Lit Should Theism appear more in canon?

Honestly, I think Disney has done more than Lucas to remember the Force is religious based.

Part of why I wouldn't want the Vong to return DarthInvictus is due to the fact we don't really need stories about a legion of evil foreigners and their monstrous religion coming to kill us for the crime of technology. It seems...accidentally stereotypical and offensive.

 

Well the Force is obviously there, but people doubt on where it comes from. There's 'Force Atheists' like Plagueis and even Kyle Katarn in Legends that don't see it as anything more to a tool, no higher purpose to it. And really there's no actual proof that the Force has a will other than some pretty odd coincidences.

 

Yes, it's a matter of Faith.

I imagine the Will of the Force is the Will of the Writer, though.

 

I feel like your oversimplifying things by suggesting whichever type of religion (monotheism or pantheism) has force behind it automatically becomes the dominant religious system. This is entirely dependent upon the people who perpetuate the religious system and is not a simple matter of the religions interacting and one being cancelled out naturally. Typically religions are destroyed through either conquest (as you noted) or top-down conversion where the leaders adopt a particular faith and the population follows. The central Republic culture, which we can assume is pantheist (with the Jedi interpretation), is however a liberal culture and is more likely to absorb other religions and allow them to coexist, rather than eliminating the. In order for pantheism to 'remove' monotheism, it would require an authoritarian culture and state. The only pantheist culture in the SWU is one that lends itself to absorbing, not destroying, theism. The only period where all faiths would be under threat is during the Empire.

It's important the Force doesn't prove any religion literally true - but it proves them all the be metaphorically true.

 

Or in simpler terms, Star Wars is infinitely diverse.

No one actually has a dominant cultural model.

 

Seriously. I mean. Rogue One. One of my favorite moments is when they're not sure if they'll be granted permission to land on Scarif, and in between Bodhi's ruse and official confirmation, Jyn grips her kyber crystal.

 

I liked that. Basically the kyber crystal has become a stand in for the cross in that film. A symbol for hope to those that believe.

Also it sure is similar to various soldiers in war films (notably WW2 ones) being depicted holding onto a religious icon. Such as the sniper in Saving Private Ryan.

I wonder if we will see more of a kyber crystal being used by normal people for faith reasons in the future.

 

OK mate, but think about this for a second please - we're not talking the intersection of new faith + Jedi Order in the modern (PT-OT-ST) era. We're likely talking intersections thousands upon thousands of years in the past.

And what I'm actually suggesting is people are assuming theism evolves because God Is Real. But we're not contesting that here. Nobody is saying the Islamic God is the one true God of Star Wars, really. What I'm saying is if you look at religions that have a central tenet that is identical to the force - the Tao, Karma etc - and look how that evolved independent of theism you get a completely different outlook. Hence my comments to BobaMatt et al about the Judeo-Christian filter. It's subconscious but we're not really allowing ourselves to separate the growth of theist religion from the existence of God.

A perfectly viable, but generally poorly understood by people here, model exists with compelling similarities to the model used in Star Wars, and it evolved independent of theistic tendencies. Why we assume a dominance of theism, because in Western countries that's what we have, is beyond me. It's prescriptive and assumptive.

 

Okay, I think you are genuinely misunderstanding what, at least I, am saying here. I understand what you think we are implying, but I think you've just misunderstood.

The Force is meant to be real in Star Wars (in fact you could say it's implied to be real here, just no one calls it 'the Force' and there are no Jedi for us to see it 'work'). All beings notice this energy field - the thing that is at the core of existence. Ancient societies develop religions to explain this reality - some create monotheist religions, some polythesist, and some pantheist (Buddhism), etc etc. All of these religions are trying to explain the reality that is the Force. Some are more close to the reality - Buddhism, Taoism - and some are more metaphorical in their explanation - Christianity, Judaism. But all are explaining the same reality, most never actually seeing 'proof' the Force exists. So in a sense all of these religions are true - it's just none are literally true. Different societies have the same truth and develop different religions to explain that truth, and some of these will be monotheist. Just because the scientific truth of the Force is more aligned to panthesim, it doesn't mean monotheist religions would simply dissolve or never form. Assuming they get to the stage where the religion exists in a liberal society, 'the Jedi' will only serve to affirm their religion. All the religions will say 'no the Force is God', 'no the Force is the tool of God', 'no the Force is Tao', 'no the Force is Allah' - and they'll all be correct in a way.

