I'd rather seek truth and deal with reality on reality's terms
Star Trek and Humanism
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I'd rather seek truth and deal with reality on reality's terms
now your generalizing,
I never said that a malevolent atheist is a good teacher. Atheism, by the way, isn't even an ism, save for the fact that they threw an ism at the end. There is nothing that unites atheists to each other save for the fact that they do not believe that claims of a god have met their burden of proof. It is only a response to a single claim.
I never said that a malevolent atheist is a good teacher. Atheism, by the way, isn't even an ism, save for the fact that they threw an ism at the end. There is nothing that unites atheists to each other save for the fact that they do not believe that claims of a god have met their burden of proof. It is only a response to a single claim.
True enough, but I'm not sure what the relevance that has to what I said.
How about a malevolant believer? Like the U.S.'s continuing policy to destroy evil in Aphganistan and elsewhere and spending millions of dollars trying to do so when the country is in the midst of an economic tailspin and crisis. We should invent a new type of currency called quatloos that can't be exchanged for foriegn currency. Use it here and stay here or bye, bye. We could certainly use some of our own help.
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I think that for Paradon and many people from all walks of life, religion is tied so tightly with morality that if they lost it, they could go into nihilistic tailspin and both they and us non-believers would be the worse off for it. We need to respect the reality of how things are in all their myriad forms as we try to change them for progress happen smoothly.
Hell, progress itself isn't a given. Civilizations destroy themselves all the time, and today, weapons (nuclear, biological, etc) are more dangerous than ever. The future is not assured.
That's all I meant.
Oh, and regarding others in these threads, that toxic arrogance is not an atheistic sin, but one we too often exhibit for my tastes. Often to the detriment of not only the discussion but of enlightenment...thereby being the very thing for which religions often get a bad rap.
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Both contained within basic Humanism, and doesn't require a philosophy of "secular" humanism.
A better standard would be "just" Humanism, without the religiously restrictive nature of a secular humanist mindset. General Humanism neither considers or rejects metaphysical issues such as the existence or nonexistence of supernatural beings, and if a significant potion of the founding members of the federation possessed cultures with religious and spiritual faiths, secular humanism's particular philosophy might actually be specifically prohibited in the federation charter.
There are three strong canon proofs that Vulcans possess religious and/or spiritual faith, why would one of the founding members of the Federation - who likely had a hand in determining it's entry requirements - want there to be a membership criteria like "secular" humanism, with it's overt anti-religious theme? Especially as general Humanism so closely would seem to more fit their own philosophy. It would be illogical to formulate a Federation (that they were to be a part of) which included a stipulation to reject a part of their own culture as a condition of entry.
From the Federation Charter;
The Federation Council shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion or spiritual faith, in any venue. Nor shall there be a single required state belief.
I have rationalized those "canon proofs" away, because they do not fit with the either Gene Roddenberry's or my vision of the future, and they certainly do not fit with a logic-bound society such as the Vulcans.
And you seem to be conflating secularism with outlawing religious beliefs. As Kegg nicely points out, religion has no direct or even indirect influence over the government of the Federation, or a person's social status. That is secularism, even if individuals hold a wide variety of religious or spiritual beliefs.
Furthermore, the people of the 24th century do not need to be anti-religion, so much as the vast majority of the Federation simply finds religion to be irrelevant in both their day to day lives and their search for philosophical truths. The atheism of humans by Star Trek's time is a matter of course, not an active decision by people to "be atheist." 100% of people are born atheist, and with the fall of organized religions by Star Trek's time (through education and lack of religious participation, not through abolition laws), people are no more inclined to believe in a God or gods than they are to believe in vampires or ghosts or the tooth fairy. It's not a serious question people have to ask themselves.
For some reason people never thought about how some people are like with religions that we have today. Now just think what they would be like without these major religions. Some of these people will do unspeakable things unto others if there was no idea of God that enters his mind. Often times it's not the religions, that we know today, that make people do terrible things. It is greed! And a lot of people may use religions to justify their action because they fear of what God might do if they kill a bunch of native people for their gold. That's what Cortes did...because he wanted the Aztec gold. Of course every killer needs justification for what he is doing in order to rationalize it. If you look serial killers, that were abused by women, who kill women, they would try to find justification and rationalization why they need to kill women so that society wouldn't condemn them, or at least that's what they think. The only thing that stands between people like that and his preys are God. This may prolong his this decision to kill, contemplating whether if it's the right thing to do, or may even change his mind. I think people like you simplify the problem too much. But you can go on and believe in some writers. I think part of the problem is people get too obsess with some TV show and celebrities and take every word they say as Gospels. When you really look at what television shows on screen, who knows if it's Gospel or gorilla's shit. Quite frankly, you'd be better off listening to people with real life experience or go to college to study about the world. Celebrity on TV aren't geniuses. You should question everything like I did and you will realize that half the stuff they said on TV is mostly for entertainment. People are far more complex in real life and not everybody thinks alike. You will find different opinions among people who are classified as liberal... conservatives and among religious people. People dont think the same period! On televisions every fit into nice neat categories. There are liberals who could be considered more conservative than even conservatives and vice versa .
