This episode is preachy and its condescending attitude toward religious beliefs strikes an ironic note for a series with tolerance as one of its supposedly major themes. These would be less relevant points if the episode made up for it with terrific acting and story, but is merely adequate on those fronts.
Who Watches the Watchers?
- Thread starter Willieck
- Start date
I thought the reasoning behind all this was well presented. This is an early Vulcan society and so we as viewers already have the smug satisfaction of knowing they are well on their way to developing logical explanations for events that currently scare the bejeezus out of them. What we don't know is that many things may remain beyond the scope of their comprehension (and always will).
Picard plays with the dynamics of Greek philosophical dialogue (albeit with a more physical demonstration than Socrates probably intended) to bring to the fore this little society's developing rationality.
However, it's not just simply an issue of:
The existence of inexplicable things means there is a god
Picard does inexplicable things
Ergo, Picard is god
It's more complicated, more like:
There is a god
Inexplicable things happen
Picard does inexplicable things
The inexplicable is god.
Picard is god
This society already believes in the existence of God. It's one of the givens and and one suspects will always be so.
What Picard achieves with Nuria and Liko, through different means, is to prove to their satisfaction, that he is not that God.
What I find most interesting on revisiting the episode is that it is clever enough not to posit that because Picard is not god there is no God.
Well done.
Picard plays with the dynamics of Greek philosophical dialogue (albeit with a more physical demonstration than Socrates probably intended) to bring to the fore this little society's developing rationality.
However, it's not just simply an issue of:
The existence of inexplicable things means there is a god
Picard does inexplicable things
Ergo, Picard is god
It's more complicated, more like:
There is a god
Inexplicable things happen
Picard does inexplicable things
The inexplicable is god.
Picard is god
This society already believes in the existence of God. It's one of the givens and and one suspects will always be so.
What Picard achieves with Nuria and Liko, through different means, is to prove to their satisfaction, that he is not that God.
What I find most interesting on revisiting the episode is that it is clever enough not to posit that because Picard is not god there is no God.
Well done.
They never bashed religion in that episode... for all we know, the Gods they believed in originally may still exist..... Picard simply didn't want to be the image of those Gods because obviously he wasn't a God and he didn't want to screw up their way of life any further then it already was.
But I do find it pretty damn funny that you'd take the position on defending religion in this aspect, considering Religion in almost every case has always been Preachy, Condescending and lacked any Tolerance towards anything different from their own beliefs or way of life.
Pot meet Kettle.
Just because they focus on the possibility that this culture's religious beliefs might be incorrect or based on absolutely nothing but perhaps an alien experience.... are you going to sit there and argue that they're trying to say all religious beliefs are based on this concept?
Let's say this episode never existed in the first place and look at our own religions in the world today..... each religious group claims to have the true answers and believe the true god, while all others are false and will lead you down the wrong path.
All of them can't be right and thus with that mentality, only one could be absolutely right, while all others are wrong and they're just based on either fantasy or some alien experience a long time ago.
But we're still using the same mentality you presented your original argument with..... but now that it's not some show on TV claiming a religious belief as false or somehow misguided, we have one religion doing this to every single other religious belief out there that counters their own...... so logically, by that religions own actions and claims, and your above reasoning, they just disproved and questioned their own religious beliefs at the same time as doing it to other religious beliefs.
See how screwed up this can get?
The real problem is that this goes on day after day here on our own planet in real life...... just look at that moronic clown down in Florida who got the brilliant idea to have a book burning of the Qur'an..... multiple copies of it too I believe. We all know how this is going to end..... and it's all based on hatred for someone else's beliefs and it's a direct attack on their beliefs in a way this guy knows will offend and upset those who belief in that faith.
Regardless if I think Muslims would be justified in how they react, it doesn't matter..... how they will react is a given and this idiot knows it.
I'm not about to get in a big religious debate over who's right or wrong, but this all goes to show that our real religions are in no place to talk when it comes to something being "Preachy, Condescending, and Intolerant."
Comparing crap like this to a story on a tv show is just ridiculous.
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Willieck is correct. Here are a couple of examples from the script:
OJI
I thought I'd never see you again.
When you and the woman vanished,
I was sure you were dead.
LIKO
I think I was... but I was brought
back to life. I awoke in an
incredible place -- and my wounds
were gone. I had been healed.
OJI
How is that possible?
LIKO
Long ago, our people believed in
beings with great powers. These
beings made the rains come, told
the sun when to rise, and caused
all life to be born, to grow,
to die.
OJI
But those are just tales -- old
superstitions.
LIKO
Perhaps the beliefs of our
ancestors are true. Nothing else
can explain what's happened.
(a beat)
Everything's changed now, Oji.
We must tell the others...
And...
NURIA
Liko -- all this talk of a
supernatural being... No one's
believed that for countless
generations. Just as we no longer
believe the stars control our
fates, or that the spirits of the
dead haunt the living.
LIKO
I'm not saying all the old beliefs
are true. But I did see the
Picard, and I was restored to
life.
You can see more here.
http://tng.trekcore.com/episodes/scripts/152.txt
I cannot remember the exact quote but was something not said about the fact that they used to believe in the "Overseer" (or god) but no longer had that belief until it was accidentally rekindled by the incident with the Enterprise.
OK OK. I hadn't even read that one.
Ya know what was my favorite moment? One shot: When Riker is running away and we see him run over a little rock rise. At that moment, a hawk just happened to fly across the background -the director was wise enough to keep that take, and the sound editor was wise enough to insert a hawk's cry to punctuate it. I think that was one second of perfect fillmaking in an otherwise average episode.
The problem I have with this episode is a problem I have with TNG in general: It is so anti-religious and anti-Christian in particular. TOS was not like this, but TNG is heavy-handed in this respect. There are several examples from several episides I could site, but I don't want to change the direction of the thread. Perhaps I will start a thread on this subject. Picard's big speech which basically painted anyone who believes in any religion as superstitious, dangerous, backward and stupid was, well... backwards and stupid. Humanism and atheism are religions, but of course those who are enamored with them deny that. But I digress. Anyway, I love TNG, but I don't love this particular aspect of it.
I agree. Humanism is a philosophy and atheism is well just nothing. Lack of belief cannot be a religion.
With no disrespect intended, they are religions. Humanism in particular assumes that people can "self-actualize" and evolve under their own efforts. TNG stated several times that man is evolving. This is all based on the concept that people are perfectable. It also assumes that humans are the ultimate arbitors of what is moral and what is not. Judging what is right and wrong is a divine attribute. If each person is a judge of right and wrong, then they are gods. The Great Bird himself expressed in interviews that people are gods. This is a view that is held by a major world religion. Picard arrogantly decided this his atheistic view was what was best for the people on the planet. He basically equated all religion with stupidity and irrationality (a view commonly held by the so-called "progressives"). He was the judge of what was right and wrong and arrogantly assumed the role of a god. He made the godlike decision that "reason" should be their basis of all belief. The idea that all truth can be discerned by "reason" is touted as being an intellectual idea, but it is actually quite foolish. Can emotion be understood by reason? Can the supernatural be understood by reason? I find it interesting that TNG is proud of its acceptance of all kinds of diversity. It celebrates infinite diversity in infinite combinations (IDIC), as long as that doesn't include religion. Am I the only one that see's this as a contradiction?
Yes.
I never thought this episode was particularly anti-religious. Picard wasn't saying that the Mintakans shouldn't worship a god, just that HE isn't that god. His problem was that they thought of him as divine, that's the only thing he wanted to put the kibosh on.
And he was right!
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