The Reality of Star Trek

[Misfit Toy]

Enow - you've dragged the discussion away from the topic of Trek reality and into religious opinion. I've participated, as have others, but this thread needs to come back to a Trek-centered discussion at this point.

 

[Hound of UIster]

When Thallus, a secular historian, wrote about an eclipse at the time of the crucifixion of Christ, but Julius Africanus, another secular historian, corrected him because there was no eclipse scheduled at that time, where did all the light go?

Thallus wasn't a secular historian. He asserted the existence of the Olympians and Titans as part of recorded history and tried to chronologically date the events of Greek mythology.

 

[iguana_tonante]

"Reality" and "biblical prophesies" are mutually exclusive terms.

"Mutually exclusive" applies only until it happens.[/QUOTE]So, never. Good.

Enow - you've dragged the discussion away from the topic of Trek reality and into religious opinion. I've participated, as have others, but this thread needs to come back to a Trek-centered discussion at this point.

I don't think Trek was ever the point of this thread.

 

[Melakon]

I don't think Trek was ever the point of this thread.

*steps back in*

You're absolutely right. Star Trek ceased to be the topic with Post #6, when Enow made his first reply, which was to my Post #2. That's when the topic suddenly changed to religion, and he later "apologizes" for misunderstanding my post, which was technically on topic, but he claimed was diverting off topic.

*closes door again*

 

[Thestral]

Thallus wasn't a secular historian. He asserted the existence of the Olympians and Titans as part of recorded history and tried to chronologically date the events of Greek mythology.

Besides, was there even such a thing as "secular history" at that time?

Also: everybody knows the truth about the apocalypse is that it's just a pissing match between two petulant brothers. I'm with Gabriel, personally.

 

[Amaris]

Thallus wasn't a secular historian. He asserted the existence of the Olympians and Titans as part of recorded history and tried to chronologically date the events of Greek mythology.

Besides, was there even such a thing as "secular history" at that time?

Also: everybody knows the truth about the apocalypse is that it's just a pissing match between two petulant brothers. I'm with Gabriel, personally.

I'm with Jay and Silent Bob.

As for the reality of Trek, while we may never see the kind of aliens we see on the show, or at all, I think humanity will eventually come together.

 

[Thestral]

I really need to see Dogma one of these days. I've been on kind of a supernatural bender over the last couple years anyway between running through Buffy, Angel, Dead Like Me, Joan of Arcadia, and currently Supernatural (one of these things is not like the others!) so it would fit right in.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I really need to see Dogma one of these days. I've been on kind of a supernatural bender over the last couple years anyway between running through Buffy, Angel, Dead Like Me, Joan of Arcadia, and currently Supernatural (one of these things is not like the others!) so it would fit right in.

Is it Three have female protagonists and one doesn't. Did I guess right?

 

[Thestral]

Ooh, good thought. Actually, that's by far my biggest (and only real) problem with Supernatural, the lack of long-term female protagonists. I was mostly thinking Joan has a much less... cynical... view of Higher Powers.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

As for the reality of Trek, while we may never see the kind of aliens we see on the show, or at all, I think humanity will eventually come together.

I think it has been coming together and I think humanity as a whole has been improving continually over the centuries. The standard that humanity aspires to keeps going up and up. Civil rights, expectation of and working toward raising basic living standards, accountability of government.. these things may seem a long way away in some situations but that this even causes people anguish and we expect that humanity should do better shows how far we've come.

Trek gives us a picture of a humanity that has achieved the standards we can only dream about for the whole world, and a humanity that has even higher standards ("we work to better ourselves"). Sure this is unrealistic, and lots of Trek is unworkable when you start nutting it out but the aspiration itself is laudable.

 

[bptrav]

I've always thought if we became capable of space travel/exploration like Star Trek, we would probably be more similar to a mix of Ferengi and Romulan than we would be to the Humans in the Trek universe.

Maybe I'm just too pessimistic, but I haven't seen much to indicate humankind as a whole would ever be so utopian/peaceful. Of course no one can predict the future, but I don't human nature isn't something that will change overnight, no matter what happens.

 

[JarodRussell]

That's a thing that people always (especially JJ Abrams) get wrong about Trek. The human society (outside the bridge of the Enterprise, or in general Starfleet personel) is SUPPOSED to be alien to us. Human's in Trek are supposed to evolved to a higher level that is entirely different from what we are now. No conflicts, no greed, no money, aspiration to constantly better themselves. You don't like that utopian idea? Well then don't do Star Trek.

Saying "I find it silly that they don't use money, it's impossible." is like saying "I find it silly that they beam down to a planet and appear out of thin air, it's impossible.". That's just basic stuff that is part of Trek.

 

[Avon]

star trek humans are all canadians

 

[BillJ]

That's a thing that people always (especially JJ Abrams) get wrong about Trek. The human society (outside the bridge of the Enterprise, or in general Starfleet personel) is SUPPOSED to be alien to us. Human's in Trek are supposed to evolved to a higher level that is entirely different from what we are now. No conflicts, no greed, no money, aspiration to constantly better themselves. You don't like that utopian idea? Well then don't do Star Trek.

That utopian idea came into play with TNG.

 

[Squiggy]

Course, if you are referring to "Muslims" prophesies, you got me there, but John 16:1-3 proves "to me" that they do not know Him at all.

If God isn't there for all of his children whether they accept him or not, whether they follow the path he supposedly put before them or not then he is no God of mine.

It's like a parent rejecting a child because they don't agree with the choices they made.

I'd much rather have some lakefront property on the Lake of Fire.

Interesting.

If a man got bitten by a snake with a venom of slow acting poison and he knows he is going to die eventually, but the doctor has the antidote to save the man, whose fault is it when the man refuses the antidote because he likes the decaying state he is in more than being saved from being that way?

