Why are so many Trek fans skittish about Trek's secular aproach?

[Misfit Toy]

Any way this can be tied back into Trek?

 

[number6]

Uhm, let's see,

1 post about it.

2nd post about it.

My 3rd question post about it.

Yup, in all three, it's there: FLAWED HUMAN BEINGS.

So what's your point, assuming you even have one?

Joel, he really doesn't. He's just being hostile and condescending toward people of Faith as he has been from the beginning. We're all a bunch of superstitious fools and he's doing his best to try to prove it even though he has no understanding whatsoever of Judeo-Christian tenets or history.

-Shawn

No kidding.

Frankly I don't know where anyone got the idea that there were fans that were skittish at all. The fact that Trek always remained neutral on religion meant that they could hold a mirror to it and show its strenghts and its failings. I think DS9 did that to great effect. It kept the show real, unlike that first Lost in Space pilot where the Robinson family starts to pray under the nefarious gaze of those aliens behind the bushes. The characters in Star Trek could be anyone of us, religious or not.. If they had a more religious overtone, it would have alienated other beliefs and non believers alike. By keeping it neutral, Trek only serves to underscore its inclusiveness..IDIC.

 

[Augustus]

I agree, even though I am very religious, I hardly ever felt slighted by religion in Trek. With the exception that religion was often shown as one of the things holding other races back from truth.

But then again in other episodes, religion turned out to be the knowledge of some true and great power.

 

[number6]

I agree, even though I am very religious, I hardly ever felt slighted by religion in Trek. With the exception that religion was often shown as one of the things holding other races back from truth.

But then again in other episodes, religion turned out to be the knowledge of some true and great power.

Absolutely. Again, I think DS9 did a great job of showing both sides of religion.

They showed how the Bajorans could survive horrible atrocities at the hands of the Cardassians because of the strength of their faith, but then it also showed how some people used that faith to push an agenda. It showed a classic story of good triumphing over evil, yet it also showed the dangers of blind faith and devotion.

 

[CaptainHawk1]

So what's your point, assuming you even have one?

Joel, he really doesn't. He's just being hostile and condescending toward people of Faith as he has been from the beginning. We're all a bunch of superstitious fools and he's doing his best to try to prove it even though he has no understanding whatsoever of Judeo-Christian tenets or history.

-Shawn

No kidding.

Frankly I don't know where anyone got the idea that there were fans that were skittish at all. The fact that Trek always remained neutral on religion meant that they could hold a mirror to it and show its strenghts and its failings. I think DS9 did that to great effect. It kept the show real, unlike that first Lost in Space pilot where the Robinson family starts to pray under the nefarious gaze of those aliens behind the bushes. The characters in Star Trek could be anyone of us, religious or not.. If they had a more religious overtone, it would have alienated other beliefs and non believers alike. By keeping it neutral, Trek only serves to underscore its inclusiveness..IDIC.

Word... Couldn't have said it better.

-Shawn

 

[3D Master]

But if it is written by flawed human beings, why would you need to read it to understand any truth, let alone one about morality?

Read my posts as it was explained to you. Those of us of Faith subscribe to the notion that the Bible is written by God through man, i.e Divinely inspired. The words should not betaken literally, only the substance and Truth on the principles of morality and virtue.

Seriously, please have the courtesy to read prior posts in their entirety.

-Shawn

I HAVE read the your prior posts, I'm trying to point out to you, you're making a logical error.

Just above, you said that the bible did NOT provide morality and virtue, because it was written by humans in different times who had a different morals. Hence the bible condoning slavery and such.

In short, you don't get any morality and truth and substance from the Bible, you have your OWN morality, truth and substance, and then decide to edit the bible in your head, pick and choose what fits with your already existing very own morality, truth and substance, that has got nothing to do with the bible.

Your morality, truth and substance is something that formed in you via culture, friends, family, your own thoughts and pondering on the matter - and the bible didn't help you one bit. You don't that what you think is the right picking and choosing is the right picking and choosing, god may genuinely love the concept of slavery, and is really pissed with you claiming its bad - it's basically telling god his morals are wrong, were that the case.

