Pastor Yoda

Have Jedi created a new 'religion'?

Your initial reaction is probably, "NO!" But stop and think for a second: it has exactly the same amount of factual credibility and supporting evidence as any other religion. People have been scribbling stuff down for millennia and calling it divine inspiration. If George Lucas as prophet sounds ridiculous -- and it does -- then consider that Christians believe the writers of the the New Testament were divinely inspired but that Mohammad was a rambling kook. The reverse is true as well, of course. Neither camp can back up a single word with credible evidence of metaphysical origin. That's true of any religion, because they are based upon belief; i.e., what you WANT to be true, not what you can prove.

Consider also that there are many people in this world -- politicians, for example -- who follow the Sith (bad guys from Star Wars) code, albeit unwittingly. It is based upon the idea that pursuit of absolute power is all that matters in life. Anything else and you're just a chump. In a sense, that is their religion.

So are these "jedi" a bunch of nutballs? Absolutely. But from my perspective, every religious adherent is some degree of nutball. Religion is simply the most popular coping mechanism for dealing with the curse placed upon us by sentience: knowledge of our own mortality.