When Thallus, a secular historian, wrote about an eclipse at the time of the crucifixion of Christ, but Julius Africanus, another secular historian, corrected him because there was no eclipse scheduled at that time, where did all the light go?

What did you think would happen when our Creator took our sins upon Himself on that cross and suffered a seperation from God the Father in Heaven?

Jesus Christ was made sin for us so that we may be made the righteousness of God in Him. No greater love than that than he that lays his life down for his friends.

Jesus Christ paid the penalty for the wages of our sins. He is the antidote as sin did seperate us from God.

Now He is risen and our hope rests in Him not just for eternal life, but our hope rests in Him to help us to live as His as we ought to wherein sin will not have dominion over our lives anymore. By the grace of God we are saved, and by the grace of God we go by faith in the Son of God in us.

Anyway: just saying that all God expects from us is to hope in Him. Any expectations we are failing in as hyped up by religious people, that is what we are to trust Him in taking care of and believe Him that He will do it.

Believing Jesus Christ is the antidote. The lake of fire is what every sinner is heading towards as total seperation from God and all that is good will be the result. Love has been shown by God, and the way back to Him has been provided. His promise is that all those that seek, shall find.

So take pause and reconsider your stance because where you spend your eternity is really at stake. Don't let religious people clutter up why Jesus Christ is called the Good News.

 

[1001001]

So the basic argument here is that the idealistic future of Star Trek will never come to pass because the Bible says otherwise?

 

[Robert Comsol]

I just dropped in after I invested my two cents in a neighboring thread, but it seems these two cents might serve a good purpose here, too.

Why did God kick Adam, Eve and the Snake out of paradise? Whether you interpret the text literal, as a metaphor or an analogy, the decisive essence remains: Because he didn't want to be in the company of people that were unwilling to assume responsibility for their actions, and, worse, had no problem to see somebody else suffer for their mistakes.

I'd say mankind has still has to overcome this general, immature, childish and evil attitude before the future of Star Trek could become "science" and not just remain (utopian) "fiction".

@ J. Allen

Just curious what you tried to suggest saying Jesus was "captor" and "abuser". According to the story he was the one captured and abused - and now I'm confused.

Bob

 

[Nightdiamond]

So the basic argument here is that the idealistic future of Star Trek will never come to pass because the Bible says otherwise?

Which is ironic, because Trek says the exact opposite- an ideal future does happen without any help from religion.

Social and environmental problems were solved because people put their minds together and worked hard to solve them, mainly through science and technology (So Trek says.)

Advanced technology feeds and clothes people easily, because they figured out how to do it. There's no selfish competetion for resources and money, because technology provides basic needs anyway.



At least that's what Trek seems to be saying.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Social and environmental problems were solved because people put their minds together and worked hard to solve them. (So Trek says.)

Advanced technology feeds and clothes people easily, because they figured out how to do it. There's no selfish competetion for resources and money, because technology provides basic needs anyway.

At least that's what Trek seems to be saying.

Well, that's what Roddenberry seems to have been saying late in his life. However, Star Trek is not reducible to Roddenberry's vision, and many other people have worked with that vision, stretched it, altered it, and interrogated it. By now, I don't think the utopia of the future is so much something that we should strive for as a model by which we can critique what we have now. For instance, rather than just accepting scarcity as universal or believing that technology will solve scarcity in the future, we can ask how technological development is addressing the fundamental needs of individuals and communities.

 

[Mysterion]

The reality of Star Trek is just an utopian dream.

Yup. Naive, too.

Mankind is broken. History reports that no matter how good a system is, if evil men run it, then no good will come of it.

Here's some bad news: Mankind isn't broken. There's a reason we're at the top of the food-chain, after all. We're doing what we've always done since the dawn of recorded history (and no doubt way before it started to be recorded), and probably always will (no doubt long after history has stopped being recorded). We are what we are, and it's better for all concerned if we disabuse ourselves of the notion that we're "getting better" and learn to work with what we've got. Let go of the denial and let yourself be human. For better, and often for worse it is who we are. Get used to it, and learn to use it to your advantage.

Interesting. One could say that this is the mentality of the people in Star Trek: Enterprise "In the Mirror Darkly".

I'm not sure you would want to stick with that though. Perhaps you may want to modify that notion. Surely you can see child molesters, alcoholics, and rapists as evidence of mankind being broken since they can ascribe to your description of just being who they are. What seems like an advantage may actually be a worsening condition of mankind as they will get worse and worse.

I resent that you seem to be implying that I somehow endorse the behaviors you list above when I absolutely do not. Nor did I say so anywhere in my first post to this thread. And an apologiy from you probably would not be out of line here.

Of course those things are bad. I don't think any reasonable person would deny that. I did not say otherwise. That's why we have constructed societies the way we have.

What I am saying is that these things are part of the spectrum of homo sapiens. Of course, we don't want these things to happen, but they do. Not because the species is somehow "broken", but because it just is what it is. We like to call these acts and the people "inhuman", but my point is that this is just a state of denial. The problem is that these people ARE human.

If you accept that our species can produce Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, or Stephen Hawking, you must also accept that the same species can produce Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden, or Timothy McVeigh.

Bringing this back to Star Trek: Roddenberry was being very naive if he really believed that the human race would somehow grow out of this state in the next couple of hundred years. Humans are humans, have been for thousands of years, and will continue to be. We will continue to try and build better societal constructs to encourage better behavior. Some of those might work better than others. Some of them won't. But, at the end of the day we will still be the same brilliant, ignorant, cruel, compassionate, stuborn, yielding, sad, joyous, race that we are born to be.