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Should Sisko had stepped in clash between Winn & Keiko

Do you mean "intransigent"? Anyhow, religion has no place in a science course.
The topic of the prophets shows well how people react to arbitrarily calling something a “religion”, and how easily they are influenced by a different choice of words for the same thing.
Unlike most religions, these “gods” are an accepted existence and simply an alien form of life, but the U.F.P. is very uneasy about one of it's officers being a “religious icon” and I doubt they would be had the phrasy “proxy for the wormhole aliens” been used.

If the position should simply be that unproven speculations and falsehoods should not be taught in school, then there is an endless list of that. I remember well learning at school the myth of the four tast areæ of the tongue, or the myth that educated Europeans at the time of Columbus thought the Earth flat. They even spoke of Columbus “discovering” the Americas, a continent that had been visited by Europeans before, but most of al had people walking and living on them, but things are of course only “discovered” when the first European gains knowledge of them, I hear.
 
This could be argued in either's favor, but it comes down to this: the definition of 'gods'. Not God with a capitol 'G', but gods, which many races have. IIRC correctly, the Klingons still believe in theirs. Keiko seem to be taking the Western Christian stance on Godhood ("the Almighty") which is somewhat off considering her Asian descent (of course, she could be ten generations Californian, so who knows?) Most Asian religions did not differentiate between 'gods' and spirits', just that their was a hierarchy and some were more powerful than others. Thus, a human - who has a soul - is also a god, because when they die, their spirit is released, and can become attached to something, in the same way so many of their other 'gods' are. In an 'eastern' framework like that, the Prophets would have no trouble fitting in. In fact, it would make sense for the Federation to officially adopt that approach, considering the plethora of god-tier beings they've run into. Basically, is just a another level of sentience. I mean, if you aren't going to say 'gods exist', then you may as well say no God exists, because under what set of prerequisites are you going to be satisfied you have met an actual god? And why would God need a starship? :p

So what Keiko & Winn were doing is splitting hairs on semantics, which is really dumb. Or another way of putting it, arguing whether they are 'gods' or just 'ascended beings' is stupid, because it would be like us arguing over whether we are using the internet or the world-wide web. And religion is another matter, because all religions are real, no matter what sort of farcical story they are based on. That has to do with groups of people being influenced by a common culture, and is the basis for morality, which is the the main support column of civilization itself (our 'gods' may change, but it is our beliefs that define us, and what choices we make as a people - we've simply replaced 'priests' with 'influencers'). And whereas we had 'the wrath of god' to keep us inline, now we have 'cancel culture'. It really all boils down to the same thing - peer-pressure to keep us behaving in a way that society's ever-evolving sets of values dictate. Keiko was wrong, because she was forcing her own cultural preconceptions on others, which is completely against Star Fleet's rules.The concepts were the same, she just insisted they use her terminology.
 
Unlike most religions, these “gods” are an accepted existence and simply an alien form of life
It doesn't matter what the basis for the religion is, it's still a system based on supposition, it's tenets driven by the words of select people. The very fact that one of its leaders tried to have the education of children stunted based on claims of blasphemy speaks for itself.
 
Its a case of the Federation ONCE AGAIN forcing their culture on everyone else. Who gets to decide what is the 'right way' to do stuff? Humans? Why? And here we wonder why so many species hate us and refuse to join the Federation. Its assimilation on a scale The Borg can only sit back and envy.

Humans have a very strange relationship with god(s) - we want to believe in one, but we will never accept one. When we first met 'Q', he fit every definition of god we had... yet john Luc Picard refused to consider him one. Up until the moment of meeting him, 'Q' was the classical definition of a god. Picard just 'noped' out of it. When members of species far smarter/more logical than humans thought they were meeting God, it was Kirk who denied his existence (and it turns out, with good reason). But my point still stands - any time we find a being that could fit the definition, we WILL weasel our way out of it. We are 'pretend religious', because we not only don't truly want to meet God, but we want to deny the fact anyone else has. Humans may have more tech in the 24th century, but they haven't gotten any more tolerant, from my perspective.
 
