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Author | Topic: Even if you're not a trekkie or sci-fi fan, this is relevant to EvC. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
dwise1 Member Posts: 5950 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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Yes, as a Trekker (ie, not in possession of even one single pair of Vulcan ears; albeit owning many technical documents) who has been watching the series ever since the very first episode ever aired, "The Man Trap" (08 Sep 1966), I am familiar with that episode. Along with every episode of every series produced, except for a season or two (the second season, most definitely, due mainly to scheduling problems) of Deep Space Nine.
The relationship between Star Trek and religion is unfortunately problematic. To begin with, we have Nichelle Nichols' story from the original series, in which one day she confronted Gene Roddenberry with, "I know what you're doing! You're writing morality plays!" "Shh! Don't let anybody know!" And indeed, Star Trek: TOS was full of morality plays, as were many TNG episodes. And that was one of the great strengths of that franchise, one which makes Star Trek almost mythical. However, Roddenberry was a humanist -- which is a very good thing, mind you! However, the treatment of religion in Star Trek did suffer. Every single anomaly that could be attributed to a god would invariably, within the span of that single episode (remember, there were virtually never any multi-episode story arcs in 1960's TV), be given a totally materialistic explanation. In fact, one of the more mind-blowing episodes of a sci-fi show was immediately after the demise of Star Trek: In a Space: 1999 episode with Ian Shane, they encountered something inexplicable (an entity that inhabited Shane, seeking out heat at all costs) and the resolution of the story was that entity finally moving on and the main characters only able to say, "What the hell was that?" The complete anti-thesis of Star Trek, the admission that there are things that we still cannot explain. It ran like a shock through the minds of Trekkers. Let us contrast another sci-fi show, Babylon 5. One of the principal races, the Minbari, was divided into three castes, one of which was Religious -- the principal Minbari characters, vitally important characters were of the Religious Caste ("We are Grey. We stand between the Darkness and the Light."). And religious themes and issues repeatedly appeared in that show. And these alien religions, and hu-man religions as well, were treated with respect and were not (always) explained away as they had been in Star Trek. In fact, many religious organizations praised the creator of Babylon 5 for his treatment of religion. The creator of Babylon 5, Joseph Michael Straczynski (AKA "J. Michael Straczynski", AKA "JMS") is an atheist. Which supports a prejudice of mine. If a theist were to examine an alien culture and its religion (which theists have frequently done), he would do so through the filter of his own religion. He could recount factually what that culture's religious beliefs are, but he would need to discount those beliefs as wrong. Rather, it takes an atheist to look at those religious beliefs for what they are and to treat them accordingly. My personal prejudice is: A theist will only see what his own theology wants to see, whereas it takes an atheist to see what really is. This harkens back to sac{whatever numeric sequence}'s Underlying Philosophy topic. In his OP, he assumes that we either proceed from a "God exists" or a God does not exist" presupposition. Well, he is fundamentally wrong in that assumption. But let us accept one side of his premise. If one approaches everything, including other religions, with the fundamentally underlying premise that God exists and therefore everything must relate back to that fact, then absolutely everything is filtered through that presupposition and therefore absolutely no non-Christian religious idea can be viewed as it really is. Now, the other side of his argument is what's really wrong. sac{whatever numerics} assumes that the other presupposition is that "God does not exist". Rather, that other presupposition is "I observe what is." That is what JMS did. And for that, JMS received praise from many religious groups for his exceptional treatment of religion in science fiction. Edited by dwise1, : airdate of "The Man Trap"
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5950 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Ah, but the primitive Vulcans were not a rational people, but rather highly emotional and violent, so much so that they nearly destroyed themselves and would have if Surak hadn't shown them the path of peace and logic. Indeed, Vulcans are still highly emotional, but they train themselves to repress and deny their emotions.