Find any other collection of works of a culture or country that defines them, that is part historic recollection, that spans the same time as the bible, and you'll find it got it right every bit as much, if not more so, than the bible.

 

[Vance]

There is no such work, 3DMaster, and you well know that.

At this point, I have to ask, are you willing to talk about Trek and religion, or are you here specifically to bash fans of Star Trek who happen to be religious?

 

[Misfit Toy]

But if it is written by flawed human beings, why would you need to read it to understand any truth, let alone one about morality?

Read my posts as it was explained to you. Those of us of Faith subscribe to the notion that the Bible is written by God through man, i.e Divinely inspired. The words should not betaken literally, only the substance and Truth on the principles of morality and virtue.

Seriously, please have the courtesy to read prior posts in their entirety.

-Shawn

I HAVE read the your prior posts, I'm trying to point out to you, you're making a logical error.

Just above, you said that the bible did NOT provide morality and virtue, because it was written by humans in different times who had a different morals. Hence the bible condoning slavery and such.

In short, you don't get any morality and truth and substance from the Bible, you have your OWN morality, truth and substance, and then decide to edit the bible in your head, pick and choose what fits with your already existing very own morality, truth and substance, that has got nothing to do with the bible.

Your morality, truth and substance is something that formed in you via culture, friends, family, your own thoughts and pondering on the matter - and the bible didn't help you one bit. You don't that what you think is the right picking and choosing is the right picking and choosing, god may genuinely love the concept of slavery, and is really pissed with you claiming its bad - it's basically telling god his morals are wrong, were that the case.

Find any other collection of works of a culture or country that defines them, that is part historic recollection, that spans the same time as the bible, and you'll find it got it right every bit as much, if not more so, than the bible.

Logical errors are bound to exist when discussing the concept of faith. That's not likely to change in this Trek-related thread. Please table this portion of the argument or raise it in Misc or TNZ.

 

[TIN_MAN]

On a related note, I thought Archer's attidude toward the people who worshiped the sphere builders was pretty dismissive, and a slight against religeon in general, but maybe the writers just meant to target extreme fundementalism? Thoughts?

 

[Vance]

On a related note, I thought Archer's attidude toward the people who worshiped the sphere builders was pretty dismissive, and a slight against religeon in general, but maybe the writers just meant to target extreme fundementalism? Thoughts?

Unfortunately, since the 1980s, at least, Hollywood doesn't seem to understand religion, or the religious, in any capacity. They tend to show up and be pretty hostile to the very concept (as modern Trek was want to do), or overcompensate dramatically to making it just as absurd and offensive the OTHER way (as, again, modern Trek was want to do).

Honestly, it's one of those things that I don't think writers should tackle unless they really do learn something about it, from people who are a part of it.

 

[cynical dreamer]

I'll take a brief stab at this from an atheist's view.

For me god was never something you could prove. It had to be taken on faith. And whether it's my science background or a result of my life experiences, I'm just not willing to take anything in life on faith. For me everything must be supported by evidence. Cold hard evidence, not circumstantial evidence.

Science is creating hypothesis and then testing them. Science doesn't prove anything ever. But what it does is provide evidence to support a hypothesis. And when a refutation of a hypothesis is presented then the old hypothesis is thrown out on it's ear and a new one needs to be formulated.

And for me that's the most elegant and powerful tool that we as humans have ever devised. It is our best defence against human fallacy and falability.

God can't be proven or disproven. And I've just never seen any evidence to support his existance.

In the end, it doesn't matter what i beleive. It doesn't matter what you beleive. And it doesn't matter what your neighbor beleives. It's all irrelevant. The truth will be the truth no matter what you or i wish it to be. The truth isn't subjective. It is what it is. And no amount of wishing one thing or the other to be true will change what the truth is.

So you say, how can you ever know what the truth is. None of us may ever know. But the scientific method is probably our best shot at keeping us honest as a species.


...

