^
Christian faith in TrekLit?
- Thread starter bfollowell
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Aside from your absence of standardized capitalization, you misspelled "punctuate" and "consciousness," and your own punctuation and grammar leave a bit to be desired.
I'm just saying.
David Mack said:Aside from your absence of standardized capitalization, you misspelled "punctuate" and "consciousness," and your own punctuation and grammar leave a bit to be desired.
I'm just saying.
Glass houses, glass houses...
This is one of the reasons why I don't point stuff like this out, even though as a total grammar geek, I kind of want to (and even though I'm actually paid to point such errors out in real life). But that's just the way it works: When one is pointing out errors is when one is most likely to make an error oneself. It's a kind of grammatical karma.
But as for GR and religion, he may have said that mankind had "outgrown religion" (thanks for that gratuitous insult to those of us who are believers, Gene), but while he talked the talk, in his shows, at least, he didn't walk the walk. There were slight but undeniable references in several episodes of TOS. There's not point in mentioning them here since this is a thread about references in Trek lit, but they are there.
^Well, that was a statement Roddenberry made in the TNG years, when he'd become much more invested in making ST into a philosophical statement. There's a lot about TOS that doesn't fit his TNG-era mission statements (for instance, how do Mr. Stiles and Harry Mudd fit his notion of a perfected humanity?).
And of course, there's no way a low-level TV producer in the 1960s could've gotten away with making statements that weren't compatible with Christian beliefs. It would never have cleared the censors.
And of course, there's no way a low-level TV producer in the 1960s could've gotten away with making statements that weren't compatible with Christian beliefs. It would never have cleared the censors.
^ No doubt you're right, Christopher - I just get really tired of people quoting this particular bit of Roddenberry pontification. He didn't apply it consistently himself, even in TNG (though more consistently there than elsewhere), and it's definitely not applicable for the entire franchise, and aside from that, it's just really patronizing. My apologies, but I really get tired of hearing this quoted as though it was truly indicative of anything besides Roddenberry's own personal beliefs.
Back on topic!
Back on topic!
True but the out the tng universe ds9 I think is the most religous series out next to it's competer babylon 5. I realy don't think that voyager cover religion very much or at all . I think current sci-fi show's like v has big ponts of view in religion and star wars as well . I mean the jedi way is an actual faith . I mean I am cathloic threw to the bone but I would'nt begrudge anyone from being who they are. And I if a person misspells a few things or say's something you don't like you don't have to be nasty or
a bullying @$$ hole for it.
a bullying @$$ hole for it.
Well, again I think it's important to remember that there's a difference between religion and spirituality. Roddenberry was skeptical of organized religion, of the church as a social/political institution that uses God as a justification for its doctrines and authority, but he was very interested in the individual search for the Creator, for the spiritual purpose of existence, etc. Just because he rejected the church's answers about divinity doesn't mean he wasn't interested in the questions.
In some cases an enlightenment may have resulted--yet in others, I wonder if Christian theologians (those who took this particular approach in their soteriology) would look at the minority rather than majority religion of a particular world. We don't see much of this in Trek--the suggestion of cultural and religious minorities, given the constant visits to Planets of the Hats--but it would be a conceivable development, and one that would make more sense in terms of a coherent theological doctrine from a Christian standpoint.
From an Eastern philosophical standpoint, I could see your idea that anyone who led to an "enlightenment" might be an avatar of sorts. But from an Abrahamic standpoint, there is no way you could suggest that (except perhaps with Unitarian Universalists, who occupy a position, along with Baha'i, somewhere between Eastern and Western mindsets) figures with incompatible philosophies were directly equated to the same God.
Which brings us back to the presumed example from The Wounded Sky: the reference to the Hamalki deity as "The One Who Was Burned" suggests a very similar cultural viewpoint upon a very painful, deadly execution as the Crucifixion. In a lot of ways, this is similar to what you see in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia--different particulars, but still the same principles behind the sacrifice.
Back to the Trekiverse: it is conceivable that the religion Christians might see as having a kinship with them is not always the majority.
All of that is, of course, assuming they don't simply go with the idea that Jesus' sacrifice was intended for all sentient beings. In which case, all of that above becomes null and void.
I don't think that all organized religion is expendable. Organizations can go very bad, but I think that if you have the capacity to examine your own structures with brutal honesty, then it is possible for a hierarchy not to be a bad thing. It's very hard to do, especially as inertia sets in, but still doable. Hierarchical systems that do not award absolute power--but rather power within well-defined, well-enforced limits--are the best way to go.
