By The Arch Dude of York, Kristian Lewin
So my census arrived this morning. After scanning the pages I realised there’s quite a lot more to it than I remember from ten years ago. Maybe this is because ten years ago I was a stoner who was happy to fill in any form pushed in front of my face, I mean after all there was little else to do then. Maybe it’s because things get a bit hazy when you smoke an awful lot of pot. Maybe it’s simply because it was TEN years ago. Whatever the reason I certainly don’t remember it being so intrusive.
Now however, I have a lot less time on my hands and after ten years have become a bit more concerned about the information I divulge. I think as you get older you get wiser (some may say grumpier). It’s a very lengthy form and thankfully there was the option of filling it in on-line. This certainly saves a lot of time especially when you have psoriasis in your thumb on the hand with which you right.
After 3 years of working in the card and identity protection industry you become slightly wary about the details you pass onto people. I mean why on earth do the government want to know the name of the company I work for? The best part of the census form was when asked about my children. Let me explain. My two children are Emma and Sebastian, 5 and 2 respectively. One of the questions was ‘On the 27th March 2011, what is your legal marital or same-sex civil partnership status?’ This could easily be avoided if the system was intelligent enough to pick up on the fact it asked me only one question before what their Date of Birth was. Am I just being grumpy here? I’ll let you decide.
Anyway the main point for my blog is to highlight the religion question. ‘What is your religion?’ How many people do we think would be offended if a perfect stranger asked this question? I for one wouldn’t but it has been the height of controversy since it appeared on the last census in 2001. Now maybe Dudeism won’t get as strong a response as Jedi did back in 2001 but then that’s not what we’re about. To put Jedi as your religion on the last census was an attempt to make a mockery of the question. Marking Dudeism as your religion this time round is simply to make a point. It’s to show the world that there of us out there who refuse to get uptight about things. I set up the group on Facebook ‘Dudeism for the 2011 census’ with that sole purpose in mind. We all know that Dudeism is the slowest growing religion in the world, something that as an ordained minister I am very proud of. We have no intent of rivalling Jedi (not just yet anyway) nor even the ‘Heavy Metal’ campaign also going around on Facebook but we are here with a purpose. That purpose is to teach the world how to take ‘er easy. To not get too uptight when the ringer is thrown from the car or when the toe goes over the line.
We are simply here abiding and I don’t know about you but, I take comfort in that.
Time for a caucasian I think.
Take ‘er easy Dudes, I know you will.
See the article about Dudeism and the UK Census in the Times of London article (reprinted at the Arch Dude of York’s site.
go forth in the name of the dude and take it easy, man
As the Arch Dude of York I thought it was well worth saying a prayer while paying tribute to our sacramental beverage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4Nbk7X9VIs
Have you seen this?:http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108347-UK-Atheists-Hope-to-Eliminate-Jedi-Population
Kay, not sure what happened there:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108347-UK-Atheists-Hope-to-Eliminate-Jedi-Population
Have to be a copy and paste job if this doesn’t take
Greetings fellow Dudely Priests!I proudly registered my religion on my Uk sensus form as “Dudeist”!One more for the home team!?Dudely brother Kristian is right,this census stuff is seriously intrusive?They actualy want to jail you for not filling in this crap?Take it easy dudes,i got a cognac to finish.
congrats on reaching the Times, Dude, now we can start the revolution from within, well maybe not now, soon or whenever y’know.
second time in The Times now. Becoming a bit of a er, what day is this? Oh yeah, a bit of a regular now
I don’t mind contributing to the Domesday Book, although a lot of the questions were quite subjective. For example, my opinion was that my health was fair, but I special lady argued that my health was good. We settled in the end for good. But that’s just like, a conglomerate opinion, man.
As long as we all wrote “Dudeist” to the letter, and not “Dudist”, “Dudism”, “Church of the Latter Day Dude” or “The Dude!!!” I think we can work at making a statistic here.
Whatever man.
Religion is really just a state of mind. Duedism is a state of mind.
Therfore Dudeism is religion.
Logic
Hi Guys
Just a quick note, I love this site and The Big Lebowski is my fave Coen Brothers Movie but doing this is undermining a serious movement called the census campaign… the Government doesn’t care care which religion you tick, it will be counted as a religious vote and is used to justify government budget spending on anything to do with faith and church /religion etc… I might be making a huge assumption here but anyone who subscribes to this is either Atheist or doesn’t believe in organised religion, if we get enough people to tick non religious the government cant call the UK a Christian country anymore.
with that in mind please tick non religious on the census so we can move this country out of the dark ages where a bunch of fairy tales influence all aspects of our lifes
thank you
Err, interesting conclusions you draw there Niel.
Firstly, this is an issue about Dudeism, not Lebowskism, and I am a firm believer in our ethos, seperate from some movie-related non-religion that a lot claim this to be.
