Christian faith in TrekLit?

[Captain Robert April]

I'm suddenly reminded of Shepherd Book's dying words to Malcom Reynolds:

"I don't care what you believe, Mal! Just believe it!"

 

[Trilliam]

I think that's one of the most important quotes in all of Star Trek, because it points to how one can have spirituality without organized religion.

While I do find the exchange illuminating, to say it deals with religion or even faith/spirituality writ large is misleading. The exhange is about death/afterlife. That area is is only one aspect of faith or religion. Its the difference between talking about DS9 vs. Star Trek. One is narrow, the other broad.

At the very most, the exchange is the very beginning of a discussion of Metaphysics, but that's all.

 

[neogothboy74]

It's interesting that people see "faith" as being the same as religion or spirituality. It can be a component of those things, but it can suggest other things, too. You don't have to believe in a big imaginary friend to have faith in your friends, your colleagues, or your society. You can have faith that things will get better without giving the credit to any deity or spiritual factor. That seems more likely to be Picard's perspective than some of the ludicrous claims made here.

This is how I interpreted it too. I have faith in many things yet I'm not religious or spiritual and hadn't posted on the topic as I wasn't sure how to word it. Thank you for making the point for me.

 

[Janos]

It's interesting that people see "faith" as being the same as religion or spirituality. It can be a component of those things, but it can suggest other things, too. You don't have to believe in a big imaginary friend to have faith in your friends, your colleagues, or your society. You can have faith that things will get better without giving the credit to any deity or spiritual factor. That seems more likely to be Picard's perspective than some of the ludicrous claims made here.

Not sure who or what quotes you are referring to. There clearly is a difference between faith and religion. You can have both together or faith on its own. That's why I used "or" in a previous quote...

While I do find the exchange illuminating, to say it deals with religion or even faith/spirituality writ large is misleading. .

 

[Myasishchev]

Then there is the definition of "Catholic". Do you mean "Catholic" as in a "Roman Catholic". Or do you mean "catholic" as in "all-embracing".

And as an aside: I don't really think that 2000+years of Belief System/s (depending on the Belief System) will disappear within the next 200 years unless there is a paradigm shift (in the scientific sense eg such as the shift from Earth-centric Solar System to the Heliocentric system) in our understanding of the "Why" of our existence.

Probably true. On the other hand, I've always thought it would be interesting to see how aliens categorize human religion, given how 70% of the people on Earth adhere to either a strain of Judaism or a strain of Hinduism. What's also interesting is that, without getting muddled by specifics, they embrace also the two major theories of history, or time, (teleological-utopian and cyclic, respectively, and to simplify a great deal) and the only two desirable outcomes of a belief in an immortal soul (heavenly splendor and reincarnation, respectively, and again to simplify a great deal), so they'd probably have analogues anywhere else there's a species whose members are aware of the past and future and consequently fear their own deaths.

Given that, I'd suppose you'd have a far more homogeneous religious population, as people begin to realize there's not a hill of beans worth of difference between Christianity and Islam, except in pointless and purely legalistic details.

Then you have things like the Vulcan religion, where the immortal soul is demonstrably real but they don't tend to actually do anything about it unless you're famous. Still, I could see Surakism gaining traction on Earth, as could I Betazoid paganism. I mean, these people were clearly favored when the clay was given life.

Then you have a literally true religion like Bajoran Prophet worship, which would pretty much have to attract some adherents based on the fact that they directly intervened to save Federation asses.

 

[Trilliam]

Then you have things like the Vulcan religion, where the immortal soul is demonstrably real but they don't tend to actually do anything about it unless you're famous.

By proving that the Vulcan soul exists after the death of the physical body, haven't the Vulcans done away with Faith in the Immortal, as proof denies Faith?

 

[Captain Robert April]

Enter the Babel Fish...

From "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy":

The Babel Fish is small, yellow, leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the universe. It feeds on brainwave energy, absorbing all unconcious frequencies, and then excreting telepathically a matrix formed from the conscious frequencies and nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain, the practical upshot of which is that if you stick one in your ear, you can instantly understand everything said to you in any form of language. The speech you hear decodes the brainwave matrix.

Now, it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could evolve purely by chance, that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final, clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

The argument goes something like this:

'I refuse to prove that I exist', says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing.'

'But', said man, 'the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It proves you exist, and so therefore, you don't. QED.'

'Oh dear', says God, 'I haven't thought of that!', and prompty vanishes in a puff of logic.

