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| Is Star Trek anti-God? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 27 2005, 05:06 PM (945 Views) | |
| HistoryDude | Aug 30 2005, 04:52 PM Post #16 |
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Shaken, not stirred...
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That was my understanding, too, that Rodenberry was an aethiest, or at least not very religious, and that his true vision of Star Trek was that by the 24th Century, the human race would have "evolved" out of the "need" for God, a god, or gods. Seems confirmed to me by the fact, at least in TNG, there is no mention of any Earth religion surviving...not even some break-away colony on some far-off planet, maybe in search of religious freedom or a place to preserve religious tradition un-opposed by a completely secular society. Funny that there are traditionalists mentioned who won't drink synthehol or eat food from the replicator, but there aren't any religious traditionalists?
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| Franko | Aug 30 2005, 09:44 PM Post #17 |
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Shower Moderator
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I suppose the best way to sum up this topic is with the phrase: "Secular Humanism" This is pretty well the doctrine behind TNG (most noteably) but not as much with DS9. As for Voyager and Enterprise, I couldn't really say. Roddenberry in his later years became pretty disaffected with traditional religious dogma. His original idea for the Motion Picture was in fact, much of what we saw in ST V. I read somewhere that he had sort of a "Buddhist" funeral, or at least that was what Majel insisted upon. Strangely though, Star Trek has nevertheless always been popular with religious and spiritually inclined people, as well as all those evil atheist scientists. I'm not certain whether it's anti-God so much as it is anti-Faith. Hmmm.... |
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| Coda | Aug 30 2005, 10:12 PM Post #18 |
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Commander
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It just fascinates me how people confer upon others that, what they do for a living is who they are. Maybe that's why rockstars have groupies and movie stars have whom ever...confuses them with their.....roles, and writers... |
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| gvok | Aug 31 2005, 07:48 AM Post #19 |
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Unregistered
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But Earth as depicted in ST (especially from TNG on) is pretty secular and all of the non Earth cultures with religion are presented in a somewhat quaint light. As for Q and the wormhole aliens, they are presented as merely "more powerful beings" but not really gods. I find this concept to undermine the idea of God as a wholey (holy) other entity all together and therefore undermines the legitimacy of religion IMO. |
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| who | Sep 1 2005, 04:56 PM Post #20 |
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Have light saber. Will travel.
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^^^ gvok, I agree. This is the point I have been trying to make. It seems supported by the reports that Rodenberry was an aethiest. |
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| Simon | Sep 1 2005, 05:49 PM Post #21 |
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Lieutenant Junior Grade
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For the most part, maybe...but something struck me when I was watching the end of DS9 the other day, when Cas and Ben are talking about getting married. Cas says her mother (or whatever) would prefer it if a minister married them, which made me think about just how so far religion still exists. We know that in ENT at least the Catholic church still exists (Phlox tells us he went to mass once), and DS9 suggests to me that churches still exist for marriages at least... |
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| iancook | Sep 8 2005, 05:37 PM Post #22 |
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Unregistered
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I think that Roddenberrys view was that religions were outdated and that an evolved society would have gone past needing religion. I don't think I have seen anything in Trek that was specifically against religion though. They have always been respectful to peoples beleif systems. In the end though, I think Rodenberry was a humanist and an atheist and he tried to reflect those views through Star Trek. And yes, much of the story behind Battlestar Galactica was orignally based LOOSELY on Mormon doctrine. As a member of the church, I always catch the refrences. |
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| Simon | Sep 9 2005, 10:55 AM Post #23 |
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Lieutenant Junior Grade
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Am I reading this right...you're a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints? If so, I wonder if I could beg a favour...nothing bad, don't worry. I do genealogy you see, and my great-grandfather is listed on the IGI online so I've been wondering if a member of the church could look up his ordinance details on familysearch.org for me - since not being a member of the church I can't get access to the ordinance details on there. I'm just interested in adding the details to my family tree. Anyway, back on topic. Yeah, I'd heard that about Roddenberry...but to me TOS at least was always disrespectful to alien religion at least, categorising it as due to some weird alien or computer or something. It's really odd...the future in Trek is meant to be all accepting, but Roddenberry seemed to show religion as bad as much as possible. DS9 changed that a lot (lol, as a Niner I had to say that!). |
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| Coda | Sep 9 2005, 08:24 PM Post #24 |
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Commander
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^ Would you mind telling me where ST is direspectful of religion? I mean outside the story line. Or even in the story line. It just seems to me that, stories that do not involve worshipping or give reasons for cause as God, then they ( TV; Radio; Hurricanes; SF storylines..etc..) are seen as Anti-God? Why Must everything be attributed to a God? Does the simple omission of a God as explaination mean that it is Anti-God? Can anyone tell me where to look for information that shows that ST preached anti-God propaganda? Also, for some reason, images of Anti-God propaganda strike me as something....bad? I wonder why that is? Like anti-God is bad and God is good? Why is that? |
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| who | Sep 11 2005, 10:48 AM Post #25 |
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Have light saber. Will travel.
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^^^ I am not saying Star Trek is bad because it seems anti-God or secular to me. As pointed out above, TOS had multiple shows that uncovered their society's religious beliefs were either from a computer or an alien. The Enterprise did their best to destroy the society's religious beliefs and replace it with a belief in mankind and science. Even though DS9 appeared religious, it was all based on the aliens in the wormhole. I think if one does not believe in God (is secular) then Star Trek supports this. For those that do believe in God there is a subtle attack on God. All science fiction is a fantasy and takes us away from the past which we may not like and projects the solutions to our problems into the future. In this future God is not very relevant as problems are solved by mankind and science. I think there are two ways to look for truth and reality. One is to look within and to God. The other is to look without to science. To the extent that something increases our belief or faith in finding the truth without in science we turn our attention away from looking within to God. |
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| LoriCiani | Sep 12 2005, 07:17 PM Post #26 |
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"Effective against all things... except wood!"
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I thought that when TOS went into the debunking bit it was because the "god" in question was restricting or even reversing the progress of its subjects. Therefore the "god" was making the people of the planet suffer needlesly so it was not a true God. The entity in STV gave a big clue to who that "god" was when he said something like,"For an eternity I have been imprisoned in this place." Isn't there passages out of the bible that talks about the Devil being able to turn himself into an angel of light and in Revelations it talks about the wee man (as Scottish people call him,) being imprisoned in a lake of fire? You cant make such references to the wee man without a basic beleif that the eternal being exists...can you? Then at the end of STV Kirk says that maybe god is in the human heart? Well...I have heard that Mr Rodenberry was an atheist. But could he of been-like my father-a "thank god I'm an atheist"?
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1:50 PM Jul 11