"What it requires of it's God, Doctor..."

[Nardpuncher]

One thing I can't stand is an agnostic. I think it may have been George Carlin that called them chicken-shit athiests.

Hey, I'm an agnostic!

Of course, there are different types of agnostics. I can't logically and with complete certainty disprove that there is something greater behind the universe's laws, beyond our understanding, so I allow for the possibility. However, like I said, I definitely don't believe in a theist, personal, interfering god of any of the religions, so in that respect I'm an atheist.

In the end I choose to call myself an agnostico-atheistical possibly-deist secular humanist. Try fitting that into a questionnaire...

The thing is no religion I know of allows any leeway for agnostics. Shit or get off the pot!

 

[neozeks]

Maybe I should join the Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic (http://apatheticagnostic.org/). Their motto is 'We don't know and we don't care'.

Well, I don't think I care, in the sense that believing or not believing will affect my life (or afterlife, if there is such a thing). But I like to know where I intelectually stand. And it's so fun speculating.

And Nardpuncher, who said anything about a religion? I'm not religious and I don't find that incompatible with allowing for the existence of a incomprehensible higher entity. I don't worship it, I don't know anything about it, I don't know if it exist at all.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Maybe I should join the Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic (http://apatheticagnostic.org/). Their motto is 'We don't know and we don't care'.

Okay, you have successfully weirded me out - I had never heard of that site! Which, if you think about it, might ironically lead one to believe that some divine force was at work in my selection of ship name, and thus my current user name, all those years ago.

But you know what? If so - I don't care.

 

[neozeks]

But you know what? If so - I don't care.

That's the spirit!
I nominate you for our not-caring Pope.

 

[Elder Knight]

The thing is no religion I know of allows any leeway for agnostics. Shit or get off the pot!

I heard an interview with a local Unitarian minister, in which he was asked to state the beliefs of his following. He said that they believed in "One God. At most."

I liked the answer. That set would seem to include monotheists (1) and agnostics (0). I suspect there are a few churches that wisely figure "Hey, you're here for answers, so why require belief as a prerequisite?" But I also suspect that those who really follow up on that are rare.

 

[Joanna McCoy-Kirk]

I am a good Baptist (but a moderate one). Honestly, the anti-religion sentiments that sometimes appear on this very BBS bother me more than anything about religion in Trek. To each his/her own, though.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I was a believer before I ever had said experiences. However...I have had visions (NON-drug-induced...I neither take drugs nor drink) on a couple occasions, which were extremely powerful. In one case...I will never know, but there is the possibility that I stopped breathing in my sleep.

I'm just curious, but do these visions mainly happen at night, or during sleep? Because, if so, there is a possibility that you suffer from sleep paralysis, an affliction which causes vivid hallucinations for the sufferer, sometimes causing out-of-body experiences.

It wasn't an out-of-body/sleep paralysis type experience, which I have had, so I am familiar with the feeling and not disturbed by it. Same with other hypnogogic experiences...I already know what they feel like, along with just about every other flavor of semiconsciousness.

The paralysis itself is frequently accompanied by additional phenomena. Typical examples include a feeling of being crushed or suffocated, electric ‘tingles’ or ‘vibrations’, imagined speech and other noises, the imagined presence of a visible or invisible entity, and sometimes intense emotion: fear or euphoria and orgasmic feelings. SP has been proposed as an explanation for at least some alien abduction experiences and shadow people hauntings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia#Sleep_paralysis

(If it seems you might fit this description then you should consult a doctor and not rely on Wikipedia. )

Nope...sounds quite different from what happened to me, on any of those occasions. I am actually not certain at all that I stopped breathing--making sense of what I felt when I came back is quite difficult, given how abrupt a transition it was. However, I do think that an episode of sleep apnea is at least a small possibilty. All I can say is...what I experienced that particular time began as a dream/vision, and then ended up with all the hallmarks of a near-death experience.


Incidentally, for Trekdom purposes...one reason I am a Niner is because I like how even-handedly the Bajoran faith was portrayed--all the way from the devout-and-reasonable to the "lapsed" to the fundamentalists to the terrorist loonies. Real life is a mixed bag just like that; you can't treat it all one way or the other. You have to look at the individual, NOT broadbrush all religious people. I think that's the primary lesson to be learned.

 

[Chrisisall]

When Kirk says to Apollo, "We find the one quite sufficient" is he meaning to say that he believes in God, or that "God" is all that peeps who do believe need?

Whaddya think?

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

I think in one respect TOS might be considered anti-God.

"Gods" that Kirk killed:

Vaal
Apollo
Landru
Gary Mitchell
FF God

Nomad considered Kirk a god of sorts and he killed himself in Nomad's eyes.
M5 considered Daystrom a god of sorts and Kirk caused him to go crazy.
Miramanee's people thought Kirk was a god and he killed that belief
V'ger thought his God must have been a machine and Kirk killed that belief

Kirk 9, God 0

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

Jesus could have been a myth; his words could have been redacted over the centuries;

Really, we have tons of copies of second-century manuscripts of the New Testament. They hold up almost perfectly.

Fair enough. I'll change it to decades and my point still stands. Also there are sections of individual gospels that were added after the Gospels were originally composed usually within about 30-40 years.

he might have felt himself in touch with greater spiritual truths as many religious leaders have

Buddah never claimed to be the "only begotten" Son of God--and neither did Mohammed, or Confucius, or any other founder of a major religion.