Trek to me said, whatever you believe, were all stuck with each other and we just have to deal with that and get on with it. It often gets the science wrong. But at least it tries.

 

[number6]

On a related note, I thought Archer's attidude toward the people who worshiped the sphere builders was pretty dismissive, and a slight against religeon in general, but maybe the writers just meant to target extreme fundementalism? Thoughts?

I think more of the latter. The one thing TOS did was to expose blind faith to "false" gods and being intelligent enough to ask questions and think for yourself. You see this theme repeated again and again. I really thought the sphere builders echoed that as well as the whole notion that we ourselves might not understand the superiority of advanced alien civilization and worhip them as gods.. Look at our own past. Galileo being persecuted for his ideas about stars, planets and how we're a small part of a bigger picture..
People committing suicide to ride a spaceship hidden in the trail of a comet. Our perceptions of extraterrestrials and UFOs in general.
Look at our own mythology and you'll see several parallels in the Star Trek universe. I think each series did their own version of that, as a great strength in most of all the series. Some analogies didn't always hit it out of the park, but we still got that mirror I spoke of. That doesn't mean that everyone who wrote for Star Trek was a believer or not. GR was certainly an atheist, but I'm not so sure you could say that about each and every member of the Star Trek writing staff, from 1965 to today.

I think if Star Trek only had one writer, the depth of secular division vs. spiritual issues would be much more of a known quantity. As such, each writer brought to such an episode more questions, different questions, better questions, not only about about the nature of existance, but the different ways different cultures explore those same questions we ask ourselves. And that is truly the point of the best of Star Trek's overall purpose.

The actual existance of God and all the beliefs we follow or chose not to follow is ultimately beside the point at the end of the day.

 

[trevanian]

I didn't think I was going to drop back into this so soon, but I just remembered that I actually had a story idea for DS9 that explored some of this stuff. I thought that even with the passionate devotion of the Bajorans to their belief system, there would have to be a small percentage who embraced change in the form of Federation values.

So you'd have some Bajorans who took exile from the planet (maybe on a comet, there had been some science papers I read that indicated you could put people on one, and I think Larry Niven did some stories with that setting) and repudiated their gods in favor of a totally rational, science-minded view of things. I think maybe it was inspired by a feeling I had about scientologists based on a couple I knew, who felt they had elevated themselves above others with their newly enlightened (?!) 'tude.

You didn't have the pre-warp / prime directive problem with Bajor, but you still have an ethical problem, because your fed presence is messing at least some of these people up, and who is responsible? Kira would obviously be feeling bad about it ... and I don't remember much else, because I never even took it to outline, since they decided not to take phone pitches from me (I had pitched TNG in '90 and thought I could get back in w/o writing another couple specs, but I thought wrong.)

 

[CaptainHawk1]

But if it is written by flawed human beings, why would you need to read it to understand any truth, let alone one about morality?

Read my posts as it was explained to you. Those of us of Faith subscribe to the notion that the Bible is written by God through man, i.e Divinely inspired. The words should not betaken literally, only the substance and Truth on the principles of morality and virtue.

Seriously, please have the courtesy to read prior posts in their entirety.

-Shawn

I HAVE read the your prior posts, I'm trying to point out to you, you're making a logical error.

OK, first there's no logical error being made, you just don't understand.

Just above, you said that the bible did NOT provide morality and virtue, because it was written by humans in different times who had a different morals. Hence the bible condoning slavery and such.

I said no such thing and in fact I said quite the opposite, but apparently I'm using language too complicated for you to understand. The only matters of substance that the Bible deals with are MORALITY and VIRTUE.

The Bible certainly doesn't condone slavery as you understand it and this is part of the problem with your ridiculous argument. You have absolutely no education in the Bible and absolutely no understanding of the Bible and no understanding of the history of slavery in other cultures pre-modern Western Europe.