In other words..."small government." Even if over a big span of territory or a large number of people.
It's also possible that Jesus the carpenter never said or did some of the things attributed to him. They were only written down decades after the fact, sometimes by people who didn't even claim to have observed them firsthand. Stories often grow in the telling.
You need to read anne rice's jesus trilogy the first two our out . very different take on jesus where you see him actualy growing up as a person . THey are sopposed to lead into when he starts teaching and spreading the word of GOD . And don't forget that jesus was a jew as well . and most of his original flock were converted jews.
and then there's famliy guy.
and then there's famliy guy.
Look, I'm not religious, but even I know that some of the most humane and beautiful sentiments in all of human history are attributed to Jesus. Screw you, CS Lewis.
-Quite likely, I should think.
Decades don't exactly leave much time for revisionism--especially if the eyewitnesses were still alive, which they were. More on this later.
They were written, in the case of Matthew and John, by actual witnesses to Jesus's ministry.
Mark took down Peter's memories from those days. Second-hand info, I know...but not as "corrupted" as critics would wish to claim.
And Luke introduced his magnum opus--the books of Luke and Acts--like so:
He thus indicates that he personally interviewed eyewitness after eyewitness of Jesus's life--and carefully studied the previously written accounts--for the purpose of compiling a clear and objective account of his own, to convince a man who presumably had a lot of questions about the validity of all the "stories" about Jesus.
Read the entire quote, sir. Lewis clearly was referring to the theory that Jesus was a "great teacher"--and only a "great teacher".
Let's say, for the sake of argument, this is right. Does it make them any less important?
Well, such is the traditional assumptions anyway.
Decades leave plenty of time for revisionism. Hell, look at all the people engaging in revisionist history about the beliefs of Dr. Martin Luther King today -- a radical Socialist who objected to most of the underlying principles of Capitalism and U.S. foreign policy is today re-cast as some sort of moderate libertarian who would support the war in Afghanistan.
And the continued existence of eyewitnesses doesn't mean that people writing would not have the ability to propagate falsifications, especially if they were more politically influential, and especially in an era where communications over long distance was much more difficult than it is in the modern era.
Further, the views of most scholars is that the canonical Gospels were written themselves over several decades, with the later Gospels being completed almost a century after the start of the Common Era. The Gospel According to Mark is believed to have been written either between 68 to 73 CE or between 65 and 70 CE. Assuming that Jesus was born in 4 BCE and died at the age of 33, placing the Crucifixion at 29 CE, that means Mark was written 36 to 44 years after the Crucifixion. Matthew is judged to have been written c. 70-100 or c. 80-85, placing its composition anywhere between 41 to 71 years after the Crucifixion. Luke's consensus seems to be c. 85 CE, but estimates vary between 80 to 100 CE, placing its composition likely at 56 years after the Crucifixion but possibly up to 71 years after the Crucifixion. And John is viewed as likely having been written anywhere between 90 CE and 110 CE, placing its composition between 61 and 81 years after the Crucifixion.
That is far, far more than enough time for people to lie, exaggerate, suppress knowledge, shout out other views, and generally propagate false knowledge.
Modern scholarship does not agree with that
Modern scholarship has no consensus on whether or not Mark actually wrote The Gospel According to Mark.
Luke's authorship of The Gospel According to Luke is controversial, with a majority -- but not a general consensus -- viewing the authorship as unknown.
And Richard Nixon indicated that he was not a crook. That the author asserts his own reliability does not make the author reliable.
If his purpose was to convince people of the divinity of Jesus, then that's not an objective goal. An objective person would begin with no presumption about Jesus's divinity and only draw a conclusion about it after completing his research; he would not conduct research with an a priori conclusion.
And Destructor is contesting Lewis's conclusions on the basis of his judgment that many of Jesus's attributed teachings -- I would assume he is referring specifically to ideas found in the Sermon on the Mount -- contain great universal merit, irrelevant of whether or not Jesus was wrong or right about other claims.
^ Or you could of course go with the long version. 
A point here - you're referring of course to the written texts, but we don't know how long or how completely much of the material existed as oral tradition; in a time and culture when writing and literacy were at a much, much lower rate, oral tradition likely did a much better job of preservation than it would today. There's just no way to know, though undoubtedly some corruption crept in. And for the Synoptic Gospels at least, we don't know how long the "Q" material (mostly sayings) was around before being incorporated with the Markan narrative.
