It's a particularly unsexy religion. They don't have a clue wtf is going on half the time, who the prophets are, what they could possibly want. Plus unlike the problems with reinterpreting static texts and doctrines brand new stuff can happen at any time thanks to the orbs.. only even the people it happens to have no clear idea what it meant. It's only their passivity that keeps them from exploding into a civil war of cult leaders hearing different agendas from the prophets. They are an oddly civil people, to their undoing at times but it's also been a strength.
I think the whole concept got too loopy. At first they were these mysterious aliens, who were hard to figure out, and it did look like Bajor was on the verge of planet wide religious fanaticism and infighting. Then it settles down, everyone believes in the same way. Later they introduce the Pah Wraiths- former Prophets that were evil and gave Bajorans 'false visions'. One of them possesses Keiko and tries to resume their celestial war with the Prophets. It was obvious Trek was trying to create a similarity between the biblical demons from the bible. Then later they introduced 'The Evil One', Kosst Amojan, which is obvious an analogy to Satan. They have a supernatural showdown in front of everybody, so even the mysteriousness is gone. Was DS9 trying too hard to draw a parallel between the Bajoran religion and the bible? I always found the Prophets interesting, but the supernatural, spiritual showdon at the end was a bit too much for me. I wondered if they could written the whole thing in a different way, ala Star Wars, or in some other Sci Fi Way.
I honestly think The Reckoning is a horrible blight on the story. But I was cool about the fire caves
Satan is present in all the Abrahamic religions, and not just the Christian. Demons too, although they appear in other beliefs in different forms. The parallels between the polytheistic Bajorian beliefs and the Bible are pretty thin. One of the tenets of the Bajorian faith might be the process of constant revelations. They simply accept that information is going to be trickling in over time. Thousands of years. it's all part of the whole.
Maybe in all Abrahamic religions, but in an alien one millions of miles away? I can see if the Pah Wraiths simply had a different agenda than the Prophets, and didn't care about corporeal beings one way or the other. But they specifically had to be evil. And with the flames and the red color...because blue equals peaceful, and red equals evil dontcha know Here's a quote of how the whole thing got started; And then their motive-they go from mysterious alien energy beings unconcerned with our realm, to wanting to conquer it; I wonder if they could have told the story in another way, without the religious analogies. I like weird story telling, something totally different, like how they did with the Force in Star Wars and such.
Nothing. That's the point - he's not half prophet (although he did ascend that wasn't presented as being unique to him), but he always had been, always would be the Sisko. Sarah was possessed by the Prophet to create Sisko because there had to be a Sisko because they meet him when he comes into the wormhole in his future (but their present).
Too be fair, the Bajoran religion seems like a combination of Eastern and Abrahamic religions. Sure they have demons like most of the Abrahamic religions did, but the Bajoran religion is polytheistic, rather monotheistic. Also even Eastern religions have concepts of demons: in Shintoism you have Tengus and Oni demons, in Norse mythology you had ice giants and trolls and other mythological evil creatures. Also the Bajoran religion seemed to have a caste system at one point, similar to the Hindu caste system. So the Bajoran religion is not just based off Abrahamic religions.
But even down to the Evil = Red Colors, thing? And the fire. Evil has to be represented by something, but the red and fire equals evil is presented as an actual attribute of the Pah Wraiths, as opposed to a religious concept given to them by the Bajorans. One of my favorite scenes is when Sisko is begging the Prophets to 'act like gods' and do something to save Bajor if not the entire Alpha Quadrant. Back then they were mysterious aliens barely interested in corporeal matters. But then they morphed a bit into the deeply religious analogies, which is not bad, but at the end seemed too obvious.
It's been awhile since I watched those episodes, but wasn't that the gist of it? That she basically "swept into" Joseph's life one day from out of nowhere and Ben found out she'd sought him out?
Yes but why? Why does it have to be her and not the woman he did marry? The prophets have that retarded cylon thing going on where they just make people do stuff with no seeming understanding of the effect it has.
Because that's who it is. Think of it as a fixed point in time, if that helps. As non-linear beings, for the Prophets both things - meeting Ben and sending Sarah to Joseph so that Ben would be conceived - were happening in the "now."
They are jerks, kidnapping Sarah to have sex against her will for the purpose of breeding. How would the Bajorans retcon this into being something grand.. it would be like the holy spirit impregnates unwed teenager deal. At least Mary got two millennia of veneration for her trouble. Sarah had to flee to Australia (typical) and then got killed off. They did not care about their precious vessel one bit, she had all the value of a jam jar.
and on top of the unethical part of it, it really added nothing significant to the story or to Sisko's character. A completely unnecessary and rather unpleasant retcon.
Especially when you consider that they did it for themselves, for some strange purpose that happens millions of miles away. They honestly don't care about humanoids, Bajorans or whatever, in the purest sense of the term. "Corporeal matters do not concern us" = they don't care. Which brings up the issue (yet again) of the Bajorans possibly wasting their time worshiping beings that are barely aware of them. You can bring up the Orbs, but they may have been simple information gathering devices-- Quark was a greedy S.O.B and he had an Orb experience. Other people who wanted to obtain information or enlightenment got nothing. It's nice to know that your gods exist, but whether they care about you is whole different thing. It's like the UFO debate; even if we can prove they exist, then the questions is; so what, how does that make my life any better?
And if you read the actual dialogue between Mary and the angel in the Bible, Mary is actually asked and gives clear consent of her own will, before the Holy Spirit impregnates her. If the writers of DS9 meant to parallel that, then they clearly forgot that verrrry important part of the equation. It indeed makes the Prophets either amoral in the literal sense or actually having an evil streak.
I'm not arguing the morality of what they did, just the why. I don't even know if morality as we understand it applies to such beings - Blue and Orange morality would seem to apply to them. But yes, the Prophets were jerks to Sarah.
Sarah came in for the same reason the Borg Queen came in... someone decided it was a good idea to give the Prophets a single face and voice. Naturally the same failings of this idea apply too.
Just reminded me how much DS9 disappointed in season 6-7 once they went too far with the loopy Sisko's mum was possessed by a prophet nonsense, never mind the ridiculous pah-wraith fire cave stuff. Ugh.