The fact that theism, polytheism and pantheism all developed separately in our world is one of the key points in Joseph Campbell's works. Imagine the Force is real and actually exists. Buddhism forms independently, Christianity forms independently, Paganism, etc, etc. Campbell says that they are all true - they just describe the Force in a different way. Once they discover the Force is real once a Jedi comes around they'll all say 'look, my God is real'. So even in a world where the Force is real theism and pantheism develop independently, describing the same thing.

Btw, it's good debating you about SW and not politics/economics for once

 

They are an advanced species, just becouse they have not developed some technology that your species have don't make them any less advanced.

 

The gungans have personal(or at least battalion shields) have flourishing underwater cities and a good practice of animal husbandry(riding and I imagine to eat).

They seem rather behind in some areas-but they do trade with the Naboo, and I imagine in later years they became increasingly integrated into both Naboo and galactic society.

 

I agree they are advanced, but my point is that they clearly got to a point where they stagnated. They have no space travel and despite having advanced ion weapons use catapults to use them. Compared to 99% of SW races they are less advanced. It is pretty clearly intentional as well. The Gungans have always been a thriving race who got pushed back and forcibly stagnated due to colonists attacking them. I always got a Native American vibe from them, I mean we have a race that seems quite in tune with nature, colonists show up, attack them and try to commit genocide, push them back to having to live in small secluded areas of land, and then their only sacred places on the land that used to be their are hidden from outsiders which implies their sacred locations where desecrated by the Naboo.

 

It does seem the gungans were rather marginalized. Didn't they also fight off some unknown alien invaders around 500 BBY or something?

It seems to me given young Palpatine's attitudes is that the Naboo viewed them with contempt, sure they let come into the cities to trade and such but probably viewed them as a nuisance to be kept at a distance.

With Binks at the galactic senate and other gungans participating in the clone wars I imagine eventually they became integrated into galactic society.

 

The Alleena in TCW seem to have some kind of religion focusing on the world beneath, revering the seal to the underground like a god.

 

You have to wonder who programmed the Droids to revere the Maker.



Unless it was Anakin's burgeoning god complex.

 

Religion is really the heart of SW-the ships, and cool laser guns and swords and all the other trappings of space opera are fun and should be celebrated in their own right but the mysticism and religious reflection and amalgamation is the true soul of the franchise.

 

I don't think you have anyone arguing that Theism would necessarily be dominant, only that it would most likely exist. Anthropologically/historically speaking, it does seem to have a strong tendency to evolve in different societies, whether you take that as the result of its inherent rationality, or merely its coincidence with human cognitive prejudices. Hinduism had and has a number of monotheistic strains (such as the Nyāya-Vaiśeșika philosophical school), as well as schools that took other approaches, including of course Buddhism itself. There are also strong theistic strains within Chinese traditions as well, focusing on Heaven or Shangdi. Ancient Greco-Roman paganism, which is one of my main areas of study, had theistic philosophical schools from fairly early on, and these became increasingly dominant (and increasingly religious) as time went on. And obviously, there are clear examples of non-theistic cultural dominance and persecution against monotheistic religions (such as the Japanese Shinto persecution of Christians, Roman persecutions of Christians, and modern-day persecutions of Islam in Myanmar) that have not proven effective at completely eradicating these beliefs.

Also, while the presence of the Jedi and their magical powers might make a difference, in fact, pagan magicians were widely believed to actually have powers in the ancient world, and most early Christians accepted as a matter of course that preternatural things were done by the pagan gods--just as many pagans accepted that the Christian god could work miracles of some sort. So I'm not sure that would make as much of a difference as you would think. The nature and results of these powers were, in fact, very important and potentially persuasive--but that's kind of besides the point here. Scientifically-validated abilities would probably be even easier to incorporate into different religious systems than otherwise.

