In the Hands of the Prophets

[stj]

A discussion in Voyager forum might be of interest here.

Navaros said:
The funny thing is that DS9 also handled the issue of evolutionism vs. creationism in the episode "In the Hands of the Prophets". But DS9 did it in a classy way that respected both sides of the issue. Jake Sisko was telling his dad that the evolutionist position was the correct one, and mocking the other side. Then his dad told him that they can't afford to think in a mocking, condenscending way like that. Because thinking like that is being the exactly the same as the "evil religious side", only from the other side of the fence. The Sisko had it right with those comments and that very brilliant scene. Yet Voyager has come along with this terrible "Distant Origin" soapbox propaganda episode, and attempted to undo that good work that the Sisko's message about the same issue had intended to convey. On this issue DS9 has it right, Voyager has it terribly wrong.

In the Hands of the Prophets was not brilliant. In their version of reality, such bigotry is merely a scheme of a hypocrite. The good religious stand up to the evil hypocrite, and peace is restored.

Some years ago, some of your cothinkers in Kanawha County WV, enraged by liberal textbooks, indulged themselves in some Christian testimony with bombs. Formally, evolution is in the state's curriculum. But it is not really taught. This is a shame, because religious bigots will gladly grab on to Social Darwinist perversions of evolutionary theory. The Christians of Kanawha county achieved their fundamental goals. Indeed, one of their primary speakers, Debra Whanger, was elected to the school board.

In other words, In the Hands of the Prophets was simpleminded fantasy. The bigots don't go away when the nice religious stand up to the evil hypocrites. The idea that the hypocrites are responsible for the bigotry is ridiculous. True believers are the bigots, not the frauds.

Frankly, I see no more reason to respect the religious feelings of Christians than I do Muslims. The fatuous belief that it's okay to believe nonsense leaves you disarmed in the face of religious bigot, whether they are Christians who want to invade every Muslim country on Earth, or Muslim who want to strike back at the Christians.

In the Hand of the Prophets is dishonest.

 

[Kegek]

Hmm. Some notes:

1. Social Darwinism was influenced by The Descent of Man. It's generally connected to racism, not Christianity. These can be overlapping aspects of conversatism/reactionism, but are not inherently interdependent. Indeed, the religious argument for racism and the social darwinist argument for racism, while with the same goals in mind, aren't interdependent.

2. "In the Hands of the Prophets" shows no positive 'orthodox' Bajorans. The positive figure of faith here is Bareil, who in his laid back attitude and distrust of some old institutions seems to be clearly a 'liberal' religious thinker. Liberal theology is often in favour of evolution and other scientific proofs. In more colloquial terms, if Vedek Winn is Pat Robertson, Vedek Bareil is Rowan Williams.

3. Sisko's analysis of the importance of Bajoran religious faith as a source of identity in a time of persecution and crisis and therefore to be respected on that level is analogous to numerous real world oppressions, including the British occupation of Ireland. Unlike some other Star Trek heroes, Sisko includes tolerance of other ideologies under his IDIC philosophy. Besides this, his policy is pragmatic: blanket condemning of religious belief may be ideologically satisfying but it isn't constructive diplomacy.

 

[Timo]

Umm, what is really being said in "Hands"? On the lines, not between them? What did the writers write?

Vedek Winn vs. Keiko O'Brien:

Winn: "Just don't teach anything about the wormhole at all."
O'Brien: "Ignore it?!"
Winn: "Find other things to teach the children."
O'Brien: "And when we get to theories of evolution or the creation of the universe, what then?"
Winn: "We'll face those issues when we come to them."
O'Brien: "I'm a teacher. My responsibility is to expose my students to knowledge - not hide it from them. The answer is no."

