Admiral_Snackbar
Veni, vidi, Lionel Richie
Summer hours. Snackie not participating. Free time to post.
Some of us were going over our Treknology today, discussing the various aspects of how religion or even basic theology are touched on in Trek. NOTE: This thread is not intended to be a rehash of the belief/non-belief argument, but a rational discussion of umm, fictional belief systems. All the mods who feel this violates the current peanut butter in my chocolate dynamic, I invite you to visit zombo.com.
One of the more commonly held issues with Gene Roddenberry's idea bucket (at least by former Star Trek writers), was his penchant for injecting the same, tired humanist ideas into the show. This covered a very narrow range, to wit:
1. God is really just a highly-advanced alien race who likes to play games with lesser creatures. This is also seen in various characters such as the Q, who are portrayed as flighty, cruel or immature, child-like beings with incalculable power.
2. Primitive cultures can learn to live rational, good lives once their Vaals or Landrus are exposed for the pathetic losers they are (in both cases, ancient artificial intelligences left by advanced races that eventually went sour or became megalomaniacal).
3. God is some form of insane, megalomaniacal, non-corporeal being who was responsible for sowing the seeds of worship and then 'locked away' for its own good (This was the god character in Star Trek V and named as The One in the Q Continuum Trilogy, as a being which was obsessed with being worshipped).
You get the idea. This concept was very much liften from Heinlein's observation that "Men rarely (if ever) invent gods superior to themselves. Most gods have the morals and manners of a spoiled child." One of the interesting dynamics I found was how Next Generation took a predominantly agonostic/humanist approach, Deep Space Nine was firmly entrenched in theological arguments and Voyager just took a "meh" approach to it. I haven't garnered enough care for the Enterprise series, aside from the fact that I think Jonathan Archer thought HE was god, making for a rather boring show.
It is obvious in some episodes such as "Data's Day" that religious activities still persist in the 24th century. The Hindu Festival of lights is celebrated, and in various comics and novels we see the celebration of largely religious traditional holidays like Christmas. On the opposite end, shows like "Who Watches the Watchers" takes the perspective that all a race needs to spoil it's rationality and naturalist tendencies is an advanced alien working out some technological jibba-jabba that they haven't seen before (e.g., Clarke's Third Law). A race of prot-Vulcans live a rational, god-free, matriarchal society. When one of the Federation listening posts loses their cloak, the native sees two of then disappear in a sparkle of light; one of them is taken onto the Enterprise, healed and returned to the planet, waking up only long enough to hear "Picard". Quickly tensions rise and within the space of a few hours, the local people are already reading omens in storms and activities as having a religious significance. Once Picard demonstrates his mortality, all is set back to before, but it really addresses the idea (especially for the ancient astronaut investigators) as to whether our 'gods' were mere advanced aliens providing us with a set of morals to shape our development.
That episode messed with a lot of people, especially Picard's angry declamation that by instilling "commandments" we were returning them to "the dark ages of superstition and ignorance and fear". The interference of the Q aliens in the Next Generation made them out to be largely advanced buffoonish prankster gods, with one episode featuring Q acting like God and judging Picard's life after an unfortunate accident 'kills' him. Once the Q get to Voyager, we get the impression that they are at war with one another over their own self-imposed stagnation, finding out that within their own race they can be killed in corporeal form, or at the least can choose to become fully mortal and die (one episode dealt with the issue of a suicidal Q being imprisoned because his race wasn't ready to deal with the concept).
But once Deep Space Nine came on the scene (albeit after Roddenberry's death where the writers took a great deal of license with Gene's original futuristic dys/utopia) that all got turned on it's ear. You had the Bajorans, a race of former slaves turned terrorist, finally trying to rise above it as a Federation member, deeply tied to their religiThon and beliefs, only to find out their 'god' was actually a race of advanced non-corporeal aliens who lived outside of linear time. They 'ruled' from an artificial singularity within the star system, and many of their activites, internal skirmishes and so forth were seen as signs and portents by the Bajorans. Enter Ben Sisko, a Starfleet officer, given the task of being an emissary from the aliens and balancing this job with the task of guarding the newly discovered wormhole from various hostiles. Add in the capitalist market of the Ferengi and the trading post nature of the station...it was decidedly new Trek but still very interesting. The show had some very interesting shows around how the aliens don't always care what happens to their prophets ("Accession"), how the internal politics of the religious leadership have their own stake in the status quo ("The Reckoning"), not to mention thought policing their religion ("In the Hands of the Prophets") and the concept of the evil wormhole aliens actively possessing humanoids as pawns in vengeful attacks on the 'good' aliens ("The Assignment", "Tears of the Prophets").
