The concept of a Saint and also of a Jedi Knight is obviously similar, both represent an elite group dedicated to righteousness, but also both are completely fictious and made-up. It is, I hope, not only an obvious, but also a justifiable comparison.
Ah but wait a moment, what the heck is a saint? No seriously, what does this word actually mean, and where has this strange concept come from? Yes, I’m thinking about a specific leader of a well-known belief-system that appears to be on the road to being numbered among these religious super-stars, a sort of religious Jedi knight … anyway, before I go there, I’m first asking what this term actually means.
A quick search of Google soon reveals that a “Saint” is a “Holy” person, and so that clears it up then … er no, because I honestly have no idea what the term “Holy” means. Well yes, most of us think we know, but I’m suggesting that we don’t really know, its just another bit of meaningless religious babble.
Now, just to make it a bit more complex, it turns out that when this word is used in the Bible, it does not describe some specific special select group, but is instead a generic term used to collectively describe all christians. In fact, the Greek word used in the original text is aègiov, and thats a word used by the Greeks to describe those dedicated to the Gods. (Dam, its hard work trying to de-crypt all this religious jargon, often all you get in reply is yet more meaningless religious jargon).
So anyway, what becomes clear is that a generic term used to describe all who decided to commit their lives to God, soon evolved into a term used to describe a select group of humans who had ascended after death to the role of minor deities. OK, lets be specific, I’m thinking Orthodox, Catholic and high-Anglican, many others would deem such a belief to be blasphemy. So how did this come about? You need to understand that this was once a world where many embraced a wide array of household deities, so as Christian belief expanded, they got smart and simply re-brand these non-Christian deities as saints, then label such folks “Christian”. In reality nothing actually changes, so everybody is happy.
Now, on to the latest news. Apparently the previous incumbent in the Vatican is well-down the road to being identified as a God (Oh sorry, I better use the official term, a Saint). In fact, he has even had other truly good a saintly men such as Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe turn up to grant his approval. Yes well, birds of a feather and all that … so I guess its quite appropriate for one dictator to turn up and grant his approval to the ultimate celestial dictator.
Now, its at this point that I might be tempted to rattle off a long list of reasons why the recognition of John Paul II as a “saint” would not be appropriate. However, doing so would imply that this completely fictitious position of sainthood actually means something, when in fact it is a meaningless concept, so they might as well recognise him as a Jedi Knight, its no different. Then again, perhaps I might object to that, after all we really don’t want the good name of Jedi knight sullied with any association with a truly crazy and utterly immoral belief system.