Star Trek Religious Services

[The Salt Umpire]

A comment in another thread made me wonder. In Futurama, a Star Trek religious service is parodied. Most droll. But that made me wonder, being the lapsed catholic that I am, what would the services be like? So...

Each service would be about one Trek episode, (TOS, TNG, etc depending on the church affilliation) the TOS Trekkies would read episode excerpts from the Most Holy Alan Dean Blish Archives aloud

The Captain would offer supplications to Roddenberry, Fontana, the Holy Sisko and Gene Coon...

(end of service)
"All Praise The Great Bird Of The Galaxyyyy"
"Hallowed Be Gene's Naaame"

"The Mission has ended. (raises arms) Live Long & Prosper"
(Trekkies raise theirs)"Peace & Long Life"
Trekkies file out as series ending theme plays

 

[F. King Daniel]

I imagine it would be readings from the Star Fleet Technical Manual, reciting ship specifications.

 

[Dropship]

Speaking of religion-

Religion in Star Trek

An alien 'god' demands Kirk worships him but Kirk replies-"Mankind has no need of gods, we find the One quite adequate" (OST: 'Who Mourns for Adonais")
McCoy says 'Lord forgive me" when he kills an alien with a phaser blast that's taken the form of an attractive human woman. (OST: The Man Trap)
The rebels on Magna Roma, a nearly perfect "Parallel Earth", seem to worship the "sun", which Uhura discovers is actually God's "Son" Jesus. (OST: "Bread and Circuses").
In the wedding chapel on the Enterprise we can see a sort of altar and some religious symbols, among them a cross (OST: "Balance of Terror").
The computer M-5 states: "Murder is contrary to the laws of man and God" (OST: "The Ultimate Computer").
Dr. Ozaba quotes from the Bible- "In His hands are the deep places of the Earth. Psalm 95, verse 4" (OST: "The Empath").
Dr. Phlox says he has been to a Tibetan monastery and that he has attended a mass at St. Peter's Square. This is a most definite statement that religion still plays a role in the 22nd century (ENT: "Cold Front").
Spock, traveling back in time to save his own life, presents himself to his parents as a cousin making a ritual journey "to honor our gods". (TAS: "Yesteryear").
Vulcans, like many other races, believe in a spiritual place from which they as a people were born. Their name for this place is Sha Ka Ree ("Star Trek V")
Edith Keeler runs a Christian mission and soup kitchen in New York in the 1930s (TOS: "The City on the Edge of Forever")
There is a mention of a Christmas party (TOS: "Dagger of the Mind")
The Caldos Colony includes a church or chapel and we can hear the attendees say "Amen" (TNG: "Sub Rosa")
The American Indians on Dorvan V continue to practice their old rituals such as vision quests. Picard says he has the deepest respect for them (TNG: "Journey's End")
Kilana asks Sisko: "Do you have any gods, captain?" He replies- "There are things I believe in." (DS9: "The Ship")
Sisko recites from the Bible to his son's surprise. He also appears as a priest in Ben's hallucination (DS9: "Far Beyond the Stars")
Kasidy says she would like to have a priest to perform the wedding ceremony (DS9: "Penumbra")
Captain Saavik asks Admiral Kirk for suggestions. He replies- "Prayer, the Klingons don't take prisoners" (Wrath of Khan)
A church and congregation is seen in in VOY "Spirit Folk"
Captain Picard celebrates Christmas with his family and Christmas tree in the Nexus ("Star Trek Generations")

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

Hunt Valley conventions in upper Maryland did indeed have annual Churches of Trek on Sundays.

 

[Some Sort of Lemur]

I imagine it would be readings from the Star Fleet Technical Manual, reciting ship specifications.

There was a major schism in the religion of Trek with the revelation (or as heretics would claim “publication”) of the TNG Tecnical Manual, while there’s a very small, obscure sect that worships a secret text called the “Whitefire blueprints.”

 

[Greg Cox]

I believe it was Mimi Panitch, who edited the Star Trek book line back in the early eighties, who once said that being the Trek editor was like being the Pope during a time of extreme doctrinal dispute.

(Says the guy who has been writing apocrypha for decades.)

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

If you'll indulge me a brief excursion into another milieu, B5 had a whole episode with a title taken from a spiritual, in which the major guest stars are clergy of four different Earth religions (who treat each other not as adversaries, but as friends and colleagues), and an actual religious service is depicted.