I think there’s a good mix of athiests, agnostics and people of other religious bent around here. To boot, this may not be an organised religion, but it is a bonded faith group who aren’t anti other religions. We share a lot in common with a lot of eastern religious philosophies and have no animosity with Zionism. We’re for religious tolerance (espeically of our own overlooked band of dedicats) and the recognition of that deversity, especially us here in the UK who live with, work with, went to school with multi-faith cross-sections of our British society. As such, everyone should be truthful in their answering of this particular Domesday question, to more accurately represent the beliefs of the people. I am not part of the Athiest faith, I am a Dudeist, so I answered as such.
As for moving the UK forwards, I think you should consider yourself lucky we’re got the Anglican church over here. The most forward-thinking and moderate of the protestant christian demoninations. We could still be Catholic, and that would be the fuckin’ Dark Ages, right there :) To take a vendetta against such an insitution on our part would be tantamount to taking a stand against other compeers of ours, such as Sikhism, Buddhism or Rastafarianism, which are all decently represented in the UK.
As for fairy tales, that is of course, just your opinion, man. The Big Lebowski is just a fairy tale, but much like most religious texts it has something to say. I’ve never once felt influenced unduly by any religion that I wasn’t part of. I’m sorry if you have, and we’re not for taking a stand against others due to such religious divides. They say tomato, we say red-squishy-thing, and so it goes.
I dig your own athiestic beliefs, and the rights to believe and practise them, but I do so for all other faiths in the UK, long may their beautiful traditions last. Fuckin’ A, man!
Dudeist, and proud :)
Thank you for that eloquent reply can i urge you though please to read this article
http://census-campaign.org.uk/2011/03/jedi-heavy-metaller-troll-why-we-should-present-a-united-front-under-no-religion/
and then if you still want to register yourself as Dudeist I wont argue :-)
Hmm, inner-estin’ there, Niel. I’m totally on board with your point, and I think the upsurge in Jedi for the last Domesday was a bit of an idiocy which was trying to make a point which fell flat on the ears of those that were supposed to be listening (that is, the stuffy up-tighters). ‘Joke’ religions such as Heavy Metal and Dumbledore’s Army are just more juvanile protests against Religion (I’ll try not to feel too offended) and the Government.
Whilst I agree that people without a religion should be truthful, I believe people with a religion should also be truthful, as I stated above. I’m not a Lebowskist, I’m a Dudeist, I’m a noted champion of the faith and the way without getting tied down in what most would call the ‘apparent joke of The Big Lebowski’ that would cause them to dismiss us as just another Jedi.
We’re not here to make a stand against anyone or anything, just for ourselves. We may not have the thousands of years of beautiful tradition that Buddhism or Taoism have, but we have some good years of conglometare philosophising under our belt and a strongly unified sense of what it means to be a Dude (not THE Dude).
So, I’m afraid, this is (to the best of our efforts) a real religion. If I’d have put down that I wasn’t religious, I’d have been lying, and if the Domesday people have come to me four years ago I would have told them I was Buddhist. I am religious, and this is my religion, be it percieved thusly, or not :)
I’m all behind your sentiment, and I would urge people to follow your advice if they were considering a joke, but, we’re not a joke, I’m sorry to say, no more than Buddhism and Taoism (that is to say, the good-natured sorts who treat life as one big joke). Faith and humour are not mutually exclusive as many wise Buddhist masters have taught and proved in their time :)
thank you
having read back though my statement I maybe should have wrote it better, I am not aiming at people who truly believe in the ethos of Dudeism and I would not try and convince you otherwise, in the same way as I would not ask a devout bible reading church going christian to tick non religious.. my statement is aimed at people who will do this as a F**k you to the government and think its all a big joke when its important.
thank you
Some interesting points being made here. If one believes Dudeism to be their religion, then they should mark the box. If they are only doing it to piss off the Gov’t (who won’t read the comments but only look to see if the box was checked), then don’t check the box. What does the UK Gov’t do with all the checked boxes? Do they budget money for state sponsored religion? If so, which ones? Or do they only collect this information for “statistical purposes”. Information is power. Speaking of power, it’s St. Paddy’s Day. I need to power down a few Guiness’s. Happy St. Paddy’s Day to you all….
Does anyone know when the census data will be available to see how many marked “Dudeism” as their religion?
@chalupa – If I remember right it’s about August 2013
@ Niel – no problems man, just trying to make myself clear. As I said, I abide your message fully, just making sure you knew that you had to make a more narrow aim in this room ;)
As for when they’ll have the info, and what they’ll do with it… well, it’s possibly just statistics. The sad fact is that something like Dudeism will probably not make a name-check when the Domesday does get published but form the big swelling lump that is other. You never know, we might just have done it :) *fingers crossed*