands of atheists turned out Saturday (June 4) took part in "Reason Rally" at the National Mall in Washington.

Atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers came to hear speakers talking about the importance of keeping church and state separate.

They want reason and science and not religious beliefs to decide politics and public policy. 

Out of all the members of Congress, only one member, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) — says she's religiously unaffiliated. 

More than 90 percent of Congress calls themselves Christian.

But nearly 1/4 of Americans say they don't have a religion and many of those just don’t believe in God.

So, the Reason Rally is a way to show some muscle and demonstrate to lawmakers that the non religious community just happens to be people who vote.