Slavery as you understand it (i.e., African Slavery) did not exist 2,000 years ago. That kind of slavery is a product of New World Expansion. Slavery during Biblical times in the Mediterranean was a social caste more than anything else and generally not motivated exclusively by race or nationality (I say generally because there is a pretty good example of race-based slavery that the Bible references, but I'll get to that in a moment). Slavery was often the result of a person selling themselves into slavery in order to pay off their debts or debts of family members. People also became slaves because they couldn't provide for their family. Doctors, lawyers, teachers and even politicians were often slaves of other people. Believe it or not, there were some people that actually sold themselves into slavery so that they could have all of their needs provided for them without the hassle of doing it themselves. Kind of like the Netherlands.

So does the Bible tell how these "slaves" should be treated? It certainly does. Does it condone it? No it doesn't and it doesn't condemn it either. But a lack of condemnation by the Bible shouldn't be interpreted as condoning it either. Since you can't wrap your head around this concept, I'll break it down for you on two levels.

First historical context: the practice of "slavery" as I've explained it was a common practice in the context of those ancient societies and the slave/master relationship was normally established by mutual assent. The kind of slavery that you're referring to in your ignorant comments was race-based slavery and it was exactly what the Egyptians subjected the Hebrews to. The Bible strongly condemns race-based slavery as noted in Exodus 7:11. The plagues that God launched against the Egyptians are a pretty good indication of where the Bible stands on race-based slavery.

I normally don't cite Bible passages because I don't know them off the top of my head and I think that citing Bible passages is usually the last recourse for a weak argument by a fundamentalist when they want to use a literalist interpretation to justify said weak moral argument. However, in this case, I did some research for the sole purpose of academically countering your bogus claim (and that of Asimov and Starship Polaris) about the Bible condoning slavery. So, whether you want to believe the validity of the story of God and the plagues, the fact remains that the Bible strongly condemns slavery as the modern western world is familiar with it.

Furthermore, and again because you don't have any understanding of the Bible from a historical, theological or Faith-based perspective I'll try to make this simple in saying that the role of the Bible is not to reform society but rather to serve as a guide toward Salvation. Those of us who have Faith believe that it is up to the individual to come to God on their own and not to have the Bible tell them what to do every step of the way. Again, these are concepts that I discussed in earlier posts that you still don't seem to comprehend.

In short, you don't get any morality and truth and substance from the Bible, you have your OWN morality, truth and substance, and then decide to edit the bible in your head, pick and choose what fits with your already existing very own morality, truth and substance, that has got nothing to do with the bible.

Your morality, truth and substance is something that formed in you via culture, friends, family, your own thoughts and pondering on the matter - and the bible didn't help you one bit. You don't that what you think is the right picking and choosing is the right picking and choosing,

This is generally an incoherent and immature rant and I've addressed the issues already. What I don't understand is why you feel the need to bash people of Faith and the tenets of their Faith. Nobody does that to you on this board and no one ever does that to any Atheist here despite the onslaught of attacks that their Faith endures on a daily basis by people like you and unfortunately the Mods would just assume give the rest of us warnings if we retaliated in kind. So you get free reign to bash our values and Faith when we're simply trying to explain how our Faith works.

I've said in the last big post it's not my job to proselytize but what I can't figure out is why you think it's appropriate for you to try poke "logic" holes in my Church's (and that of several other denominations) process of Faith when you don't have any experience with it nor do you have any education on it. What are you trying to accomplish here? Are you expecting me and other people of Faith to suddenly see the light and the error of our ways and decide that you're right and we're wrong, effectively proselytizing us? WTF are you... some kind of Atheistic Evangelist? (The power of NOTHING compels you!)

One of the main differences between you and I is that I'm not so immature as to try to convert you as you apparently are trying to do to me. This conversation started as a negative attack (as usual) against people of Faith and the record needed to be set straight. There's been no attempt on my part or anyone's part to try convert anyone. So why all of the hostility towards us? Have we done anything to you?

god may genuinely love the concept of slavery, and is really pissed with you claiming its bad - it's basically telling god his morals are wrong, were that the case.