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That's why they call it self-righteousness... There is a difference between self-righteousness and righteousness. People are who are righteous are good people, and whereas self-righteous persons would be people who do terrible things...
Yea, religion and wars go hand in hand, but everything we do is informed by religion or superstition or some kind of belief in something like an ideal so it depends on what you mean when you say terrible. Jesus kicked some major butt in the market place. I heard alot of people expected the Messiah to be a military leader and effect change by destroying all evil on Earth and reforming it through war, hence, give us Barrabus.
What's an atheistic sin? Are you taking exception with my use of the word, or are you suggesting that atheists are amoral or nihilistic or psychopathic? Oh wait, you're saying the truth (as you see it) is a certain way and therefore you have no responsibility to be civil. You're just going to try to hurt people because you feel alienated from them enough already.
Virtue comes from the mind, not a divine schoolteacher grading how well you conform to his curriculum. You know when you're doing harm. Or good. Religious study is not so far from personal study - trying to figure out all the emotions one is feeling, and why, and how to increase the good ones, and decrease the bad ones.
Virtue comes from the mind, not a divine schoolteacher grading how well you conform to his curriculum. You know when you're doing harm. Or good. Religious study is not so far from personal study - trying to figure out all the emotions one is feeling, and why, and how to increase the good ones, and decrease the bad ones.
A terrible line, to be sure. And yet the line before it was the obvious message of the episode, that "Mankind has no need for gods."
But I'd LOVE to see Star Trek stay on the air in the sixties if he ended the statement right there. As I've said elsewhere, Gene Roddenberry did all he could to subvert the network and still stay on the air.
Yes the Vulcans are a logical society, so naturally they possess religion and spirituality, to devoid these beliefs from their culture would be illogical.
Consider, the Vulcan know for a fact that there resides within each of them a Katra, they know that the intellect survives the demise of the flesh. there's no indication that any scientific instrument can detect a Katra, but it's there. In addition, in the non-canon, but highly respected Spock's World by Diane Duane, it revealed that Vulcan's "directly experience the being responsible for the creation and maintenance of the universe." Vulcans refer to this as "a'Tha." Spock says that Vulcans experience this presence directly and constantly.
Welcome to my life Spock.
Wrong, but to be truthful I think some secularists would like to gradually outlawing religious beliefs, certainly outlaw religious practices. Many secularists do advance/push the concept that religion "should be a private thing," i.e. invisible in the public square.
No one is suggesting that the Federation is a theocracy, however if individuals hold religious and spiritual beliefs, that's always a part of you. Federation politcians will employ their religious and spiritual beliefs to make important government decisions. That will be how they make value judgements and their particular moral calls.
You can have separation of church and state. But you can't legally separate the populace and religion. And in a democracy, you can't have separation of populace and state. So really, you don't have separation of church and state. Because the religious populace is the church.
Yes the Vulcans are a logical society, so naturally they possess religion and spirituality, to devoid these beliefs from their culture would be illogical.
Consider, the Vulcan know for a fact that there resides within each of them a Katra, they know that the intellect survives the demise of the flesh. there's no indication that any scientific instrument can detect a Katra, but it's there. In addition, in the non-canon, but highly respected Spock's World by Diane Duane, it revealed that Vulcan's "directly experience the being responsible for the creation and maintenance of the universe." Vulcans refer to this as "a'Tha." Spock says that Vulcans experience this presence directly and constantly.
Welcome to my life Spock.
Wrong, but to be truthful I think some secularists would like to gradually outlawing religious beliefs, certainly outlaw religious practices. Many secularists do advance/push the concept that religion "should be a private thing," i.e. invisible in the public square.
No one is suggesting that the Federation is a theocracy, however if individuals hold religious and spiritual beliefs, that's always a part of you. Federation politcians will employ their religious and spiritual beliefs to make important government decisions. That will be how they make value judgements and their particular moral calls.
You can have separation of church and state. But you can't legally separate the populace and religion. And in a democracy, you can't have separation of populace and state. So really, you don't have separation of church and state. Because the religious populace is the church.
But the populace consists mostly of secular humanists, as I've stated. Computers run on pure logic, and trust me, they have no religion. The illogical oddities of Vulcan culture seem to persist as almost "emotion sinks," in that they use these illogical practices to vent their pent up emotions and cope with their anti-emotion philosophy. A "healthy" level of spiritualism is all it takes to blind yourself to the possibility that your faith is not supported by evidence, and your unfounded and stubborn belief could quickly stand in the way of real understanding and science. That is not logical. Vulcans would not stand for it.
