{"id":30656,"date":"2015-10-16T06:00:46","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T10:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=30656"},"modified":"2015-10-16T06:00:46","modified_gmt":"2015-10-16T10:00:46","slug":"the-tao-of-star-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/10\/the-tao-of-star-wars.html","title":{"rendered":"The Tao of Star Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-30657\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2015\/06\/The-Tao-of-Star-Wars.jpg\" alt=\"The Tao of Star Wars\" width=\"467\" height=\"467\"><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.themarysue.com\/in-defense-of-the-star-wars-prequels-let-go-of-your-hate\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Mike Chen<\/a> wrote an article recently in defense of the Star Wars prequels. The second point on the list of things he appreciates about them is the moral ambiguity, the introduction of more in the way of shades of grey. I would argue that that is there in the original trilogy too. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/10\/star-wars-yin-yang.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">My view of the outlook of Star Wars is that it is more Taoist than Zoroastrian<\/a>. But George Lucas himself has said things that sound as though he thinks in terms of good vs. evil rather than genuine balance between two opposing forces neither of which is good if taken to an extreme.<\/p>\n<p>See further \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/feelingtheforce.wordpress.com\/2015\/08\/24\/star-wars-and-religion\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Kate Daley-Bailey\u2019s blog post<\/a> on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.equinoxpub.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/star-wars-and-religion\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Star Wars and religion<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/10\/more-star-wars-icons.html#dq\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">discussion here on this blog recently<\/a>, as well as my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/10\/star-wars-yin-yang.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">many<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/01\/yoda-buddha-obi-wan-and-confucius.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">past<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/04\/star-wars-and-religion.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">blog<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/03\/redemption-in-star-wars-and-christianity.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">posts<\/a> about the topic.<\/p>\n<p>Of related interest, don\u2019t miss the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theofantastique.com\/2011\/05\/01\/avril-hannah-jones-on-faith-and-fantasy-behind-the-scenes-in-the-church-of-latter-day-geeks\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">interview with Avril Hannah-Jones that appeared on Theofantastique<\/a> a few years ago.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-31590\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2015\/07\/Vader-in-the-pulpit.jpg\" alt=\"Vader in the pulpit\" width=\"471\" height=\"265\"><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mike Chen wrote an article recently in defense of the Star Wars prequels. The second point on the list of things he appreciates about them is the moral ambiguity, the introduction of more in the way of shades of grey. I would argue that that is there in the original trilogy too. My view of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":30657,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,95],"tags":[2877,3216,4054,11822,12265,12266,13955,13986,14082],"class_list":["post-30656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-star-wars-science-fiction","category-taoism","tag-dualism","tag-evil","tag-good","tag-star-wars","tag-tao","tag-taoism","tag-yang","tag-yin","tag-zoroastrianism"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Tao of Star Wars<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Mike Chen wrote an article recently in defense of the Star Wars prequels. The second point on the list of things he appreciates about them is the moral\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/10\/the-tao-of-star-wars.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Tao of Star Wars\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mike Chen wrote an article recently in defense of the Star Wars prequels. The second point on the list of things he appreciates about them is the moral\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/10\/the-tao-of-star-wars.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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