How to defend the Jediism church

Hi, we are doing religious debates in school, and I would like to know how to defend the Jediism church pretty well. Does anybody have any good ideas? Thanks

How can you tell a person their opinion is wrong?

This may take a while.... Make sure to browse the forums as well....

They will probably base their entire argument on misconceptions. I'd first find out what all those misconceptions could possibly be and prepare myself to debunk them. Then once they run out of arguments, you can talk about the good stuff, and they probably won't have anything to say about it, so it's a win

My wife tried to argue about religion with me...

I informed her that since she knew nothing about religion, even less about Jediism, she really should not put down and degrade things she knew nothing about...

I told her it made her look dumb....

You can not argue against, or for, anything you do not know or understand... The members here, could probably do a good job...

Read the Doctrine, the Tenents, the 'We Believe'.....

It is hard for us to defend , or help you defend, Jediism.... When we do not know the questions.... lol....

I'm glad I can remember 3 year old topics haha.

http://www.templeofthejediorder.org/forum/29-Academy/12216-How-to-answer-Jediism-is-not-a-real-religion

There is a duplicate thread about this topic. I'm sure the information in there will help you answer your request.

Essentially the short answer is:

We are officially recognised as a religious organisation by the state of Texas, we have performed religious ceremonies including marriages in the name of Jediism and we have registered ministers in several countries around the world.

But as ren said, the easiest way to disprove any claims about us being a 'real' religion is to ask them what they think Jediism is and then when they almost certainly get it wrong you just inform them what we are actually about. For a guideline, reassure them that we have absolutely nothing to do with the 2001 census as that was done for a joke and the religion they put down was 'Jedi' not 'Jediism' therefore we are in no way affiliated with that census.

Anyone who claims that Jediism is related to the 2001 census is lying or uneducated. At least from the point of view of this Temple (which has a fairly good Jedi representation, but is certainly not the only Jediism organisation around).

People think this is based on a Movie, the name is borrowed from them for sure...

But some say that the movie name is borrowed from even older religious followings....

What is in a name?

We are spiritual... we all believe something... bigger is our there...

I can't imagine Christ, asking his followers to call themselves Christians.... I am sure they called themselves 'Followers of Christ' or something similar that was shortened...

I am sure Christ, not being on for vanity I would think, would have told people to find a different name for their 'belief'...

Then again, who knows... lol....

You can win or lose this argument and it depends on something.

Define religion.

If you don't do this first you're going to get nowhere. Then you have to make sure that both sides agree to the definition. Entire books are devoted to this problem. This is why we state our definition on the site.

Let me know what you come up with.

Good Luck!

As bad as it may sound when someone chooses to start an arguement with me about religion I simply tell them this is what I believe in for my spiritual peace. It is different than yours but just as meaningful to me as yours is to you. If that does not work I give them this web address and tell them to read about it before they try to argue.

Defending the Jediism Church would be the same as defending the christian church know your religion well enough and believe in it wholeheartedly enough that any argument against it is no big deal

Bill Joneson wrote: Hi, we are doing religious debates in school, and I would like to know how to defend the Jediism church pretty well. Does anybody have any good ideas? Thanks

It is pretty hard to help you unless you specify a little more what those debates are about.

But, I guess what you'll find most in a debate is to "proof" the validity of Jediism - which means that you will have to educate yourself about the doctrine and values of the church and our standpoint to the movies.
Make people realize that this is not an attempt to copy "those cool mind tricks" or a bunch of nerds discussing the possibility of lightsabers ever to be built and so on.
Focus on the real life value of our believes and principles. Listening to Joseph Campbells series about mythology will help a lot for that - especially if people try to discredit Jediism because of the relative youth of the Star Wars movies.

Once the debate is past the validity or non-validity of certain religious movements and about spiritually and religion itself, I would go about it another way. The best way to defend the spirit of Jediism in my opinion is to not let yourself get into debating the superiorness of certain believes, but by going deeper than that. Debate the non-validity of debating this. Again, the series about mythology can help a lot here, simply by achieving knowledge over the different religions and mythology that helps you showing up similar concepts and ideas.

Understand that "the Force" is simply a new name for the idea of something greater than man, something transcendent and you have everything you need to "defend" Jediism.

And btw, I don't like the term "defend". Religion and faith isn't something that you can put on trial. That's why I think that religious "debates" are somewhat senseless.