Prophets are bajorans...

The Founders are considered Gods by the Vorta.
Crazyewok said that there were no Gods in Trek and that in his/her opinion.......
I was stating my opinion.
In my opinion the prophets are Gods.

 

I was stating my opinion, like I said.

Reading skills people, reading skills.

 

That's fine. Star Trek Canon explicitly does not consider them, nor the Changelings, nor the members of the Q, nor any advanced race with either native "magical" powers or considerable technological abilities to be gods.

 

People are free to interpret art any way they like, but Clarke's third law is a recurring theme on Star Trek and quite central to the whole Bajor joining the Federation arc. I never thought there was any intended ambiguity for the audience as to whether or not the prophets are "wormhole aliens" or "Bajoran gods", they were aliens whom the Bajorans worshipped as gods. But DS9 was always a lot more metaphysical than the rest of Star Trek and considering what Ron D. Moore went on to do, maybe that ambiguity is there after all.

 

Silly debate, IMO. What *is* a god or goddess except a being who has a significantly larger ability to directly influence reality than you? Apollo was an alien, sure - but we actually also KNOW he was a god.

Regarding the OP, not to toot my own horn, but I've actually thought this since shortly after the first airing of the premiere of DS9. Seemed logical.

 

The Bajoran sure consider them a Gods. So they can be Gods TO the Bajorans. To the audience they are four dimensional aliens.

True Godhood requires transcendence of scientific explanation. Nothing in Star Trek is beyond “Science we happen not to understand”.

 

I don't think we ever got even a technobabel explanation of why Q can do what they do.

 

Then, what is the exact Trek "definition" of a god the conditions of which all these fail to meet? After all, even if you were to forward the blanket statement "no gods (as such) exist in Trek", you'd still have to start from (at least an implicit/informal/intuitive) definition of what that 'godhood' is supposed to be, otherwise saying that such beings do not exist does not carry much meaning.

If you go for the more operational stance: 'we don't need to know what it is, as long as Trek says these aren't gods it's good enough', then still it would be interesting to know exactly what the implicit definition of a 'god' behind Trek lore would be.

As far as TNG and TOS are concerned, I at least agree with you they seem to proceed from a 'humanistic' point of view, however vaguely defined. DS9 might as well, but adds a more pluralistic viewpoint to it 'We consider beings x as advanced aliens, but species y considers them gods; who's to say whether either our or species' y perception is correct or not?' - At least that seems to be the stance on the wormhole aliens, the view that the Founders might be gods seems to be taken less seriously by "our" heroes.

 

Maybe they just played with Sisko for some reason and only pretended to be clueless about linear time to bring him on his way to fulfil his destiny...

 

Everyone's definition would be different, I suppose. All I'm saying is that even the most advanced aliens seen in Star Trek are defined as "not gods" by Trek canon.

 

That's what I think. Otherwise, the whole thing makes zero sense. In reality, the writers were pulling the prophet Sisko thing out of their butts, but headcanon makes me not roll my eyes, so there.

 

You're right, BUT, it is at least stated that humanity has the potential to reach the ability to do what they can do. Which leads me to...

The implied definition in Trek is: a sapient being that can do things or that IS things that will NEVER be doable or explainable by humanity. And Trek almost never features such a thing - no matter how advanced beings seem to be, we're just "not there yet".

 

Probably what stops someone/something from being a bona fide god is the whole afterlife thing. If they can create life and manage people's afterlife? God it is. But we haven't actually seen anything like that, have we? At least I can't recall.

 

In this case the JahSepp from the Mycellium Network might be gods.

 

True. I hadn't thought of that.

 

Since by definition it isn't clear what humanity will never be capable of doing/explaining (in the Trek universe at least), I'd say that this definition already implies that no being can be called a god, ever, under it.

Even a "supernatural" feat that seems to fly straight against , say, the second law of thermodynamics might still be employing a loophole we simply know nothing of as of yet. Eurm ....perhaps a being that is capable of making , say, 16 a prime number ?

 

A being capable of making a rock that it can't lift.

As might Q, given "Tapestry".

 

The prophets created Ben Sisko.
He saw the prophets and he went to them in the end.
How did the JemHadar disappear inside the wormhole?

 

Did I object to that? We still don't know what happens after a regular Bajoran's death.

 

I don't think they showed any regular Bajorans after death or even mentioned it.

I think as for the afterlife we saw way more Farengi's.