In this case, I will tend to agree.
Star Trek Discovery Writing Staff
- Thread starter The Habs Fan
- Start date
That depends on which “traditional take” you’re referring to. TOS made it pretty clear that Earth has a dominant monotheistic religion (though whether or not it’s explicitly Christian I couldn’t say). TNG and forward went the atheist route. I don’t think we can assume which of those two the writers will go with.
You misunderstand me. I'm not a believer myself, but I have a very diverse assortment of friends, many of whom are in fact adherents of a variety of different faiths. The fact that I don't agree with them doesn't mean I don't respect them. I certainly don't think everyone in the world has to think like me. Diversity is a good thing, and I embrace it. They're free to believe as they wish, and I would never think of suggesting otherwise.
Fundamentalism is another thing entirely (Christian or otherwise). The kind of people who adopt that kind of religious dogma have turned off their critical thinking faculties and rejected reason. They do think everyone else needs to think like them. They do not respect diversity. IDIC has never meant abandoning logic, and building an open pluralistic society has never meant endorsing the kinds of beliefs that are antithetical to such a society, or the kind of people who would tear it down.
There is a world of difference between writers who happen to be Christians, and writers who have specialized in writing apocalyptic literalist Christian schlock. The latter type have nothing constructive to contribute to Star Trek, or indeed to any genuinely thoughtful discussion of "science vs. faith." Dominionist theology and eschatological literalism are real things, and they're dangerous.
Oh, please, TOS did no such thing. There was that one tacky line given to Kirk in "Who Mourns for Adonais," which otherwise is thematically very much a rebuke to the concept of worshipping anyone or anything, and there was the even more cringeworthy line at the end of "Bread and Circuses," which just added another anvil to the already anvilicious "historical parallels" of a generally terrible episode. Beyond those, it was clear in TOS that the Federation was a society in which people were free to believe and practice whatever they might wish (just as in the movies — e.g., "Vulcan mysticism" — and the TNG/DS9 era — e.g., the Bajoran prophets), but there was never any indication that educated, informed Federation citizens took religious doctrines to be anything other than mythology.
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I happen to 100% completely agree with what you wrote there!
I'm not a believer myself, yet religion in general, and Western Christianity especially, are great sources for stories and meaningfull discussion about life and the universe. Funny thing: Both "Ben Hur" and "The Life of Brian" are two of my absolute favourite movies of all time. Both tackle the topic from wildly different angles, and take completely different conclusions out of it - yet both are very enlightening about faith and religion and the human relationship towards it.
But! If you want to tell a story about religion - you still need someone who has something profound to say in the first place. Hiring guys that write low-budget fundamentalist christian schlock to churn out for a gullbile audience in the mid-west is NOT going to add anything meaningfull to the discussion. It would be like hiring a Fox News commentator to illuminate various aspects of the constitution: Whatever he has to say, it's probably both shallow and hypocritical.
I see no merit in hearing the opinion of people that are unable to see the bible as either a metaphor or a work of history, and instead take it at face value. I already know what they want to say. It's like a fifth grader arguing with a scientist about math. Ironically, those people that are the most TRUE belivers, usually are the same people that haven't read the bible in the first place. And don't even know their own canon, except for the excerpts their own televangelist twists his talking points out of...
I think, that when people do a bad job of depicting an idea, it's generally because they don't understand/agree with the idea.
Star Trek made a really compelling case for humanism, ethics, and democracy. I wonder if post-modern writers who see everything as an equally valid "narrative", can really have any passion for, say, democracy.
This is what, in industry parlance, they used to call having a "creative vision".
if you want to have a good discusssion of religion vs science you need to involve people who are believers who can bring their viewpoint with them even if you disagree. And to your example if you wanted to do a good political show you would need people from both sides (which could include fox news).
To do otherwise you run the risk of one side just being presented as a staw man to beat up on without accurately presenting their opinions. The show "The West Wing" which I love fell into this trap a few times where they tried to present conservative opinions but written by liberal writers and you get charactatures often when you do that because it becomes what a liveral would think a conservative would say. And back to this point having an athetist write about what a christian would think or feel isn't likely to get you anything close to reality.
Oh! I absolutely agree! But you in any case, you need to include people that posess the skill of critical thinking and even sometimes doubt in their position. Only then you can have a meaningfull argument. Otherwise it becomes a set of narrow-minded people spewing talkking points at each other (kinda' what DIS did in the season finale...).
Martin Scorsese is a deeply religious man. And I adore his stuff! I disagree with Clint Eastwood on a variety on issues. But that man enriches the debate with profound viewpoints every time! OTOH I wouldn't expect anything insightful of some numbnuts churning out hardcore fundamentalist Christian self-affirmation low budget propaganda movies. Might as well invite climate change deniers to a climate conference - it's going to add nothing to the table. At a point where the debate has already well moved on - and people start debating about weighing and assessing the facts, and discussing the benefits and doubts about different kinds of solutions - those numbnuts will continually try to start discussions about the basic, underlaying facts again.
What I'm saying: It's stupid to start a discussion about a topic, if you don't want or know how to exactly discuss that topic. You need to bring in people that have a deep understanding of the topic, and alsoa talent in writing about it - otherwise it becomes boring preaching, or worse - a listing of pre-existing talking points. If you're going to fumble a topic anyway, it might actually be better not to start it anyway, and focus on something that's actually your (the writers) strenght - before presenting something shallow and stupid.
That was my point. If you only bring in peopel to write who believe in the science side of things then you are not going to be able to write a narrative that is believable unless you go the preachy route of religion is bad. there is only science which isn't a debate like they are claiming they are going to do in season 2. You need the other opinions and yes somebody who is a hardcore christian can bring something to a discussion of faith vs science because he is very firmly on one side of the issue that you want to protray.