The one unique take with DS9 was that the Bajorans, most of whom eventually knew their gods were simply advanced aliens, still chose to worship them as gods. I am curious if the same would happen in our world if tomorrow we discovered God, Jesus and so forth were simply advanced aliens (or even humans) intent on directing humans along a path. One story that I always found fun was an episode of the New Twilight Zone (a short-lived series on CBS in the 1980s) called "Small Talent for War" where a white-suited male alien lands in the United Nations and indicates that it has returned to destroy humans because it seems to have 'failed' as a race. It indicates that it will return in 24 hours with a decision. Thinking the alien is angered at humanity's penchant for warfare, the Assembly drastically organizes and ratifies a world peace treaty. When the alien returns, they proudly present the treaty as proof that they are civilized. The alien laughs and tsk-tsks, saying it created the human race to be a warrior caste. It was the presence of the United Nations that triggered the decision to wipe us out, the treaty merely confirmed it, and the episode ends with thousands of black spheres descending on the UN plaza to help with the 'cleansing'.
Regardless, most of us in the discussion didn't come up with any good ideas as to where Trek could go next or whether, given three more centuries, humanity would develop to such a degree with regard to concepts of deities and the supernatural. In Frank Herbert's Dune universe religion is still alive and well 8,000 years into the future, coupled with science and technology in a sort of peaceful coexistence despite all the in-fighting. Other books touch on the idea that the only beings who worshipped gods were those who were somehow wired for it, still others saying that becoming one's former god is only a matter of time, technology or biological evolution. Star Trek sort of touches on all three in various incarnations.
Ramble over
Some of us were going over our Treknology today, discussing the various aspects of how religion or even basic theology are touched on in Trek. NOTE: This thread is not intended to be a rehash of the belief/non-belief argument, but a rational discussion of umm, fictional belief systems. All the mods who feel this violates the current peanut butter in my chocolate dynamic, I invite you to visit zombo.com.
One of the more commonly held issues with Gene Roddenberry's idea bucket (at least by former Star Trek writers), was his penchant for injecting the same, tired humanist ideas into the show. This covered a very narrow range, to wit:
1. God is really just a highly-advanced alien race who likes to play games with lesser creatures. This is also seen in various characters such as the Q, who are portrayed as flighty, cruel or immature, child-like beings with incalculable power.
2. Primitive cultures can learn to live rational, good lives once their Vaals or Landrus are exposed for the pathetic losers they are (in both cases, ancient artificial intelligences left by advanced races that eventually went sour or became megalomaniacal).
3. God is some form of insane, megalomaniacal, non-corporeal being who was responsible for sowing the seeds of worship and then 'locked away' for its own good (This was the god character in Star Trek V and named as The One in the Q Continuum Trilogy, as a being which was obsessed with being worshipped).
You get the idea. This concept was very much liften from Heinlein's observation that "Men rarely (if ever) invent gods superior to themselves. Most gods have the morals and manners of a spoiled child." One of the interesting dynamics I found was how Next Generation took a predominantly agonostic/humanist approach, Deep Space Nine was firmly entrenched in theological arguments and Voyager just took a "meh" approach to it. I haven't garnered enough care for the Enterprise series, aside from the fact that I think Jonathan Archer thought HE was god, making for a rather boring show.
