Star Wars Is Becoming a Religion, and May 4 Is Its Spring Festival

[trotsky]

https://www.wired.com/story/star-wars-day-religious/

It’s not even that good a play on words: May the Fourth Be With You. That’s all it takes to have a holiday? A pun?

The joke at least has been around almost as long as Star Wars itself; official Star Wars doctrine traces the etymology to an ad congratulating Margaret Thatcher on the day she won the election to become Prime Minister of Britain in 1979, just two years after the first movie premiered. It's weird enough that Official Star Wars—which is to say, the Walt Disney Company, that most transnational of transnational culture-production oligopolies—has anything at all to say about Star Wars Day. Unlike the officially sanctioned Star Wars Celebration conventions, May 4th is a grassroots phenomenon. Its elevation to informal holiday didn’t come until the mid to late 2000s, and now it’s a day of branded-and-pegged sales of paraphernalia, festival showings of movies, Bundt cakes made to look like Sarlaccs in the Great Pit of Carkoon, and SEO-driven, barely lukewarm (hah, Luke warm) takes from generally respectable digital journalism outlets. So bah, humbug! Or however you say that in the binary language of moisture vaporators.

...

Christians had been fighting about Easter since at least the 150s, because even though the holiday celebrates Christ’s Resurrection, its origins go back much further. The holiday itself descends from the Jewish Pesach, Passover. Some Christians connected Christ to the sacrificial Paschal Lamb and celebrated Easter after Passover, whatever day of the week that fell upon. Others wanted it on a Sunday, no matter what.

...

There’s no equating sci-fi fandom to any faith held by millions or billions of people around the world. At least, not today. But all those faiths began somewhere. They all had to decide what unified them—what prayers to say, what tenets to hold, what values they shared...and when to celebrate their holidays.

[jes06c]

1. If Star Wars is a religion does that make George Lucas God?

[Voltaire2]

6. No it makes him Paul.

[MineralMan]

2. Imagine that! A religion based on human-created fiction!

Who would have thought it to be possible?

At least the Harry Potter thing never really caught on. After a few times waving a wand and speaking spells with no results, most children abandoned that new religion.

I guess people will have to go back to praying to an invisible, non-evidential deity for stuff and hoping that works.

[longship]

3. Must be the midi-chlorians.

Eliminate them and they'd all be atheists.

[OhZone]

4. Oh, For God's Sake -

Get a life!

[Major Nikon]

5. Already covered

[Act_of_Reparation]

7. It makes sense.

I could very easily see most religions evolving from innocent, entertaining stories the ancients told around campfires to pass the time.