And Jake vs. Ben Sisko:

Jake: "She changed the lesson to teach us about Galileo. Did you know he was tried by the Inquisition for teaching that the Earth moved around the Sun?"
Ben: "Tried and convicted. His books were burned."
Jake: "How could anyone be so stupid?"
Ben: "It's easy to look back seven centuries and judge what was right and wrong."
Jake: "But the same thing is happening now! All this stuff about a celestial temple in the wormhole is dumb."
Ben: "No, it's not. You've got to understand something, Jake. For over fifty years, the one thing that allowed Bajorans to survive the Cardassian occupation was their faith. The Prophets were their only source of hope and courage."
Jake: "But they weren't prophets. They were just some aliens that you found in the wormhole."
Ben: "To those aliens, the future is no more difficult to see than the past. So why shouldn't they be considered Prophets?"
Jake: "Are you serious?"
Ben: "My point is it's a matter of interpretation. It may not be what you believe, but that doesn't make it wrong. If you start to think that way, you'll be acting just like Vedek Winn. Only from the other side. We can't afford to think that way, Jake. We'd lose everything we've worked for here."

Now that that's out of the way, let's go between the lines, in whichever manner we prefer. Here's mine:

I'd say that, despite the obvious efforts of the writers, the analogy to the questions of creation or divine entities in the religion vs. science sense is not particularly accurate. The two viewpoints here aren't in any way opposite - the only question is about the use of certain proper names. Winn doesn't have a case, as O'Brien already teaches the Bajoran faith, just with different words. And O'Brien is simply being obnoxious (back at the obnoxious Winn) by claiming that there is a conflict of interpretations there.

Sisko in turn isn't exactly promoting religious tolerance for the sake of religious tolerance. He's very deliberately humoring people whose votes he wants. He has two separate beefs here: he wants to explain to Jake how Galileo could have happened, purely in order to educate his son; and he wants to continue exerting religious-political influence over Bajor.

Sisko is 100% correct that the issue at hand, the nature of the Prophets/aliens and Temple/wormhole, is "a matter of interpretation". OTOH, the issues of creation (note how O'Brien also uses that word, although we can suspect she doesn't believe in the existence of a Creator) of the universe and evolution of life are in no way analogous to this, as the changing of a few proper names would not transform one side of the argument to the other.

Or at least they aren't in our universe. Who knows whether Trek scientists or clergy have come to conclusions that radically differ from those of the 20th century real world? The theory of evolution that Chakotay promotes in "Distant Origin" might not be the same as the one of today, just like today's version differs markedly from Darwin's early attempts. For all we know, the theory now factors in the very real Trek possibility that an alien entity (possibly bearded and in white robes) had a hand in the affair.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kegek]

Timo said:
Sisko is 100% correct that the issue at hand, the nature of the Prophets/aliens and Temple/wormhole, is "a matter of interpretation". OTOH, the issues of creation (note how O'Brien also uses that word, although we can suspect she doesn't believe in the existence of a Creator) of the universe and evolution of life are in no way analogous to this, as the changing of a few proper names would not transform one side of the argument to the other.

Quite true. It would be as if Jehovah was a provable being who is scientifically accepted to have interefered with the history of Israel, atheists just consider him a meddling alien. But even the use of names can have charged implications. To use Ireland again as an example, the Six Counties is an anti-Unionist name for Northern Ireland, Ulster is a pro-Unionist one. Northern Ireland consists of six of the nine counties of Ulster, and which part of that fact one choses to stress has great political weight. Likewise, whether they are called 'Prophets' or 'aliens'.

The argument is, however, analogous in that it's a struggle between a religious interpretation and a scientific one that sparks public debate and some unrest. No metaphor need have one-to-one correlation, so long as it works on some level.

One thing not really touched on, which would have been more pertinent, was creation itself. The Bajorans consider the Prophets essentially as gods - they may believe that the origin of their race, probably the universe, came from them, while Federation's laicists would dispute the notion and classify them as merely very powerful aliens who did no such thing. But as it was never really established what the Bajoran stance on creation was (just that it was a religious one apparently at odds in science), this couldn't really be explored.

 

[stj]

Notes on notes.

1."Scientific racism" and Social Darwinism, old or new, are not quite the same. Nonetheless, the basic point, that they are logically separate, is true. It's still true that the religious will gladly cite "science" when convenient, while a genuine understanding of evolutionary would arm the gullible believers against this reinforcement.

By the way, many Social Darwinists and "scientific" racists have merely reclothed their old religious attitudes in a new supposedly scientific garb. One reason someone like Richard Dawkins is getting militant about his atheism is, I think, because he is a little uneasy about how the old religious crap is warping thought. On some level they're blaming someone else for inspiring crap like A Natural History of Rape.