Actually the term "Son of God" was commony used in Judaism prior to Jesus time and the term is nowhere near as clear cut as you would seem to suggest. Also the idea in both mythology and real history of someone being the offspring of God or a form of God is very common. Zeus had a ton of bastard children. The Japanese emperor was divine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_God#Son_of_a_god_in_other_belief_systems

 

[Rush Limborg]

^Regarding all the "gods" that Kirk destroyed:

Destroying false gods is not limited to atheism. Remember, Elijah made it a point to destroy Baal-worship in Israel by beating the "priest" at their own game. He exposed Baal as a fraud.

To expose false gods for what they are--to pull back the curtain and reveal the worthless machine is a legitimate cause for religions, as well. For Jews and Christians, this is, in part, incentivized by the Second Commandment: No graven image (i.e. fake gods, made-up gods, machine gods, mortal gods, etc.).

In the relm of Star Trek, "Ancient Klingon Warriors slew the gods millenia ago. They were more trouble than they were worth."

Goes to show they weren't really gods, eh?

 

[DonIago]

^Perhaps it was the gods' will that they be destroyed by their creation.

 

[Rush Limborg]

^Honestly?

A god with a death wish--who wants to stay dead--doesn't deserve to be worshiped.

If those Klingon gods were true gods, they should have risen from the dead...or something like that.

But they stayed dead. Which means they were false.

And therefore...if Klingon warriors wanna slay them...I say good riddence.

 

[DonIago]

Perhaps they will rise from the dead in the future. No way to know until it happens.

 

[xortex]

There was a church aboard the Enterprise. In 'Balence of Terror' I thought it odd at the end when the girl was morning her dead fiancee and Kirk walks in that he didn't acknowledge the alter in any way. He seems to 'worship' the US flag more.

 

[Chrisisall]

^Honestly?

A god with a death wish--who wants to stay dead--doesn't deserve to be worshiped.

And this is your decision. wow. You must be a prophet or something. Please, tell us how we should worship, and who. I need that kind of direction in my life, and you seem to be the sort who can give it to me. I plead to become your personal Dittohead; where do I send my membership fee???

There was a church aboard the Enterprise. In 'Balence of Terror' I thought it odd at the end when the girl was morning her dead fiancee and Kirk walks in that he didn't acknowledge the alter in any way. He seems to 'worship' the US flag more.

Kirk doesn't ackowledge the bridge of the Enterprise every time he arrives, yet he still respects her.

 

[xortex]

^Honestly?

A god with a death wish--who wants to stay dead--doesn't deserve to be worshiped.

And this is your decision. wow. You must be a prophet or something. Please, tell us how we should worship, and who. I need that kind of direction in my life, and you seem to be the sort who can give it to me. I plead to become your personal Dittohead; where do I send my membership fee???

There was a church aboard the Enterprise. In 'Balence of Terror' I thought it odd at the end when the girl was morning her dead fiancee and Kirk walks in that he didn't acknowledge the alter in any way. He seems to 'worship' the US flag more.

Kirk doesn't ackowledge the bridge of the Enterprise every time he arrives, yet he still respects her.

He doesn't worship the bridge though.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I'm an atheist.

There's a great deal to dislike about religion in general and in the specific - just as there's a great deal to dislike and suspect about just about any ideology, institution or declared authority.

That said, I respect and admire most religious people that I actually have known for their faith, and while I have no reason whatever to believe that "God" exists I can't declare that to be a fact based on my limited understanding and experience of the Universe. And I think that faith is an enormously powerful and important force in and of itself - people simply have faith in different things.

The folks I have more trouble respecting than any others are those who assert that they have and need no faith in that which they don't understand, because IMAO they're (usually willfully) blind to their own experiences and mental processes in the service of an arrogant self-image.

And no, atheism is not a "belief" or a religion - it is the absence or rejection of a particular kind of belief. It's only for their own comfort that some folks are willing to accept that not believing equals believing despite the contradiction of the formulation.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

^Honestly?

A god with a death wish--who wants to stay dead--doesn't deserve to be worshiped.

If those Klingon gods were true gods, they should have risen from the dead...or something like that.

But they stayed dead. Which means they were false.

And therefore...if Klingon warriors wanna slay them...I say good riddence.

Nah that just proves how bad-ass a Klingon warrior is. When a Klingon kills you you stay dead!

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I believe that "I don't know" is much more intellectually honest answer than "God did it." The latter simply pushes the question back one level while refusing to actually consider what the real answer may be.

In a way Christians offend me. I'm sorry they do. All of them. I live a good moral life and I help my neighbors, and I analyze everything as rationally as I can. I do not take Jesus to be savior, so Christians, by definition, believe that I am going to hell (or am excluded from heaven) or at least they worship a God that would do that to me,. If they themselves don't think I deserve hell, why do they worship a God that does. I don't believe in infinite reward for blind faith and for finite deeds, and I don't believe in infinite torture for finite crimes. I don't like that the main message most religions really send is guilt that we are supposed to feel guilty for everything, even simply being alive.

Screw religion. I wish you'd all grow up. Go back in the dark ages when the Bible really did explain how the world works.