It's also a very, very big stretch to say that the Force is identical to anything in either Taoism, Buddhism, or Hinduism. The Force is neither Darma, nor the Tao--it's a "mystical energy field generated by all living things" that also has a "Will" and "Dark and Light sides" that need to be brought back into "balance." This is neither the Tao nor Dharma nor Nirvana nor Brahman. Inasmuch as it's anything, it's a very modern American-European creation with some Orientalist influence--Hegel and Nietzsche by way of Joseph Campbell. It's the creation of a self-described "Buddhist Methodist," and was always supposed to be a Joseph-Campbell like myth big enough to vaguely reflect very different kinds of religious belief, including Christianity, Taoism, and Buddhism. It is by no means an equivalent of any of these traditions or their beliefs, though. No Buddhist believes in the Force or anything like the Force.

Though, again, I think we basically agree on the idea that the Force is and should remain the main way to deal with religion in the GFFA, and that's fine with me. Can we assume that, in the GFFA, after thousands of years of Galactic Jedi-ism most people have gotten onboard with "Force-ism," albeit possibly in different forms? Sure, but we don't have to pretend that that's necessarily realistic.

Star Wars is a story that's supposed to reflect the real world and our narrative expectations much more than be a perfectly realistic look at a galaxy-spanning civilization. The reason why we see polytheism in the GFFA is because it's a sci-fi trope (derived from Western Imperialism) that "primitive" societies are polytheistic. The reason why we don't see any recognizable theists or any recognizable Buddhists is because the Force is supposed to metaphorically "fill in" for those traditions in the fictional world of the GFFA, and also no one wants to risk messing with people by portraying real-world belief onscreen.

Would I object if we had a theistic society onscreen? No, that might actually be nice, but I still expect it (like all other real-world religious systems) to remain very much in the background. Theism predominantly exists as an influence on the depiction of the Force, not as a realistic thing in itself within the GFFA.

 

Which predated Campbell. The Force is like the Perennial Philosophy of Rene Guenon.

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Gets more complicated and concrete when you add the further metaphysics from the PT and TCW. The Living Force grows because of life, yet the Cosmic Force is the wellspring of it all.

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A lot of early Christians perceived the pagan gods to be demons-real entities but evil. So yes a second century Christian might accept a being called "Zeus" exists but would say that being is really a demon intending on deceiving those who don't believe in Jesus.

 

There's no evidence that the Force itself is scientifically provable or observable. Midi-chlorians are detectable, the effects of what the Jedi say is use of the Force is observable, but the energy field of the Force hasnt been shown to be anymore observable than chi.

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Taoism and Buddhism arent even exclusively non-theist. They can be quite polytheist in their popular forms. And they blend with theistic folk religions in the regions they are most popular. Western people tend to want to view them as strictly non-theistic philosophies, and thus brush aside very rich aspects of the traditions thay dont suit that perspective.

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That is an interesting point-with all the major wars and strange stuff going on in Legends amongst the drama of force users why wouldn't scientists and the government be interested in studying the force without the overlaid mysticism of the Jedi and Sith?

 

I just finished reading American Gods... got me thinking. I see no reason the collective belief in a god or gods in the GFFA couldnt spawn some aspect of the Force becoming manifest to said believers in that form.

Also, why does it seem implausible that the Force as a whole could have a will or sentience? Yet, we believed a planet could become sentient by way of the Force. Putting aside that the Force has a transcendent Cosmic aspect that comes off, to me, as being an origin for all things... there's no reason what our characters call the Living Force couldnt be sentient on a grander scale than Zonama Sekot or Yuuzhan-Tar. Galactic or universal scale.

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That is interesting-perhaps the Vong gods were more real than thought-perhaps a manifestation of the force bond between Yuuzhantar and the Vong?