2.Well, Kira is a positive orthodox Bajoran. Practically speaking, liberal theologians are the orthodox Christians' enemy in everyday life. But whenever these kinds of disputes arise, such people are magically rebranded as orthodox Christians, whose existence refutes condemnations of Christianity as demanding denial of reality.

The only liberal theologians I ever met were hothouse flowers hiding out on campus. Is it rational to keep pretending that the Osteens, Dobbins, Bauers, Robertsons, Haggards, Warrens et al are not the real Christian leadership? There is not one liberal religious thinker who commands a significant following. No liberal thinkers there. Genuine Christian leaders are willing to tolerate science as long as it refuses to tell the truth.

The episode doesn't just imagine Vedek Bareil as a liberal. It imagines Bareil as a major leader whose genuine adherence to virtue purifies the religion, whereas it is the hypocrite Winn whose evil creates the excesses and misunderstandings. To put it another way, the episode imagines that there are no sectarian divisions amongst the Bajorans. That is plainly fantastic, in the pejorative sense.

3.Islam is a source of identity and consolation for many peoples who have been attacked by imperialist powers for decades. It also has led too many to tolerate reactionary ideologies that pretend to defend the Muslim community.

Dividing Ireland into Catholic and Protestant sections was not a concession to Irish identity. The Roman Catholic establishment in the Republic was a reactionary blight. The Protestant identity as Englishmen was a fraud justifying oppression.

I know this is a shocking thought but religious identity is like national identity---it has been superseded.

The pragmatic justification has been exploded by its failure. Darwin himself advocated such pragmatism. It was then a way to avoid confronting misuse (if he himself realized it was misuse---I'm not authoritative on his personal views) as justification for British assaults on the rest of humanity as they expanded the Empire. And it is not much different now.

Even in simple questions of biology, the religious have proven themselves impervious to reason. They simply devise more ways to try to legislate their views, from scientific creationism to intelligent design. The true pragmatic view is that appeasement really has been shown to fail.

 

[Timo]

The Bajorans consider the Prophets essentially as gods - they may believe that the origin of their race, probably the universe, came from them, while Federation's laicists would dispute the notion and classify them as merely very powerful aliens who did no such thing.

One wonders whether the Bajoran faith would involve the concept of creation at all. Many "advanced", organized religions consider the universe eternal, after all, while creation myth is a concept more often found in "primitive", animistic ones.

Our "western" traditions tend to paint God with four colors: creator of everything, judge of our morals, superintendent of afterlife, and a supremely intelligent and powerful entity. This, again, is a relatively uncommon way to view God. Supreme (let alone absolute) intellect and power are seldom attributed to gods in other religious traditions, and afterlife caretaking may be but a minor side job for a lesser deity in yer usual pantheon.

Bajorans believe in the Prophets, but probably not as gods - else they'd call them Gods, right? To them, the celestial whatnots are entities capable of accurate prophecies, and possibly also of meddling with mortal affairs to some degree, of protecting the faithful. But they have no afterlife role, and the very idea of creation would seem to be anathema to them.

When Dr Mora Pol gasps "My God!" in "The Alternate", is he perhaps referring to the actual deity of the general Bajoran system (the one for whom the Prophets are the, well, prophets), or is he expressing an unpopular religious viewpoint? Either in the sense that he represents a dissident denomination, or in the "By Jove!" sense of secularizing and trivializing an outmoded religious expression? Or did the Universal Translator just hiccup again?

I guess this rant might have a point, this being that the Bajoran faith can be a piss-poor analogy to the Christian one, and thus unfertile ground for religion vs. science arguments. It's not as if Buddhists would be interested in challenging Darwin, or Galileo, or Einstein, either.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kegek]

^
True. I'm pointing out, however, that Winn briefly mentions the possibility of conflict if Keiko began to teach about creation in scientific terms. This may actually just boil down to language emphasis as with the wormhole.

