> > Heh heh, you mean Virgin Birth.
>
> Well, I meant Immaculate Conception, but I'm not going to start
> a flame war.

I'm not sure what the flame war would be about. The two names are commonly confused. If you care, IC is a technical term but has a lot to do with being preserved from a tendency toward evil, while VB means no human father.

> >The movie made me think of the Jedi as Americanized
> Buddhists and the Sith as fringy Objectivists.
>
> I've never thought of Star Wars as an analogy for anything. I
> think good ol' George just wanted to write a Science Fantasy
> tale, and that's what came out. The Jedi do, however, have
> definite ties to Pan-theism (I think- if that's the wrong term,
> someone correct me), in that their beliefes revolve around a
> powerful... um... force... that exists in all things, and is part of
> everything.

Certainly the movies aren't analogies for anything. They're just good stories. But the characters have got to believe *something* if we're going to have a rousing clash of good and evil, and it'd be impossible to come up with beliefs that served the story but didn't sound like somebody's real beliefs.

The Jedis in this film made a bigger fuss about non-attachment than about the all-pervasive Force. But they also said that the Jedi were all about altruism, serving others unselfishly, while the Sith were all about seeking their own aggrandizement and finding strength in their own power-lust. Thus it amused me while watching the movie to think of the Jedi as Westernized Buddhists (non-attachment + altruism) and the Sith as caricaturized Objectivists (anti-altruistic, intense self-absorbtion).

It would be perfectly valid to discuss Star Wars religion on its own terms. For example, I think the Jedis made a poor case for non-attachment to Anakin. He was in love, and since love is focused outside the self one cannot simply stop loving except by overcoming it with selfishness. That, of course, would mean becoming a Sith. The Jedi should have instead emphasized attachment to greater things and non-attachment as their preferred means to that end. Anakin's problem was too little desire, not too much.