However, it would seem that emotion, or at least the inability to control them, would have been bred out of Vulcans over time, much as independent thought and intelligence have been bred out of our domesticated livestock. Anyway, it does not make much sense to expect a vulcanoid race to automatically be more rational than even the Vulcans were.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5950 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
That "Faith is a Good Thing"? Or that religious beliefs can be very strong motivators and that conflicting beliefs make for good drama? Remember, JMS is a writer. I recall him stating in his notes on The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 (see also the actual Lurker's Guide at The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5) that even though he's an atheist, he does recognize that religion plays a role in how people think and act and interac and thus can be a very important factor when writing drama.
Let's step back a bit a look that that first-season episode again (assuming it to be first season, since you mention CDR Sinclair; I haven't seen it re-air in the US since SciFi Channel re-aired it once through circa 2000, which is rather ironic {*}). Dr. Franklin was only seeing medical issues, namely saving lives and preventing unnecessary death. CDR Sinclair was seeing much broader issues that he had to deal with on a daily basis, such as getting a mixed population of widely divergent and conflicting beliefs and attitudes to co-exist peacefully and even hopefully to work together. And faced with events that that go completely against our own beliefs and values, such as parents killing their own child because of religion (since this was long before we in the West became more aware of Islamic "honor killings", I doubt that that was what JMS drew from; rather, I suspect that he had drawn from actual cases in the US of faith-healing believing parents whose children died because they withheld medical care), what does someone in CDR Sinclair's position do? He can't personally condone it, yet he can't publicly and officially condemn it. Was Sinclair's response really what he himself deeply believed? Or was it a way for him to rationalize not being able to take action against such an act? Even having a character being forced to accept a cop-out can make for good drama. Those are just some other possible ways to look at that episode. If we could identify the episode, then we could go to the Lurker's Guide and read JMS' notes on that episode. Now, how would that episode have been written if by a Christian? Assuming that Christian writer to not be a faith-healing type, would he have had Sinclair condemn that alien religious belief for being un-Christian? Would that episode even have ever been written? Would any of those many alien religions have been given due respect, or would they be shown to be either good (ie, echoing and even supporting Christian theology) or bad (ie, being contrary to Christian theology)? It is my personal conceit that it takes an atheist to present and treat all religions equally and fairly and honestly. I think that is what JMS did in Babylon 5. {* FOOTNOTE:The irony in B5 not being aired any longer, is that JMS had deliberately planned for it to live on. As he was developing the show, he visited the on-line forums (being pre-public-Internet, that meant such forums as CompuServe, which is where I encountered him) to drum up interest in his project. Indeed, that is where he picked up the term "lurker" and chose it to described the indigent inhabitants of the station. JMS' plan was for a 5-year story arc. He explicitly named Star Trek as his motive for this. Towards the end of Star Trek's second season, NBC decided to cancel the show, but a massive letter-writing campaign by its fans led to the show being renewed for a third season. Then when it was cancelled at the end of that third season, it went into syndication which is where its audience grew to such proportions that the franchise took off again and spawned four more series and ten movies. JMS' point was that if Star Trek had not gotten renewed for that third season, then it never would have gone into syndication and never would have been revived. Three or more seasons (about 36 shows per season, instead of the UK's 13 per) of episodes are enough to show daily in syndication, whereas two seasons of episodes are not enough. JMS wanted his show to be at least three seasons long so that it would go into syndication and continue to build a larger audience, thus ensuring the B5 franchise long life and prosperity. The irony is that, even though he got his five seasons, the show did not remain in syndication for long and the two shows spun off from it did not last long. A pity, because B5 was a damned good show.} {PSRegarding the first-season episode, The Parliment of Dreams in which each delegate was to present their religion to the others as a cultural exchange, CDR Sinclair was at first perplexed as to what he should present to represent Earth. He ended up gathering representives from as many Earth religions as he could find and introduce them to the delegates. The first one he introduced was an atheist. From JMS' notes:
quote:} {PPS -- BelieversWritten, BTW, not by JMS, but rather by David Gerrold quote: There's more to good story-telling than what appears on the surface.} Edited by dwise1, : PS: The Parliment of Dreams Edited by dwise1, : PPS -- Believers
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