1. Indeed.

2 (1). True, Kira takes an orthodox stance in the episode. She is disillusioned, however, by Winn's manipulation. She later sides with Bareil, first from dislike of Winn and later because her romantic involvement with him. This doesn't seem to be the same as changing from an orthodox to a liberal view, she lambasts his unorthodox interpretation of a prophecy in "Playing God" (even if she does so very good naturedly). An important point, though, is Kira doesn't see or consider herself as much of a believer as Winn or Neela. As I pointed out here, Bareil - in his unorthodox interpretation of prophecy, or in his rejection of the ceremonial ear-pulling, and in his tolerant attitude towards unbelievers, is certainly a liberal theological figure. It's true that Bajoran religion is generally more monolithic and undivided than real religions, including Christianity - Winn and Bareil are part of the same administrative unit and there is never a threat of a schism nor are there any appreciable religious minorities, besides the pah-wraith cult. It's true Bareil is shown to have quite impeccable morals by Bajoran standards, while Winn's acts are manipulative and self-serving. That's more because he's the Good Guy and she's the Bad Guy (and thus perhaps an implicit judgement on liberal/orthodox positions) than anything else.

2. (2) Rowan Williams is the Archbishop of Canterbury, he has quite a reasonable following. It's true some of his liberalism has been very controversial and there is a growing reactionary movement within his denomination, but his defenders aren't nonexistent either. The Pope, while certainly theologically conservative, would be another example of an influential Christian leader who accepts evolution as true, and as the monolithic leader of the largest denomination. Most of Europe's Christianity is either Catholic or liberally Protestant, this is part of the reason evolution has never really been contestable in the modern day. As Christianity is divided even in the mainstream into three distinct branches - Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox - and numerous leaders and movements and ideologies within those branches, one can't really identify one leader or one branch of leaders as having absolute or even uncontested sway. Your arguments and criticisms seem largely to focus on the uniquely American phenomenon of the Religious Right (obviously an influence on creation the Winn character). It's true in American politics these are the more influential Christian group.

3. Neither religious nor national identity have been superseded. It has diminished considerably in the Republic, but here and moreso in Northern Ireland it remains very important. In Ireland, the religious divide is synonymous with an ethnic one - traditionally, Gaels are Catholics. The Anglo-Irish and Scots-Irish are Protestants. There are exceptions on both sides, but not many. The conflict in Northern Ireland is an ethnic one between two ethnicities which have the same skin colour and speak the same language, so religion became the denominator. I cannot speak for the American position, but pragmatism has worked quite well here.

 

[stj]

^^^Well, if you've been talking about Europe!

Hate to tell you this, but Europeans are despised as nonChristian.

 

[Kegek]

Yes, I'm aware American fundamentalists have that view. Bertie Ahern has been a target of scorn on some American evangelical websites I've seen for living with a woman who isn't his wife, but that's never really bothered the electorate or he wouldn't have kept the office of Taoiseach (the Irish equivalent of Prime Minister) for the last ten years.

But the fact remains that there are reasonably substanial numbers of Christians in most European countries. There's even no division of church and state in one or two. I find accusations of theocracy in America amusing when levelled by Englishmen, because they have a state church with bishops appointed by the Prime Minister and, per the Act of Settlement, only Protestants can ever be King or Queen.

 

[Timo]

...But isn't a theocracy all the more a 'cracy if the state doesn't rule over the church - leaving open the possibility of vice versa?

One wonders how much of a theocracy Bajor really is, with a popular vote for the Kai and the First Minister alike. Is the Chamber of Ministers of secular or sacral kind? Whatever the Emissary utters seems to immediately supercede "civilian" law, too. Is there a legislative body to the government at all, or does the planet simply rely on millennia-old religious laws?

It just seems to me that Bajorans take their theocracy in the stride, while Vedek Winn severely overstates her case with her needlessly (and probably dishonestly) fundamentalist agenda. She could in practice satisfy her power thirst with much less.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kegek]

Well yes, but a state where there's a state churcb and state religion is certainly more of a theocracy than the American position, particularly when one's Head of State is the Governor (IIRC, the accepted word) of this religion.

The Provisional Government, led by the First Minister, appear to be the source of secular authority. What the Emissary says isn't law, he's just a very influential figure - when he endorses Bajoran neutrality in "Call of Arms", it causes an important bill to be passed.

If the Prophet religion isn't a state one... it doesn't need to be, as almost all Bajorans appear to be believers, and certainly Winn had enough backing to become First Minister. She's shown representing the Bajoran government even after she stepped down, however, which suggests either she's occasionally endowed with authority by the government or the Kai does have certain status in the state.