"Only a Sith deals in absolutes"..?

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Do you remember this Star Wars quote from episode 3?..
Obi Wan, after being told by the recently-turned-evil Anakin that “if he’s not with [him], he is [his] enemy”, replies that “Only Sith (basically the most evil people in the galaxy) deal in absolutes”

However…Jesus says pretty much the same thing as Anakin does in thr Gospels… (Matthew 12:30)

So…what? Should I consider it offensive or just
…look at it within the movie’s context (and overall common sense that black and white morality is almost always bad)?
 
I say consider it part of the poorly written script of the Star Wars prequels and don’t get hung up on the moral implications.

-Fr ACEGC
 
LiquidMan said:
Do you remember this Star Wars quote from episode 3?..
Obi Wan, after being told by the recently-turned-evil Anakin that “if he’s not with [him], he is [his] enemy”, replies that “Only Sith (basically the most evil people in the galaxy) deal in absolutes”

However…Jesus says pretty much the same thing as Anakin does in thr Gospels… (Matthew 12:30)

So…what? Should I consider it offensive or just
…look at it within the movie’s context (and overall common sense that black and white morality is almost always bad)?
Click to expand...
They only had Obi-Wan say it because they thought it sounded cool.
 
I can’t speak for what the creator of Star Wars had in mind when they wrote that. Who knows what they were thinking or wanting to ‘teach’- if anything- we must remember its a story, not a life script. I didn’t really want to comment on this because I find it somewhat silly to since its fiction, but I can see where you might be worried about implied meaning and its effects on the soul…

Well, I can say this… Didn’t the Pharisees deal with absolutes? As in, they were more worried about the following the rule for selfish reason and for keeping power rather than following the one who made the rule? The rules were absolute to them, so much they immediately found fault with things that there was no real fault for, , such as in Matthew 12:
Code: 
  1At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. 2But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath.” 3But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he became hungry, he and his companions, 4how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests alone? 5“Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent? 6“But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. 7“But if you had known what this means, ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.
Also Matthew 23 describes the Pharisees…

23Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay tithes of mint, dill, and cumin, but you have disregarded the weightier matters of the Law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. 25Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence…"
Are not these 'sith' those that want and desire power just as to the Pharasees, there dedication to the absolutes was all about self? So much so they became perverted in attaining it? If something is in their way or threatened their ideals they destroy it. Their absolutes lacked compassion. I would suppose that is what Lucas (or whomever wrote the script) meant, and that that lack perverted them... I don't know that much about Star Wars, though I watched the original series a long time ago.... (in this galaxy not so far away). ;) I'm not familiar with the quote you wrote about, or which movie it is from or its context, so I could be wrong, but that's my take.
 
Remember when The Phantom Menace came out in 1999, there was a line when Qui-Gon asked Anakin’s mother who is his father, she saud: “there was no father. I carried him, I gave birth. I can’t explain what happened”, it was interpreted that George Lucas was trying to make Anakin, the Star Wars Jesus, and there was a huge controversy and articles were written against it.

In Episode III, Lucas kinda fix it when in the opera, Emperor Palpatine told Anakin’s about Darth Plagueis, his master, that could influence midi-chlorians to create life and many people went with the idea that Anakin was a result of Plagueis’s experiments and not born of immaculate conception in order not to anger Christians but in Luca’s mind and poor writing skills he is a Savior figure.

Yes, I am a Star Wars nerd, I wish I stayed that and never went to the dark side.
 
I wouldn’t take my moral values from Star Wars, especially the prequels. 😃
 
Thanks for clarification guys. This doubt came from this page I found (don’t ask me how…I don’t know): vigilantchristian.org/starwars.html
As a side note…do you think anything this guy is saying is real - and I’m in deep you-know-what - or is he just being scrupolous and misinformed?
 
LiquidMan said:
Do you remember this Star Wars quote from episode 3?..
Obi Wan, after being told by the recently-turned-evil Anakin that “if he’s not with [him], he is [his] enemy”, replies that “Only Sith (basically the most evil people in the galaxy) deal in absolutes”

However…Jesus says pretty much the same thing as Anakin does in thr Gospels… (Matthew 12:30)

So…what? Should I consider it offensive or just
…look at it within the movie’s context (and overall common sense that black and white morality is almost always bad)?
Click to expand...
It’s the influence of moral realativism in the Star Wars philosophy.
Star Wars is not a Christian theology.
It’s a movie. Written by people who know less about theology and philosophy than your average CaF poster.
It’s a great story. Period.

This also came from the prequels that gave us jar jar and midichlorians . So there’s that…
 
JosephHope said:
Remember when The Phantom Menace came out in 1999, there was a line when Qui-Gon asked Anakin’s mother who is his father, she saud: “there was no father. I carried him, I gave birth. I can’t explain what happened”, it was interpreted that George Lucas was trying to make Anakin, the Star Wars Jesus, and there was a huge controversy and articles were written against it.

In Episode III, Lucas kinda fix it when in the opera, Emperor Palpatine told Anakin’s about Darth Plagueis, his master, that could influence midi-chlorians to create life and many people went with the idea that Anakin was a result of Plagueis’s experiments and not born of immaculate conception in order not to anger Christians but in Luca’s mind and poor writing skills he is a Savior figure.

Yes, I am a Star Wars nerd, I wish I stayed that and never went to the dark side.
Click to expand...
George Lucas once told TIME magazine he was a Buddhist and the Buddha is supposed to have had no human father, his mother being impregnated by a white elephant in a dream. The context of America makes people think of the Virgin Birth in Christianity.
 
It’s just a stupid quote from a not so great movie. Star Wars isn’t supposed to make you think, anyway. Not to mention it’s a self-refuting statement, since it is itself an absolute statement.

People love to dust off the old relativism chestnut when dealing with stuff they don’t like (Chiefly regarding procreation), but bring up something they’re passionate about (the environment, business ethics), and they’ll find a way to make it everyone’s problem.
 
I liked the prequels, but that line didn’t make sense however ye look at it.
 
LiquidMan said:
Do you remember this Star Wars quote from episode 3?..
Obi Wan, after being told by the recently-turned-evil Anakin that “if he’s not with [him], he is [his] enemy”, replies that “Only Sith (basically the most evil people in the galaxy) deal in absolutes”

However…Jesus says pretty much the same thing as Anakin does in thr Gospels… (Matthew 12:30)

So…what? Should I consider it offensive or just
…look at it within the movie’s context (and overall common sense that black and white morality is almost always bad)?
Click to expand...
There is also Luke 9:50 (and Mark 9:40) which say the opposite - “whoever is not against us is for us”.

Perhaps we’re not supposed to get so hung up on taking sides?

To say nothing of those who are simply neutral, of course 😃
 
LilyM said:
There is also Luke 9:50 (and Mark 9:40) which say the opposite - “whoever is not against us is for us”.

Perhaps we’re not supposed to get so hung up on taking sides?

To say nothing of those who are simply neutral, of course 😃
Click to expand...
You’re probably right. After all, I just found out that Bush said the same phrase to start the War on Terror…
I doubt Jesus would have approved 😃
 
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