BTW, I lost my religion while listening to "Loosing my Religion".

Shouldn't you post a picture of the "Star Wars" Death Star instead of the "Return of the Jedi" Death Star?

...ack...

Sadly, I'm older than Charles. I was in high school when Star Wars was released, and had already long been an atheist by then. At that age I had a freshly minted drivers license and out of control hormones. Star Wars was not a religious (or rather anti-religious) experience for me. I just thought Luke Skywalker was hot and the special effects were awesome. Star Wars was the first movie that I ever saw more than once; I think I watched it 4 or 5 times.

Thanks for that trip down memory lane, Charles.

I became an atheist slowly, growing into my thirties and gaining enough distance on my twenties that I realized some time a couple years ago that all the seizures of religious feeling, so glorious and deliciously frightening (and, "thank God" not specified to any doctrine) that hit me every now and then when I was young - I uncommittedly wore a cross everywhere as recently as nine years ago - were simply a young man's tiny forays into the edge of schizophrenia.

My housemate was telling me the other night about his friend's kid who has Aspberger's. His language skills are excellent, he is physically unimpaired, but because some part of his brain, his meat-brain is wicky-wacky, he has no empathy. And when you are not there in front of him, you don't exist. He has no interest whatsoever in your experience, ever.

Does this boy have a soul? Do any of us? We are living flesh. We are animals, here to enjoy the highest pinnacle animal life has reached (so far as we know). I hope we don't all kill each other because of some imaginary bullshit whizzing around inside all that fallible, definite meat. And I'm still on the side of the good guys, too.

Yup...the typical 7 year olds reaction to SW. cough*bullshit*cough

Sorry to have to burst your Judeo-Christian fantasy Giminy, but this Atheist absolutely does not believe in God.

To-date, there is not a single shred of empirical evidence for the existence of such a being, and furthermore, science - real science that is, not the pseudo-scientific clap-trap of the ID'ers over at The Discovery Institute - has done quite a good job of showing why the physical universe does not require "Some kind of power that encompasses all our defining thoughts" in order to exist.

FWIW, my road to atheism began at around the age of 14, after a brief infatuation with Pentacostalism (at least I think that's what it was; all I remember is that speaking in tongues was involved) encouraged by an elderly aunt. My anti-epiphany occured one Sunday morning, when the youth paster described his notion of God as "being like Ivory Soap: 99 7/10 percent pure" (I kid you not!). My reaction to this statement was to wonder, A: why the YP didn't envision God as being 100% pure; and B: if God was in fact NOT wholely, entirely PURE, then why was I required to worship Him, as if he were?

Talk about setting up your slippery slope scenario...

So... not to quibble, because I liked your story, but it seems to me that you went into Star Wars a Christian and walked out an agnostic. Is this incorrect?

So Charles walked into Star Wars as a theist/agnostic and walked out of Star Wars as an atheist/agnostic.

Atheo-agnostic: learn to use a fucking encylopedia.

Getting soft-spiritual over Star Wars? Read some Alan Watts, why doncha? Or some Baghavad Gita - (there's a space epic).

I mean, getting quasi-religious over Lucas?

(Well, to be fair, so did Joseph Campbell).

It's a good question though - what are the philosophical/spiritual/religious (three different things) underpinnings of Star Wars?

I mean, it hasn't stuck around because it's Shakespeare.

You've got your Taoism - The positive and negative ('light' and 'dark sides of The Force', in constant contact, opposition, 'balance' (whatever the f--- Lucas thinks he meant by that) -

And the 'All-pervading Force, that surrounds us, penetrates us and binds the galaxy together...' - that's the Tao, or Brahma, the creator that is the creation. (Or the Holy Spirit in Christianity).

I think people like to lean on this semi-Asian aspect of the thing, to make it less onerous.

But, really, it's not so very Taoist - really, what Lucas gives you is a Christian fable.

Sure, there's 'good' and 'bad', but the story here is this - You must 'choose' to lean toward one side or the other.

(Actually, you must force yourself willfully to grip onto the 'good', because the 'bad' is so very sexy and powerful,...

As well as monetarily rewarding, and eeeeasy.

So, that's pure Christianity, no eastern mysticism there.

"You've got to choose, son, to Be Good!" Sayeth the Jedi.

(What a drag).

And what was the very bad thing that 'The Empire' was up to?

I mean, what was the Empire but a bunch of well-organized technocrats, doing their best create capital-rich and intensive trade coalitions?

Gosh, sounds...just...like...

US!

LS, they were also specieists. Only humans were allowed to be free in the Empire, all other species were enslaved.
Also, Lucas used a lot of Joseph Cambell's mythology research, so I'm sure he was a little inclined to the story.
If you want to see a documentary about the influences Lucas uses (though I think they give him a lot more credit than he deserves) check out the History Channel's latest 'Origins of Star Wars'.