Again, your ignorance on the Bible's position on slavery is beyond astounding and it's not tempered by your immature and self-righteous sarcasm. See above for further clarification on the Bible's stance on slavery.

Find any other collection of works of a culture or country that defines them, that is part historic recollection, that spans the same time as the bible, and you'll find it got it right every bit as much, if not more so, than the bible.

As pointed out, there aren't any.

You're rude and your hostile, plain and simple and it's not appreciated, but despite that, we'll continue to pray for you.

-Shawn

 

[3D Master]

Read my posts as it was explained to you. Those of us of Faith subscribe to the notion that the Bible is written by God through man, i.e Divinely inspired. The words should not betaken literally, only the substance and Truth on the principles of morality and virtue.

Seriously, please have the courtesy to read prior posts in their entirety.

-Shawn

OK, first there's no logical error being made, you just don't understand.

I said no such thing and in fact I said quite the opposite, but apparently I'm using language too complicated for you to understand. The only matters of substance that the Bible deals with are MORALITY and VIRTUE.

Oh, yes you did, if not you, then someone else. I believe the quote went: "The bible was written by flawed people and a product of its times, that's why it has things in it that we would find wrong..." In short: not very virtuous.

Also, the bible does not deal with morality and virtue, it's a history book. A heavily edited to fit the writer's idea of god and religion history book, but a history book nonetheless.

The Bible certainly doesn't condone slavery as you understand it and this is part of the problem with your ridiculous argument. You have absolutely no education in the Bible and absolutely no understanding of the Bible and no understanding of the history of slavery in other cultures pre-modern Western Europe.

Slavery as you understand it (i.e., African Slavery) did not exist 2,000 years ago. That kind of slavery is a product of New World Expansion. Slavery during Biblical times in the Mediterranean was a social caste more than anything else and generally not motivated exclusively by race or nationality (I say generally because there is a pretty good example of race-based slavery that the Bible references, but I'll get to that in a moment). Slavery was often the result of a person selling themselves into slavery in order to pay off their debts or debts of family members. People also became slaves because they couldn't provide for their family. Doctors, lawyers, teachers and even politicians were often slaves of other people. Believe it or not, there were some people that actually sold themselves into slavery so that they could have all of their needs provided for them without the hassle of doing it themselves. Kind of like the Netherlands.

So does the Bible tell how these "slaves" should be treated? It certainly does. Does it condone it? No it doesn't and it doesn't condemn it either. But a lack of condemnation by the Bible shouldn't be interpreted as condoning it either. Since you can't wrap your head around this concept, I'll break it down for you on two levels.

First historical context: the practice of "slavery" as I've explained it was a common practice in the context of those ancient societies and the slave/master relationship was normally established by mutual assent. The kind of slavery that you're referring to in your ignorant comments was race-based slavery and it was exactly what the Egyptians subjected the Hebrews to. The Bible strongly condemns race-based slavery as noted in Exodus 7:11. The plagues that God launched against the Egyptians are a pretty good indication of where the Bible stands on race-based slavery.

I normally don't cite Bible passages because I don't know them off the top of my head and I think that citing Bible passages is usually the last recourse for a weak argument by a fundamentalist when they want to use a literalist interpretation to justify said weak moral argument. However, in this case, I did some research for the sole purpose of academically countering your bogus claim (and that of Asimov and Starship Polaris) about the Bible condoning slavery. So, whether you want to believe the validity of the story of God and the plagues, the fact remains that the Bible strongly condemns slavery as the modern western world is familiar with it.

Furthermore, and again because you don't have any understanding of the Bible from a historical, theological or Faith-based perspective I'll try to make this simple in saying that the role of the Bible is not to reform society but rather to serve as a guide toward Salvation. Those of us who have Faith believe that it is up to the individual to come to God on their own and not to have the Bible tell them what to do every step of the way. Again, these are concepts that I discussed in earlier posts that you still don't seem to comprehend.

This has got to be the biggest pile of junk I've ever read put together. Brilliant bit of funny though. You jump to a shit load of conclusions without any evidence; which obviously are all wrong.

