The nature of religion, especially with regards to the soul and afterlife, is such that it cannot be verified by science.
The nature of specific religious
beliefs is that, quite deliberately. But that's not what the original claim was about. It described the nature of
religion, which is quite clear-cut and not even particularly open to debate.
I doubt religion would have much input on the issue of gods or afterlife in the Trek universe - both concepts (religion and tenets) clearly exist, but independently of each other, and
both can be empirically assessed. Especially since even belief itself can be studied inside the head of the believer, through telepathy and like concepts that abound in Trek. What is clearly shown is that gods need not be created by man in the Trek universe, although some in fact require belief in order to survive or grow. But little or nothing is empirically established about afterlife. Seances reach to lost souls, empirically verified phenomena - but never those of the deceased. Souls of the biologically deceased
may be preserved in exceptional circumstances, but not in the religiously typical fashion (
all souls of a group or species of believers in
all circumstances, or perhaps when certain criteria of good life are met); OTOH, species that do more or less categorically preserve souls (Vulcans) place little or no mythical or spiritual value on the act, and there's no element of supernaturality to it.
It's actually rather bizarre that there aren't holy wars over the usual "my god/system is better than yours" issues in a universe where gods not just exist, but also care and intervene... Perhaps the gods of Trek have no truck with such things?
That said, a lot of the Bajoran religion has similarities to eastern religions, theres a lot more of "moral/ethical behavior" but less in the way of "laws" i.e. "thou shalt be a good person" rather than "thou shalt not steal" and "thou shalt not eat the meat of a bajoran toad" etc.
Does the Bajoran religion give moral guidelines at all, really? There are ceremonies, which tend to touch upon the individual rather than the community let alone a weekly crowd, and then there's the monastery system, but we don't really hear much even about "a good life" or "a proper mindset" in either context.
Timo Saloniemi
