The question of a "higher power" have been tackled in different ways in the different series/movies. Too me the whole notion seems redundant in a Star Trek universe with species like Q,"wormhole aliens", Okampans, etc.
These are some of the questions i ask myself:
-A problem with the English language? Phrases like"Oh, my god" are hard to avoid.
-Being produced in the US
-Producers afraid of alienating religious people?
-Are they conducting a thought experiment so the viewer ends up pondering his/her beliefs?
- If there is a god. Are the klingon, human etc. the same god or what? What`s beyond a species like the Q considering they are already omnipotent.
I`m wondering what you think?
Boils down to how one defines the word "God" not only in terms of
Star Trek but in the RW as well. This routinely comes up for example in Facebook discussions, and certainly in other
Trek forums.
Gene Roddenberry's show seemed to avoid the question pretty much whenever possible, save to suggest that one of the worst things being like ourselves can do is to think themselves Godlike. Look at Gary Mitchell, or the Sargonites or even Apollo. Yet one sees very little by way of formal religion in the show. What we do see nearly always is portrayed as superstition, i.e. the Bajorans view of the Prophets, and any religious organization as nearly always inherently sinister. Or vaguely primitive.
Part of this is the notion of God, as a transendance, as something far more than a mere human being. Give Charlie Evans vast power and what keeps him from being a God is his human limits. He lacks understanding. Gary Mitchell was the same, only as an adult he possessed the drives and complexities of a grown man (albeit still a young one). In "Plato's Stepchildren" in particular we see what someone with some genuine wisdom does when offered this kind of power. They refuse it, knowing themselves unworthy.
Yet we have the Q. A seemingly literally eternal race, beings who've always existed and can reshape reality as they desire. Yet are not without limits. Not without room for growth.
If anything, one gets a subtle hint that perhaps if humans are more advanced than (for example) cats, then races such as the Metrons and Organians are even more advanced. Yet further (or if you like, higher) are the Q. Is it really so much to believe something exists beyond the Q, unimaginable to us but as far beyond the wormhole aliens as we ourselves are above a virus?
Personally, I belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church and will expound upon my church's theology at length given a chance. Hence my comments above, vis-a-vis the universe of
Star Trek. But I don't believe the two mutually exclusive, even if the notion Jesus or Mohammed or the Buddha were aliens seems utterly unconvincing to me.
