{"id":30926,"date":"2015-07-16T06:41:27","date_gmt":"2015-07-16T10:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=30926"},"modified":"2015-07-16T06:41:27","modified_gmt":"2015-07-16T10:41:27","slug":"recognizing-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/07\/recognizing-evil.html","title":{"rendered":"Recognizing Evil"},"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 size-full wp-image-30930\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2015\/07\/Last-supper-colored-lightsabers.jpg\" alt=\"Last supper colored lightsabers\" width=\"491\" height=\"300\"><\/p>\n<p>This meme came to my attention on Facebook, and of course I had to share it, since it explores the intersection of Star Wars and Christianity.<\/p>\n<p>In Star Wars, the original plan was for lightsabers to all be the same color, but this was changed to make things more interesting. But the notion that someone\u2019s\u00a0stance on good or evil can be determined by their lightsaber color is problematic \u2013 as Star Wars on the whole seems to recognize. Anakin Skywalker has become Darth Vader well before he wields a red lightsaber.<\/p>\n<p>Recognizing evil by the time someone is wielding a red lightsaber, or killing people with any other weapon for that matter, is relatively easy. The challenge is to recognize that all of us have the same potential to carry a red lightsaber in the future, and often we\u00a0seem to genuinely believe that because of the color of our lightsaber \u2013 or the name of the religious community with which we are affiliated \u2013 we are automatically safe and on the right side.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This meme came to my attention on Facebook, and of course I had to share it, since it explores the intersection of Star Wars and Christianity. In Star Wars, the original plan was for lightsabers to all be the same color, but this was changed to make things more interesting. But the notion that someone\u2019s\u00a0stance [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":30930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[2025,3216,4054,5612,5979,6366,6585,11364],"class_list":["post-30926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-star-wars-science-fiction","tag-color","tag-evil","tag-good","tag-jedi","tag-judas","tag-last-supper","tag-lightsabers","tag-sith"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Recognizing Evil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This meme came to my attention on Facebook, and of course I had to share it, since it explores the intersection of Star Wars and Christianity. In Star\" \/>\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\/07\/recognizing-evil.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Recognizing Evil\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This meme came to my attention on Facebook, and of course I had to share it, since it explores the intersection of Star Wars and Christianity. In Star\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/07\/recognizing-evil.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-07-16T10:41:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ReligionProf\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James F. 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