It is going to be very difficult for them to deal with this topic well and present both sides as reasonable options and not get preachy. I don't envy them for trying to do it but starting by getting differing points of view in the writing room is a good start.
You don't need to be religious to understand religion intimately either. Many atheists were believers in one religion or another. Some atheists are familiar with the deeply emotional quality of religion, the complex theology, the nuance, but still chose to reject it on one ground or another; so to discount their experiences of religion as less worthy than a current believer sounds rather presumptive. Hiring a writer of apocalyptic millenarian fiction to represent the nuance of religious belief (if that is what is even happening) is worrying in that it lends voice to a viewpoint simply because it is in opposition; like people who argue creationism should get "equal time" to natural selection in a school. They don't get equal time for a very good reason; one is education rooted in critical thinking, the other is an uncritical apologetic.
The fact of the matter is that the only honest answer a human can give to the question "is your religion factually correct" is "I don't know". They are by nature unprovable. That is where the "science vs. religion debate" ends, despite all the nuance of religious belief. If you find that simple truth a "preachy" standpoint to take, then I must say thats something that can't be avoided, because western civilization is founded on critical thinking; as soon as that disappears, so does democracy, freedom of press, and other institutions that protect us from the worst of human nature.
Am I the only one who notices they hired a Christian theological perspective, as opposed to say, a Taoist or Shintoist or Hindu one? Seems potentially regressive, if the de facto assumption of DSC was that a 'religious perspective' would mean a specifically monotheistic Abrahamic one, in a world with 2-3 billion followers of non-Semitic religions. But it also highlights how this debate is never about fairness to begin with; if you have a standpoint, and you should stand for it; if you want to understand the other side's perspective to give your standpoint nuance, put in the effort to learn about it yourself, not delegate the search for truth to another.
The fact of the matter is that the only honest answer a human can give to the question "is your religion factually correct" is "I don't know". They are by nature unprovable. That is where the "science vs. religion debate" ends, despite all the nuance of religious belief. If you find that simple truth a "preachy" standpoint to take, then I must say thats something that can't be avoided, because western civilization is founded on critical thinking; as soon as that disappears, so does democracy, freedom of press, and other institutions that protect us from the worst of human nature.
Am I the only one who notices they hired a Christian theological perspective, as opposed to say, a Taoist or Shintoist or Hindu one? Seems potentially regressive, if the de facto assumption of DSC was that a 'religious perspective' would mean a specifically monotheistic Abrahamic one, in a world with 2-3 billion followers of non-Semitic religions. But it also highlights how this debate is never about fairness to begin with; if you have a standpoint, and you should stand for it; if you want to understand the other side's perspective to give your standpoint nuance, put in the effort to learn about it yourself, not delegate the search for truth to another.
I very much doubt it, but I don't think there's anything they could do to break the franchise as much as turning the mycelial network into "god," having Culber come back from the dead and having experienced the afterlife, etc.
I mean, little "gods" are fine - Trek is littered with them (particularly in TOS, but also Q, the Prophets, etc). Individual alien races which are religious are fine. I'd also actually like it if we discover that there still are humans who are religious (Chakotay's weird mystical mumbo-jumbo doesn't count, IMHO, because there's no evidence that it was anything beyond what a atheist Buddhist does with meditation). But actually bringing a creator god into the Trekverse fundamentally breaks the original intent so dramatically I think a lot of people would ragequit.
I mean, little "gods" are fine - Trek is littered with them (particularly in TOS, but also Q, the Prophets, etc). Individual alien races which are religious are fine. I'd also actually like it if we discover that there still are humans who are religious (Chakotay's weird mystical mumbo-jumbo doesn't count, IMHO, because there's no evidence that it was anything beyond what a atheist Buddhist does with meditation). But actually bringing a creator god into the Trekverse fundamentally breaks the original intent so dramatically I think a lot of people would ragequit.
I would say that one of the interesting things about how The West Wing handled conservative characters was that it usually depicted them as more intelligent and reasonable than actual real-world conservative politicians, making better and more honest arguments for their positions. It certainly wasn't straw-manning them... if anything it did the exact opposite.
(Of course, Aaron Sorkin is one of the most talented screenwriters working today. If DSC had anyone remotely of his caliber involved next season, I wouldn't be worried about any themes the show took on.)
As for the people actually doing DSC... think of it like this: you can't take religion seriously if you take it literally. The two approaches are simply not compatible. For instance, when it comes to (nonfiction) writing on topics like, say, theology or religious history, I consistently find that atheist writers who've studied the subject without bias do a far better job than practitioners of Christian apologetics.
FYI, Sorkin is a great writer and a great producer but a very bad showrunner - a lot of his themes and character archetypes tend to get overused unless he has a good writing and creative staff to bounce his ideas off. I loved the West Wing but often times it got preachy and repetitive. Just look at Newsroom - fantastic potential, mediocre show (I lost interest halfway through S1).
Ainsley Hayes? Arnold Vinick? Albie Duncan? Joe Quincy? Bruno Gianelli? Sheila Brooks? Bob Mayer? Glen Allen Walken? Christopher Mulready? Those weren't reasonable and fair depictions of conservatives?
Promise?
If you look past the historical inaccuracies of Reign (I.e, Mary was a six-foot redhead, not a 5'3 raven-haired lass), it is surprisingly addictive and decently crafted. Yes it is a Elizabethan-era soap opera, but it doesn't pretend to be anything other then that and it does what it sets out to do quiet well.
So it set expectations, achieved them and that's still a failure?