Star Wars and Atheism

For some reason, I put in Return of the Jedi tonight. I had not really watched it since I'd seen the three prequels. As lacking as those films were in the character bonding that defined the first three movies, I was able to read in (and I fully accept that the following is just that) a few humanistic morals that the total of the 6 films leads to. They are as follows:

1. The Enlightened Defiance: Luke walked into Jabba's lair with the same open defiance that we saw with Obi Wan and his battle with General Grievous. In both, we saw a confrontation, despite the odds, of one fighting for his morals (the Republic/his friends) over those who were amoral (power-hungry bureaucrats/government-enabled criminals). In both, the moral individual stands defiant and wins.

2. The Enlightened Choice: When given a choice of ignoring "religious" visions of his loved one dying and of turning to the dark side, Anakin chose religious promises over reason. Those promises never came to be, only because of his religious zeal. However, Luke--after defeating his father in battle--chose certain death by the hands of a fascist zealot overlord over religious servitude, without thought of the fate of his friends.

3. The Enlightened Renouncement and Sacrifice: Vader, when given the choice of eternal life verses the life of his son, chose to renounce his religious servitude and chose instead to cast his mage down a pit. Doing so cost him his life, but he was able to remove the mask of oppressive religiosity (the mask that cost him his friends and his love) and see reality as it truly was once more before his death.

Of course with any folklore, modern or ancient, you can read into it as much as you want.