In the Star Wars saga, Darth Vader knew he was on the “Dark Side.” He even tried to convince his son about the benefits of his position. “If you only knew the power of the dark side.” Luke, of course, opposed him and aligned himself with the Jedi. Though small in number, the Jedi and Rebels sought to rid the galaxy from the tyranny of the Empire and bring justice to the Galaxy. To do so, they, like their enemies, would have to take full advantage of The Force: a ubiquitous universal potentiality powered by all life. The Force was dispassionate, though. It could be use either for good or evil depending on who mastered it.
Vader isn’t the only movie villain fully aware of his villainy. In the Lord of the Rings, the Dark Lord Sauron created and built armies for destruction. He lived in darkness, seeking power and control. In the Lion King, Scar, who, like Sauron, embraced his evil in the pursuit of power.
But that’s not how evil works. The real villains think they’re justified in what they do even to the point that they’re convinced they’re on the right side of the conflict. For example, Annie Wilkes from the movie Misery. We all saw her as a deranged fan author Paul Sheldon, but that’s not how she saw herself. She took Paul in and nurtured him. She was polite when she spoke to him. Yet she does the most horrible things to him—especially when she finds out he killed Misery Chastain, her hero in the book.
Col. Nathan R. Jessup from A Few Good Men probably comes closest to a person who knows he “looks” like a villain, but he believes he is right nonetheless. In his mind, everything he did was for the protection of his troops.
“Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it?” ... “Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives.” ... “You don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.”
This is probably the most common rhetoric of the defenders of evil. After every mass shooting, we hear them: “the death of these men and women—and children—is tragic, BUT…(insert your favorite Second Amendment must be protected at all cost myth here). “You want those guns… You need me to fight every single rule against guns.” Or “it’s tragic that people are starving, BUT it’s not the government’s responsibility to take care of them.”“You want government out of the business of helping people.”
In our real world, those who performed the greatest atrocities did so claiming “moral” reasons. Like William Stoughton, the Witch-Hunter of Salem who gave us the Salem Witch Trials. He is remembered as a man who perpetrated “a series of judicial murders that have no parallel in our history.”
Those who work for the Empire BELIEVE they’re the Jedi (but would never admit to working for the Rebels). Like us they root for Luke Skywalker against the giant “governmental” overreach. Yet they work for the Empire, which was never more clear than the opening of Star Wars VII (The Force Awakens). When the movie was released, there was an uproar due to the main character (who started out as a storm trooper) being black. Even then… they didn’t consider that they were working for the Empire.
And that’s what makes evil so difficult to combat. It’s all coming from the same place: those who view themselves as protectors of morality. We call them Evangelicals. The irony is that the “moralist” KNOW what Jesus said about their behavior. They know he commanded love and compassion when dealing with their fellow humans. They have read, and sometimes quote:
“But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?”
So why don’t they do it? Because they don’t want to—and they don’t think they have to. Why? Because of an inmate named John, imprisoned on the isle of Patmos. In 100 c.e., John put the wrong mushrooms in his Cream of Mushroom Soup, and gave the world the most vengeful and vindictive book in history—and all that vengeance would be directed against the enemies of the Moralists. So even though Jesus’ words exist in the gospels, Evangelicals ignore those in favor of the words of John of Patmos simply by claiming “it’s the same book.”
Evangelicals love to pray for people in need as a sign of their “morality.” When disaster strikes, they tweet ad nauseum their “thoughts and prayers.” But as we saw with Joel Osteen in Dallas, after Hurricane Harvey, they won’t actually DO anything. Even though the very brother of Jesus wrote an entire treatise on putting faith into action.
Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry…
The airwaves are filled with angry rhetoric, blaming all of earth’s problems on everything from gay marriage to yoga. When something happens like another mass shooting, accusations fly from the fundamentals faster than a rattlesnake striking its prey—and with just as much venom.
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says…
This goes back to the words of Jesus: Love your enemies… and yet, Evangelicals have dedicated their lives to harming those who don’t share their ideology. They want to build concentration camps for gay people, or excuse rapists if the “girl was asking for it.” They threw their entire weight behind a lying, petty, sacrilegious pussy-grabber for president.
Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
This is exactly what we saw with Joel Osteen, who offered up “prayers” for those suffering from hurricane Harvey. Or what we seen when Evangelicals tweet after mass shootings.
James forbids showing favoritism toward the rich and abusing the poor:
believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism…
When it was learned that former President Bill Clinton was given a blow job in the oval office, the keepers of morality went off their nut. Yet when Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich divorced his second wife to marry his third wife, well, he was just being super patriotic.
If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
This practically defines the moralists in our Congress. Those WITH money get representation, those without lose even what they have, with the blessing of their moralist constituents.
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you… Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty…
Nowhere is this more applicable than the man with whom the moralists have worked to make president. A man with a history of not paying wages, stiffing contractors, and taking money promised to charities for himself.
Regardless of (or because of) what James says, Evangelicals will have nothing to do with him. Martin Luther hated James so much that he used to rip the book from every bible he came across and then stomp on it. He didn’t even include it in his German translation. Jesus’ little brother is so hated among Evangelicals that they pulled their forces together to elect the very antithesis of James the Just.
As the world seeks to move forward to a place where science is accepted and humanity is embraced in all its individuality, Fundamentalists of all stripes are reaching back into a world that never was, gambling on a world that may never be, and destroying the world that is now.
They don’t react to reason, so it will do no good to reason with them. They hate facts and data because it challenges their “deeply held beliefs” and calls out their prejudice and bias. And they no longer have a concept of reality since they’ve spent so much effort trying to supplant it as a “lie straight from the pit of hell.”
In essence, all of the available mechanisms for discussion are basically useless. It’s like having the tools to build a beautiful house, but only having sand to build it with. No matter what we do, we are destined to fail due to the nature of who sand works.
Fundamentalists are gripped by fear: fear of Satan. Yet anyone who has ever read the bible can see very clearly that Satan has never been a problem. According the bible’s own numbers, God is responsible for nearly 2.5 million deaths, while Satan only ten—and those were at the beckoning of God.
In Star Wars parlance, Satan is pretty much the Rebel, while Evangelicals and Fundamentalists are storm troopers to varying to degrees. Some, like Franklin Graham and Pat Robertson pass as Willhuff Tarkin, doing the bidding of the Emperor himself, even if it means destroying entire planets.
Do we compare these people to Judas, the man who betrayed Jesus since that’s exactly what they’re doing? There’s no easy way out for us, that’s for sure. But we’ve got to do something. Our very survival as a species depends on it.
Maybe if we just start calling them what they are—Stormtroopers—that will at least force them to face their lies. They will scream and holler, and there’s no question they will use violent rhetoric. But it’s time to say, “your deeply held beliefs, without deeply validated facts are not admissible as morals and values.” They work for the Empire, and it’s time we demonstrated how their actions are exactly what the Emperor desires. And while we know they won’t work with us, we can, and must, work around them. The same “Force” that allows them to bring evil and destruction in the name of morality, is the same “Force” that will allow us to bring integrity to the planet. This thing called “God,” like The Force, is dispassionate—meaning we have as much access to it as they do.
May The Force be with us.