Once again, a sentiment from a human perspective. To the Bajorans, there is no difference between their science and religion. So basically humans are always right? How do we know the Bajorans don't have the right of it? And Vulcans blend some pretty metaphysical stuff into their science as well (their telepathic abilities).

I had a lot more here, but thought better of it. Too philosophical. Lets just say that the human definitions for things aren't always the correct ones.
 
What's your basis for claiming that the Bajorans feel there's no difference between science and religion?
 
What's your basis for claiming that the Bajorans feel there's no difference between science and religion?

I think MarkusTay meant the Bajorian approach to science, which may be strongly influenced by the fact that the deities that their culture believes in, and the realm of those deities, are directly observable phenomena. But I don't think we've ever seen how scientific subjects are taught by Bajorans to Bajoran children.

... IIRC correctly, the Klingons still believe in theirs. ...

They have supernatural figures such as Kahless waiting in Sto-vo-kor to hang out with warriors after they die in battle, and Fek'lhlr (or however it's spelled) the guardian of Gre'thor.

But as far as beings who are worshipped as deities, Worf said, "Our gods are dead. Ancient Klingon warriors slew them a [sic] millennia ago. They were more trouble than they were worth."

With how we know things work in the Trek universe, that raises the question of whether that was actually based on some ancient historical interactions between Klingons and some powerful aliens. And if so, who they were.

Kor
 
Humans have a very strange relationship with god(s) - we want to believe in one, but we will never accept one. When we first met 'Q', he fit every definition of god we had.

The judeo-christian god is omnipotent and omniscient. There is literally nothing god does not know, or could not do. The Q are very powerful, but they are not that powerful.
 
Its a case of the Federation ONCE AGAIN forcing their culture on everyone else. Who gets to decide what is the 'right way' to do stuff? Humans? Why? And here we wonder why so many species hate us and refuse to join the Federation. Its assimilation on a scale The Borg can only sit back and envy.

Humans have a very strange relationship with god(s) - we want to believe in one, but we will never accept one. When we first met 'Q', he fit every definition of god we had... yet john Luc Picard refused to consider him one. Up until the moment of meeting him, 'Q' was the classical definition of a god. Picard just 'noped' out of it. When members of species far smarter/more logical than humans thought they were meeting God, it was Kirk who denied his existence (and it turns out, with good reason). But my point still stands - any time we find a being that could fit the definition, we WILL weasel our way out of it. We are 'pretend religious', because we not only don't truly want to meet God, but we want to deny the fact anyone else has. Humans may have more tech in the 24th century, but they haven't gotten any more tolerant, from my perspective.

Kieko was not possessed by a Paugh Wraith for one episode and then expelled.

Kieko was born a Paugh Wraith, and decades after Sisko joined the Prophets, she dies a Paugh Wraith.

Kieko did not want to teach about the Prophets in season 1, because she is a Paugh Wraith, and she hates the Prophets.
 
The judeo-christian god is omnipotent and omniscient. There is literally nothing god does not know, or could not do. The Q are very powerful, but they are not that powerful.

Please, it took him 6 whole days to make the universe.
 
Please, it took him 6 whole days to make the universe.

I'd say 2 or three days to create the universe after you consider which elements compose the universe.

What is light? You could very well have a dark universe. Light could even be considered to be god themself. So they had to give birth to themself before they started.

The firmament is the entire sky, which is the endless universe full of nothing.

Then he created the sun stars and the moon. So a lighted Universe full of an infinite number of moons, planets and stars, is three days, but the nothing that existed before the firmament or the light could altogether be considered already the Universe as we didn't know it.

God didn't create shit.

He just decorated the place.
 
Kieko was not possessed by a Paugh Wraith for one episode and then expelled.

Kieko was born a Paugh Wraith, and decades after Sisko joined the Prophets, she dies a Paugh Wraith.

Kieko did not want to teach about the Prophets in season 1, because she is a Paugh Wraith, and she hates the Prophets.
I'm not sure which show you were watching, but Deep Space Nine it ain't. :wtf:
 
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