Oh, and as I recall, there's a ST novel (Spock's World, maybe?) in which it's stated that Vulcans can directly perceive the presence of a deity. But it's also stated that this ability raises more questions than it answers.

 

[Dropship]

Reading about Gene Roddenberry in Wiki, he said "It's not true that I don't believe in God. I believe in a kind of God. It's just not other people's God. I reject religion. I accept the notion of God", and to his credit as far as i know he never banned religion from being mentioned in Star Trek, perhaps he saw interesting speculations like this-
ALIEN VISITOR - Jesus said "I am not of this world" (John 8:23)
MOTHERSHIP -"Praise to the Lord, to him who rides the ancient skies above,
whose power is in the skies." (Psalm 68:33-34)
RADIATION SHIELDING- God said "When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by" (Exodus 33:22)
GENESIS PROJECT -"God made the worlds.." (Hebrews 11:3 KJV)
ORBITAL TRAJECTORY - "God sits on the circle of the earth" (Isaiah 40:22)
WARP DRIVE - "God rides upon a swift cloud" (Isaiah 19:1)
CLOAKING DEVICE - "God goes by me but I see him not" (Job 9:10)
TIME DILATION - "With God a thousand years are as one day" (2 Peter 3:8)
SCOUT SHIP- "I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north, the center of the fire looked like glowing metal" (Ezekiel 1:4)
STARGATE- Jesus said - "Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it."(Matt 7:13)

 

[Gaith]

Surely this would be one of the hymns...

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[Tosk]

So would TOS-ENT be the Old Testament, and KEL-SFA the New?

 

[Gaith]

^ Feels more to me like a Christianity/Islam or Christianity/Mormonism split... same source canon, and the later stuff positions itself as a continuation of what came before, but has very different tones and authors, and many fans of the older stuff have little interest in, or indeed outright reject, the new.

 

[Some Sort of Lemur]

So would TOS-ENT be the Old Testament, and KEL-SFA the New?

Theravada vs. Mahayana

 

[Nerys Myk]

So would TOS-ENT be the Old Testament, and KEL-SFA the New?

KEL is the Book of Mormon.

 

[The Salt Umpire]

KEL is the Book of Mormon.

I thought that was Battlestar Galactica

 

[The Salt Umpire]

Theravada vs. Mahayana

I studied Zen Buddhism for 15 years, so definitely Mahayana.

 

[Gaith]

Speaking of religious sites of holy pilgrimage, the former Star Trek Experience in Vegas is now an office for selling time shares, with a futuristic gift shop for buying... cheap slippers and potato chips.

This used to be a country.

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[The Salt Umpire]

Speaking of religious sites of holy pilgrimage, the former Star Trek Experience in Vegas is now an office for selling time shares, with a futuristic gift shop for buying... cheap slippers and potato chips.

This used to be a country.

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

I never got to go to that. Some of my friends in the science fiction club I was in went and they had a great time. I'm sad it's gone.

 

[1001001]

Yeah, The Experience was awesome.

We went several times.

The Warp Core Breach at Quark’s was a thing of beauty.

 

[Gaith]

I never got to go to that. Some of my friends in the science fiction club I was in went and they had a great time. I'm sad it's gone.

I went in high school with my parents. It was a few months after 9/11, and tourism was still drastically low, so we got pretty good deals on rooms and such. (This was before the Borg Encounter was added, and I was too young for any cosmic cocktails at Quark's, but the original show was plenty cool itself.) This involved me missing a day or two of school, so, after years of seeing peers of certain religious faiths be excused for this or that holy holiday, I made a point of telling people, including a few teachers, I was going to Vegas on a spiritual pilgrimage.

I and my folks did the attraction twice. Getting beamed up was completely unexpected, and (unlike the second time, when we had a human guy operator), to suddenly find ourselves on the Enterprise, with a female Vulcan behind the controls... I'm not sure it was a spiritual moment, but it was definitely a magical one, and, after all, what's the difference?

 

[1001001]

I and my folks did the attraction twice. Getting beamed up was completely unexpected, and (unlike the second time, when we had a human guy operator), to suddenly find ourselves on the Enterprise, with a female Vulcan behind the controls... I'm not sure it was a spiritual moment, but it was definitely a magical one, and, after all, what's the difference?

One time we did a behind the scenes tour, and they showed us how the beaming trick worked. Very cool.

I wish it was still around.