Take part in my Bible Study-week 1-"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"

[dominion_ruler]

I have begun a 10 week Bible Study at my church, looking into some of the more powerful episodes of Star Trek and following up with group discussion. I have composed a list of questions for the group, and thought I would share it here as well. Feel free to answer as many or as few as you would like:

1.Bele states that there is a clear difference between his and Lokai's appearance, saying "My people are black on the right side, Lokai's are white on the right side." What was your reaction to this statement?

2.Aise from skin color, what other similarities or differences di you notice between Bele and Lokai?

3.Did you expect the episode to end the way it did? What does the ending say about us today?

4.Were you surprised when Bele and Lokai continued their fighting after they realized they were the only two left alive from their species? Why do you suppose they continued their quarreling?

5.Though the episode tackles racism head on, what other conflicts can this relate to and have similar devastating results?

6.I John 2:11 says "But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him." Who does this verse fit into this episode?

7. Final thoughts or overall impressions of the episode.

 

[Valin]

Re: Take part in my Bible Study-week 1-"Let That Be Your Last Battlefi

Since so many of the episodes were morality plays, I think your idea of using them to explore biblical concepts is very good, and could be enlightening to your group.

My suggestion for a future discussion: of course "The Empath" lends itself to the concept of sacrificing yourself to save others (the right time of year for that, too, considering that it's Lent).

 

[dominion_ruler]

Re: Take part in my Bible Study-week 1-"Let That Be Your Last Battlefi

Yes, absolutely, Empath is a good one. I'm planning to use some episodes from other series for the study too, and I have included the episode "Similitude" from Enterprise, using Sim's sacrifice in that episode for discussion.

 

[SpyOne]

Re: Take part in my Bible Study-week 1-"Let That Be Your Last Battlefi

1) My reaction was much like Kirk and Spock's: that difference is so superficial and trivial that I had not even noticed it. Yet to them it was everything.

2) Well, they were both pretty dedicated to the idea of exterminating the other, IIRC.

3) I actually expected it to get resolved somehow, I think. It is hard to remember, as I was small and it has been nearly 40 years since I first saw this, and ever since I have known how it would end so I could not expect something different.

4) I was, but in retrospect I am not. As the last surviving members of their species, nearly everything they had is gone. Their families are gone, their culture is gone, their chance to live peacefully raising a family is gone. They have nothing left but their fight, in many ways. And from their perspective, they have nothing left to live for, so they may be actively seeking death. So where before they might have been fighting to secure their rights, or to provide their families with a world where they could live in peace (or even, where they could live without having to see members of the "inferior race"), they now have only two goals:
a) deny the other guy the satisfaction of being the last one alive/killing me
b) be the last one alive/kill the other.
It is not impossible that they could grow beyond that, and find a meaningful life helping others, but that isn't going to be easy.

5) Well, Israel/Palestine is another obvious one. There seems to be no end to the places and situations where mankind has engaged in slaughter over differences that seem trivial given distance and time.

6) Well, the parallel is pretty obvious: each of those aliens is trapped in a pointless, destructive struggle, unable to see it as pointless. Truly, they are blind, and lost in the darkness, and all because they hate their brother and cannot see past that, even to the fact that he is their brother.

I love the idea for the bible study, and wish you luck both with teaching moral lessons and recruiting new Star Trek fans.

 

[dominion_ruler]

Re: Take part in my Bible Study-week 1-"Let That Be Your Last Battlefi

Hey, those are great answers, many of which we discussed in our first meeting at the study....glad you like the idea!

 

[dominion_ruler]

Re: Take part in my Bible Study-week 1-"Let That Be Your Last Battlefi

Hey, those are great answers, many of which we discussed in our first meeting at the study....glad you like the idea!

 

[T'Girl]

Re: Take part in my Bible Study-week 1-"Let That Be Your Last Battlefi

2.Aside from skin color, what other similarities or differences di you notice between Bele and Lokai?

Their similar keen fashion sense of course. Differences:

Bele is the authority figure, upper crust, he spoke in clear belief of his own postion, he sits in a quiet meeting with the other authority figures (Kirk and Spock) about as close as the Enterprise get to having a bourgeoisie class. They must naturally understand his point of view.

Lokai is the repressed rebel, the victim, he speaks of his cause and the abuse of "his people", he engages in meetings with the crew, the Enterprise's proletariat. They must be lead to his point of view.

Both Bele and Lokai despise the crew of the ship, they're all free, a condition neither alien can truly understand.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: Take part in my Bible Study-week 1-"Let That Be Your Last Battlefi

I have a hard time getting past the ham-handedness of this episode, honestly. Under all the greasepaint, Bele and Lokai both look like standard mid-60s white guys from central casting, which reinforces the sense that they are interchangeable and their conflict is contrived and boring.

I'd nominate The Devil in the Dark as a more interesting look at tolerance in the face of cultural and species differences.

 

[T'Bonz]

Re: Take part in my Bible Study-week 1-"Let That Be Your Last Battlefi

Yes, absolutely, Empath is a good one. I'm planning to use some episodes from other series for the study too, and I have included the episode "Similitude" from Enterprise, using Sim's sacrifice in that episode for discussion.

Try "Bread and Circuses" for another one. It is about a Roman civilization in "modern times" (with gladiator battles on TV) and references both sun worship and worship of the Son.

 

[plynch]

Re: Take part in my Bible Study-week 1-"Let That Be Your Last Battlefi

To my current mind, LTBYLBattlefield is a reminder of our "fleshly" nature Paul talks about several times, the "sarx" in Greek IIRC.

We are designed or evloved, however you want to explain it, to do "categories" or "types" of things or people in our mind. We group individuals with common characteristics. When grouping people into types or categories, we seem hard wired to do it hierarchically: my kind good, your kind bad. Then if we face a common enemy we combine: now it is our larger kind, good; that other, more different kind, bad.

This instinct probably helped pass on genes, thus we inherit it. Unfortunately with planes full of fuel, or dirty bombs, or nukes, that kind of thinking could ultimately be maladaptive.

 

[General Kang]

Re: Take part in my Bible Study-week 1-"Let That Be Your Last Battlefi

6.I John 2:11 says "But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him." Who does this verse fit into this episode?

OK, first it should be pointed out that John's letters, when combined with his gospel, clearly mean to say that "hates his brother" uses the term 'brother' to mean fellow believers in Christ - this is clear because in the Gospel of John Jesus refers to the 'Jews' as 'children of Satan' - hard to imagine having love for children of the Devil...

As such, Lokai and Bele both see the other's race as responsible for their version of armageddon - the end of their world, of their race - and as such, they each see themselves as the only instrument left to carry out vengeance on the perpetrators of the end of their race.

It would be similar to an American and a Soviet (had the USSR survived) chasing each other around the solar system for a few years, only to return and see that a nuclear war between the two had ended the human race. Unable themselves to continue the human race, their only option would be to exact revenge and/or ensure that only they would be left to 'set history straight' and tell that they were right all along.

7. Final thoughts or overall impressions of the episode.