1. Slavery social contract: like the Greek Hiketeia, where not only does the slave work for the master, but the master is expected to protect the slave from all enemies, including fighting to his death against those enemies, even if it's the law, and the slave was a criminal. Yes, I know perfectly about that kind of slavery, the thing is, it's a minor event. The large majority of slavery (indeed having nothing to do with race (where the hell that comes from is beyond me, nowhere did I even hint I was talking about any race, but eh)) was not voluntary. Slaves by and large were captured people from villages raised to the ground, convoys robbed, or the children of slaves (whatever orgin) without ever given a choice in the matter. And in most cases, THAT is what the Bible is talking about.

2. Race slavery being bad? Really? You sure about that. It seems more like "enslaving the Israelites is bad", when Israelites have slaves of other races or religions later on in the bible, no god seems to be forth coming to smite them for the error of their ways.

3. The Netherlands? Are you on crack? The Netherlands never sold itself into slavery, it can't sell itself into slavery, and if it did, it most certainly didn't do it for convenience sake.

4. I understand the bible in a historical, theologian and faith-based perspective just fine. You see, I was raised catholic! Shocking, isn't it!? I had the bible read to me in friggin' school, every single day when I was a kid. Did you know, for example that what the bible has to say about homosexuality is a big thumbs up? The thing is, the moment I got old enough to have some rudimentary functional critical thought patterns in my head, along with some science; I tossed faith, religion and the bible out the window with the rest of the garbage.

This is generally an incoherent and immature rant and I've addressed the issues already. What I don't understand is why you feel the need to bash people of Faith and the tenets of their Faith. Nobody does that to you on this board and no one ever does that to any Atheist here despite the onslaught of attacks that their Faith endures on a daily basis by people like you and unfortunately the Mods would just assume give the rest of us warnings if we retaliated in kind. So you get free reign to bash our values and Faith when we're simply trying to explain how our Faith works.

I've said in the last big post it's not my job to proselytize but what I can't figure out is why you think it's appropriate for you to try poke "logic" holes in my Church's (and that of several other denominations) process of Faith when you don't have any experience with it nor do you have any education on it. What are you trying to accomplish here? Are you expecting me and other people of Faith to suddenly see the light and the error of our ways and decide that you're right and we're wrong, effectively proselytizing us? WTF are you... some kind of Atheistic Evangelist? (The power of NOTHING compels you!)

One of the main differences between you and I is that I'm not so immature as to try to convert you as you apparently are trying to do to me. This conversation started as a negative attack (as usual) against people of Faith and the record needed to be set straight. There's been no attempt on my part or anyone's part to try convert anyone. So why all of the hostility towards us? Have we done anything to you?

I'm hostile? I didn't think I got hostile until now, AFTER you started to get hostile.

I'm proselytizing? Where did you get that one? I'm giving counter points to some claims. This is Discussion Board. The point of a Discussion Board, is to discuss. The point of a discussion is to bring points and counter points. Maybe I missed something somewhere, but I was under the impression the above is what we're here for.

But, if you wanted to think of something that could piss someone off and get someone to become hostile, maybe should go to my first post, and read the post I was answering to in that one. Where every secularist, those without faith - which would include me - are happily called a bunch of amoral bastards who can not understand moral motivations and only understand motivations in terms of "how much do I get out of it", and "will I get punished for it". I mean, being made out for someone who would happily murder a family if he thought there was enough reward and he wouldn't get caught, would that be soemthing you'd get hostile over?

Find any other collection of works of a culture or country that defines them, that is part historic recollection, that spans the same time as the bible, and you'll find it got it right every bit as much, if not more so, than the bible.

As pointed out, there aren't any.

Uh, yes there are. There's the Quran, the Hindu writings, the Buddhist writings, and on, and on, and on.

 

[Misfit Toy]

My apologies to those who made valid attempts to keep this thread non-personal and generally Trek-related.

CaptainHawk1 and 3D Master - feel free to continue your disagreement via PM or take it to TNZ.

Thread closed.