And the fact that "there is no indication" of a scientific instrument detecting a Katra, neither discounts the possibility that there is such an instrument, we just never needed to see it, or that there could be an instrument developed that can detect its presence. To say, "well, if a tricorder can't detect it then it's supernatural!" would mean that human cells were supernatural spirits before the invention of the microscope.
I'd like to add that just because you have fears about unnamed atheists wanting to subtly or overtly outlaw religious practice, I assure you that is not the case for the vast majority of nontheists, and most importantly not remotely true of Star Trek's atheists. I could just as easily say "I think some religionists are child predators." But it doesn't accurately reflect anything about religious people as a whole to say that...
And I guess I won't add "Spock's World" to my reading list any time soon.
A resent thread by KeepOnTrekking reminded me of the non-canon novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
In that novel Vulcans, in addition to the six senses possessed by Humans, have a seventh sense that give them the ability to perceive a oneness with The All, the universe's creative force, or God.
The novelization was written by Gene Roddenberry.
A resent thread by KeepOnTrekking reminded me of the non-canon novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
In that novel Vulcans, in addition to the six senses possessed by Humans, have a seventh sense that give them the ability to perceive a oneness with The All, the universe's creative force, or God.
The novelization was written by Gene Roddenberry.
I vaguely remember reading that, but I think I was in sixth grade then. I'll admit, that's a sad bit of information. Gene Roddenberry also thought Pulaski was a great idea. Nobody's perfect.
Yes the Vulcans are a logical society, so naturally they possess religion and spirituality, to devoid these beliefs from their culture would be illogical.
Consider, the Vulcan know for a fact that there resides within each of them a Katra, they know that the intellect survives the demise of the flesh. there's no indication that any scientific instrument can detect a Katra, but it's there. In addition, in the non-canon, but highly respected Spock's World by Diane Duane, it revealed that Vulcan's "directly experience the being responsible for the creation and maintenance of the universe." Vulcans refer to this as "a'Tha." Spock says that Vulcans experience this presence directly and constantly.
Welcome to my life Spock.
Wrong, but to be truthful I think some secularists would like to gradually outlawing religious beliefs, certainly outlaw religious practices. Many secularists do advance/push the concept that religion "should be a private thing," i.e. invisible in the public square.
No one is suggesting that the Federation is a theocracy, however if individuals hold religious and spiritual beliefs, that's always a part of you. Federation politcians will employ their religious and spiritual beliefs to make important government decisions. That will be how they make value judgements and their particular moral calls.
You can have separation of church and state. But you can't legally separate the populace and religion. And in a democracy, you can't have separation of populace and state. So really, you don't have separation of church and state. Because the religious populace is the church.
But the populace consists mostly of secular humanists, as I've stated. Computers run on pure logic, and trust me, they have no religion. The illogical oddities of Vulcan culture seem to persist as almost "emotion sinks," in that they use these illogical practices to vent their pent up emotions and cope with their anti-emotion philosophy. A "healthy" level of spiritualism is all it takes to blind yourself to the possibility that your faith is not supported by evidence, and your unfounded and stubborn belief could quickly stand in the way of real understanding and science. That is not logical. Vulcans would not stand for it.
And the fact that "there is no indication" of a scientific instrument detecting a Katra, neither discounts the possibility that there is such an instrument, we just never needed to see it, or that there could be an instrument developed that can detect its presence. To say, "well, if a tricorder can't detect it then it's supernatural!" would mean that human cells were supernatural spirits before the invention of the microscope.
I'd like to add that just because you have fears about unnamed atheists wanting to subtly or overtly outlaw religious practice, I assure you that is not the case for the vast majority of nontheists, and most importantly not remotely true of Star Trek's atheists. I could just as easily say "I think some religionists are child predators." But it doesn't accurately reflect anything about religious people as a whole to say that...
And I guess I won't add "Spock's World" to my reading list any time soon.
Hmmm.... So people who don't believe just find comfort in logic, ethics and believing in oneself to save us from the wars and death, is that right? I supposed by your definition logical way of thinking would be about government conspiracies, or even deifying characters in ST or some politicians who think can save us from wars, death and global warming, is that right? From my observations, these people tends to be paranoid thinking that the government or even aliens are at the core of some rediculous conspiracies to take over the world. Is that any logical than believing in God? But if by me believing and it helps me not become slave to my feelings because I can find absolute certainty in God in the universe where nothing is certain and that is in a state of chaos and not start believing in some rediculous conspiracies theories, why would that be illogical? Doesn't that mean that it helps me think clearly without slipping into some realtism where my morals and ethics starting to be influence by my strong feelings and emotions...because nothing is certain and in the real world you learn pretty quickly that people can be cruel sometimes? Doesn't finding a substitute to God is a way to cope with your own feelings of lost and wanting to believe in something to help you cope with the realism of life, like people who deify pets, family, or some politicians like they are the saviors, because in this world and universe nothing is certain and life is difficult. I think I rather pray to God than believing in some rediculous government conspiracies that doens't exist. [chuckle]
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