It is obvious in some episodes such as "Data's Day" that religious activities still persist in the 24th century. The Hindu Festival of lights is celebrated, and in various comics and novels we see the celebration of largely religious traditional holidays like Christmas. On the opposite end, shows like "Who Watches the Watchers" takes the perspective that all a race needs to spoil it's rationality and naturalist tendencies is an advanced alien working out some technological jibba-jabba that they haven't seen before (e.g., Clarke's Third Law). A race of prot-Vulcans live a rational, god-free, matriarchal society. When one of the Federation listening posts loses their cloak, the native sees two of then disappear in a sparkle of light; one of them is taken onto the Enterprise, healed and returned to the planet, waking up only long enough to hear "Picard". Quickly tensions rise and within the space of a few hours, the local people are already reading omens in storms and activities as having a religious significance. Once Picard demonstrates his mortality, all is set back to before, but it really addresses the idea (especially for the ancient astronaut investigators) as to whether our 'gods' were mere advanced aliens providing us with a set of morals to shape our development.
That episode messed with a lot of people, especially Picard's angry declamation that by instilling "commandments" we were returning them to "the dark ages of superstition and ignorance and fear". The interference of the Q aliens in the Next Generation made them out to be largely advanced buffoonish prankster gods, with one episode featuring Q acting like God and judging Picard's life after an unfortunate accident 'kills' him. Once the Q get to Voyager, we get the impression that they are at war with one another over their own self-imposed stagnation, finding out that within their own race they can be killed in corporeal form, or at the least can choose to become fully mortal and die (one episode dealt with the issue of a suicidal Q being imprisoned because his race wasn't ready to deal with the concept).
But once Deep Space Nine came on the scene (albeit after Roddenberry's death where the writers took a great deal of license with Gene's original futuristic dys/utopia) that all got turned on it's ear. You had the Bajorans, a race of former slaves turned terrorist, finally trying to rise above it as a Federation member, deeply tied to their religiThon and beliefs, only to find out their 'god' was actually a race of advanced non-corporeal aliens who lived outside of linear time. They 'ruled' from an artificial singularity within the star system, and many of their activites, internal skirmishes and so forth were seen as signs and portents by the Bajorans. Enter Ben Sisko, a Starfleet officer, given the task of being an emissary from the aliens and balancing this job with the task of guarding the newly discovered wormhole from various hostiles. Add in the capitalist market of the Ferengi and the trading post nature of the station...it was decidedly new Trek but still very interesting. The show had some very interesting shows around how the aliens don't always care what happens to their prophets ("Accession"), how the internal politics of the religious leadership have their own stake in the status quo ("The Reckoning"), not to mention thought policing their religion ("In the Hands of the Prophets") and the concept of the evil wormhole aliens actively possessing humanoids as pawns in vengeful attacks on the 'good' aliens ("The Assignment", "Tears of the Prophets").
The one unique take with DS9 was that the Bajorans, most of whom eventually knew their gods were simply advanced aliens, still chose to worship them as gods. I am curious if the same would happen in our world if tomorrow we discovered God, Jesus and so forth were simply advanced aliens (or even humans) intent on directing humans along a path. One story that I always found fun was an episode of the New Twilight Zone (a short-lived series on CBS in the 1980s) called "Small Talent for War" where a white-suited male alien lands in the United Nations and indicates that it has returned to destroy humans because it seems to have 'failed' as a race. It indicates that it will return in 24 hours with a decision. Thinking the alien is angered at humanity's penchant for warfare, the Assembly drastically organizes and ratifies a world peace treaty. When the alien returns, they proudly present the treaty as proof that they are civilized. The alien laughs and tsk-tsks, saying it created the human race to be a warrior caste. It was the presence of the United Nations that triggered the decision to wipe us out, the treaty merely confirmed it, and the episode ends with thousands of black spheres descending on the UN plaza to help with the 'cleansing'.
Regardless, most of us in the discussion didn't come up with any good ideas as to where Trek could go next or whether, given three more centuries, humanity would develop to such a degree with regard to concepts of deities and the supernatural. In Frank Herbert's Dune universe religion is still alive and well 8,000 years into the future, coupled with science and technology in a sort of peaceful coexistence despite all the in-fighting. Other books touch on the idea that the only beings who worshipped gods were those who were somehow wired for it, still others saying that becoming one's former god is only a matter of time, technology or biological evolution. Star Trek sort of touches on all three in various incarnations.
Ramble over