'Oh, that was easy!', says man, and for an encore, he proves that black is white, and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.

Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best selling book 'Well, That About Wraps It Up For God'.

Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different
cultures and races, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

 

[Trilliam]

I was going more with the Australian Oxford English Dicitonary:"Faith:... 2. Firm esp religious belief not based on proof..."

 

[Myasishchev]

Then you have things like the Vulcan religion, where the immortal soul is demonstrably real but they don't tend to actually do anything about it unless you're famous.

By proving that the Vulcan soul exists after the death of the physical body, haven't the Vulcans done away with Faith in the Immortal, as proof denies Faith?

I've never seen the great importance of faith. Did Adam and Abraham and Moses have faith? The LORD showed up and kicked them in the shins. They knew full well that Yahweh existed, and thus fashioned a religion around that being. Vulcans and Bajorans get that same sort of advantage.

On the other hand, by exposing the respective concepts to scientific investigation, I can see how a Vulcan or Bajoran might be less impressed, since the reality of a thing is more often lesser than the ideal of it.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Then you have things like the Vulcan religion, where the immortal soul is demonstrably real but they don't tend to actually do anything about it unless you're famous.

By proving that the Vulcan soul exists after the death of the physical body, haven't the Vulcans done away with Faith in the Immortal, as proof denies Faith?

No.

I think there is legitimate debate as to what the katra is, as far as the religious community is concerned. Is it the equivalent of backing your brain up to a flash drive right before death, or is it the essence of the person? I could see all sorts of religious debates that could come out of that.

 

[Destructor]

Yeah, I just watched 'Emanations', where neural energy from dead Vhnori joins an energy pool in an asteroid belt. This might be considered 'proof' of life after death, but at the same time it might just be an energy phenomenon. We will never have all the answers, which is why we'll always have spiritual beliefs- which is why we'll always have religion- and people who use religion to exploit others.

 

[Janos]

All that I know for sure in just finishing up DS9: Mission Gamma 3: Cathderal, there were a lot of references to tolerance, acceptance, understanding people of different faiths/views. We should keep that type of thing in mind on a thread like this one for sure.

 

[Destructor]

There's a great scene in the last episode of DS9 season 1 where Jake says something like: "But religion is stupid." and Sisko dresses him down for his intolerance. It's a pretty good summary of how I feel about religion actually- it's not for me, but I would never tell another that it wasn't for them.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I thought that scene was a great start towards breaking from the arrogance of TNG. I still think the episode in question could've shown a middle path more effectively than it did (though it did kind of start to with the remarks we heard a bit of from Bareil, about a Bajor that was once a center of learning and science), but it was a first step.

 

[Trek Survivor]

There's a great scene in the last episode of DS9 season 1 where Jake says something like: "But religion is stupid." and Sisko dresses him down for his intolerance. It's a pretty good summary of how I feel about religion actually- it's not for me, but I would never tell another that it wasn't for them.

I love that scene, and the whole episode in fact - see my signature for proof of that.

 

[JoeZhang]

Jake should have turned around and said "Fake tolerance is more patronizing than an honest view - Religion is stupid, that's my view, why aren't you tolerant of it?" Then for good measure, he should have poked Sisko in the chest...

 

[Janos]

Jake should have turned around and said "Fake tolerance is more patronizing than an honest view - Religion is stupid, that's my view, why aren't you tolerant of it?" Then for good measure, he should have poked Sisko in the chest...

A very un-ST response and certainly out-of-character for Jake.

Here's the definition for tolerance. Not sure what you mean by "fake" tolerance.

tol·er·ance
–noun 1. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.

2. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own.

3. interest in and concern for ideas, opinions, practices, etc., foreign to one's own; a liberal, undogmatic viewpoint.

 

[ST-One]

Jake should have turned around and said "Fake tolerance is more patronizing than an honest view - Religion is stupid, that's my view, why aren't you tolerant of it?" Then for good measure, he should have poked Sisko in the chest...

A very un-ST response

No... sounds about right...

 

[Janos]

No... sounds about right...

Oooooo.... that sounds like..........

in·tol·er·ance
–noun 1. lack of toleration; unwillingness or refusal to tolerate or respect contrary opinions or beliefs, persons of different races or backgrounds, etc.

 

[JRoss]

Hmm. I wonder if 24th-century Hindus consider Surak to have been an avatar of Vishnu...

They consider Buddha to be an avatar, so I don't see why not.