Not that it ultimately particularly matters what the names of the authors were once you're willing to accept the traditional assumptions as likely incorrect - if you're willing to accept the authors of Matthew, John, and Mark were not actually the traditional figures (whether or not the finished works were from other single authors, the products of "schools" descended from the traditional authors, or some other theory) you may as well use the name of the traditional author for clarity's sake.
The Luke-Acts narrative as you say is rather more complicated.
A point here - you're referring of course to the written texts, but we don't know how long or how completely much of the material existed as oral tradition; in a time and culture when writing and literacy were at a much, much lower rate, oral tradition likely did a much better job of preservation than it would today. There's just no way to know, though undoubtedly some corruption crept in. And for the Synoptic Gospels at least, we don't know how long the "Q" material (mostly sayings) was around before being incorporated with the Markan narrative.
Not that it ultimately particularly matters what the names of the authors were once you're willing to accept the traditional assumptions as likely incorrect - if you're willing to accept the authors of Matthew, John, and Mark were not actually the traditional figures (whether or not the finished works were from other single authors, the products of "schools" descended from the traditional authors, or some other theory) you may as well use the name of the traditional author for clarity's sake.
The Luke-Acts narrative as you say is rather more complicated.
The other problem with Biblical literalism is that it's projecting a modern mentality onto an ancient culture. Back then, the concept of accurate reporting of news or history wasn't part of the culture, at least not where religious or political writing was concerned. Writing and storytelling were intended for polemical and allegorical purposes. It wasn't about documenting the facts, it was about getting across messages through metaphor and symbolism. Stories of people's actions and words were freely invented in order to convey the intended philosophical, moral, or political message. These weren't news reports, they were parables.
Case in point: the famous tale of King Solomon and the two women arguing over a baby, with Solomon ordering the baby cut in half and the real mother revealing herself by being willing to lose her child rather than see it killed. It's been held up as an example of Solomon's great wisdom, but that's total rubbish. The tale is actually a threat issued in allegorical form. Solomon was the illegitimate heir to the throne, and he was ready to start a war to conquer the kingdom. In the allegory, the baby was the kingdom, the fake mother was Solomon, and the real mother was the legitimate king. The message was, "I, as the illegitimate heir, am willing to tear the kingdom in half with a war, so if you, the legitimate heir, really love your kingdom, you should surrender it to me in order to save it."
So it wasn't about reporting something the way it happened. That wasn't the priority of the people who wrote down religious and political documents back then. They didn't hesitate to use fictional and allegorical accounts to convey some deeper message.
Case in point: the famous tale of King Solomon and the two women arguing over a baby, with Solomon ordering the baby cut in half and the real mother revealing herself by being willing to lose her child rather than see it killed. It's been held up as an example of Solomon's great wisdom, but that's total rubbish. The tale is actually a threat issued in allegorical form. Solomon was the illegitimate heir to the throne, and he was ready to start a war to conquer the kingdom. In the allegory, the baby was the kingdom, the fake mother was Solomon, and the real mother was the legitimate king. The message was, "I, as the illegitimate heir, am willing to tear the kingdom in half with a war, so if you, the legitimate heir, really love your kingdom, you should surrender it to me in order to save it."
So it wasn't about reporting something the way it happened. That wasn't the priority of the people who wrote down religious and political documents back then. They didn't hesitate to use fictional and allegorical accounts to convey some deeper message.
I think you vastly underestimate the speed/power of revisionism.
I don't know why people aren't skeptical of whether Homer wrote the Iliad, or whether the Dialogues attributed to Plato came from him. Or that Ceasar wrote The Conquest of Gaul. Why not be consistent and doubt everything?
Edit: Why not doubt everything old, that is.
Edit: Why not doubt everything old, that is.
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i Know, I'm just pleading with them not to. It's bad enough we had to put up with so much crap from the Bajorans, if I want fairy tales theres other contexts to read them in.
This was uncalled for trolling. You have thus earned an infraction for exactly that.
True but the out the tng universe ds9 I think is the most religous series out next to it's competer babylon 5. I realy don't think that voyager cover religion very much or at all . I think current sci-fi show's like v has big ponts of view in religion and star wars as well . I mean the jedi way is an actual faith . I mean I am cathloic threw to the bone but I would'nt begrudge anyone from being who they are. And I if a person misspells a few things or say's something you don't like you don't have to be nasty or
a bullying @$$ hole for it.
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