Star Trek Universe -- A World Without Religion?

On another thread, I mentioned that I watched Star Trek, TNG, and I found the show to be boring and lame.

And the reason I thought the show was boring was the absence of any villain.

And in fact, there is no evil at all, anywhere.

Even the main characters are totally without any character flaws, i.e. temptations to do evil.

There is no pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, sloth, or wrath in the Star Trek crew.

Everyone is a perfected man, perhaps the kind of perfect man that the Communists hoped to create.

And these perfect men and women, who have no sin, are in no need for forgiveness or redemption.

So there is no good either.

Basically, we have a world where neither good or evil exists.

All we have are efficient Federation officers that are not really human, because they lack human vices and they lack original sin.

And so there is no need for any religion, and there is no religion, and there is no God, no devil, no heaven, and no hell.

And no one has a problem with that because these Federation officers have no human soul and are not concerned with the big questions of life.

And this removes all possibility of real drama in the Star Trek universe, which makes the show boring and lame.

Discuss.

 

what does God need with a starship?

 

In contrast, a conflict between two opposing orders of warrior-priests is the central conflict of the Star Wars universe.

 

You really need to get out once in awhile.

 

It is clear you have never seen "Q", his character was a measure of Satan.....and in many ways quite evil.

 

You already completed most of the discussion, unfortunately. I am with you as usual, Blackrook.

What you presented sounds like the real Marxist, Communist revolution. Pro socialists will flock to this image.

It is completely absent of humanity.

- - - Updated - - -

Blackrook has written an informative and worthwhile post. What have you written lately??? Nothing.

Quit badgering him!!!! Go troll elsewhere.

Let's see YOU start an interesting thread worth reading.................................WAITING......................

 

That's a fairly legitimate criticism of the Next Gen series, although they had several outstanding episodes. However Deep Space 9 was a series that took your complaints to heart. There the Federation was dealing with a planet that had it's culture and society revolve around it's religion. Bajor wasn't a secular standard Federation world. It was a world that was broken from a long occupation, stripped of resources, and had a deeply religious population. Frankly, it was an alien planet that was more human than the 24th Century version of Earth.

 

In Star Trek they have the fake computer meals with the exact right nutrients that they need so no waste product to crap out? I hate crapping.

 

I have no doubt you think the OP's rubbish is worthy, however it is not.

People like you and the OP are so jacked up on religion, all you think about is this made up religious nonsense called 'sin'.

Good and bad are both very subjective terms. What one person deems good, another deems bad. Who is right and who is wrong? Once I was playing a Star Wars Game (Knights Of The Republic II) and there is one scene where I give a beggar some money. After I did, the beggar lost his life because he was robbed. Giving him money seemed to be a good idea, but it wasn't because it killed him. Now granted this is a video game, but this just goes to show, that good and bad are very subjective.

The difference between people like me and people like you, I don't see the world in black and white. You and the OP MUST see the universe in black and white. You MUST keep this ridiculous idea of 'god' going in your mind. The OP too. This is clear reading this ridiculous thread.

Further more, this thread really demonstrates what is 'evil' and 'bad' about religion to begin with. Instead of just enjoying a TV show, The OP has to find everything wrong with it from a religious stand point, when there is nothing wrong. That is called brainwashing. This is the problem with religion. It brain washes you to the point you can no longer think for yourself. You can only see black and white.

 

I often find it remarkable what people will do for attention.

 

The Borg and the Cardassians are among the best villains ever in a TV show.

And obviously the subtlety of the Enterprise's crew's inner struggles for moral decisions against their own human weakness have escaped you. Captain Picard quoting from "Moby Dick" will always remain one of my favourite scenes in that regard:

[video=youtube;oeGMHbK4NlA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeGMHbK4NlA[/video]

 

You watched a different star trek than I did.
While there wasn't a main or core villain, there were planets or species that wanted to control another.

Well, I guess I'm older than most. As I remember the original. I never got to involved in the later series. But I didn't see the original as release but reruns a couple/few years later and late nite with nothing much else to do as a kid.

 

In a dream I had several years ago, I was in a freight elevator rising in a dark, massive building filled with pipes, ducts, iron catwalks and other fixtures suggestive of some kind of power station or refinery. When the elevator stopped, I exited and walked toward a small bright light at the end of a catwalk. As I approached, the light appeared to be two joined luminescent cylinders. I sensed a great non-living intelligence from those cylinders and believed I was in the presence of a deity.

A few years later, I saw a similar image: the interior of a Borg spaceship in Star Trek: The Next Generation. I concluded that my dream image reveals a deity who is the bright, non-living center of a great collective conscious like that of the Borg. My dream came at the dawn of the Internet, when that "divine station" was empty. It is now populated with hundreds of millions of people whose thoughts intersect on the world wide web.

 

But think about it. When you gave the beggar money you were also giving him a life lesson. He asked and you gave. But once he had the money when it was his turn to give he resisted and wanted to keep it all for himself. So the person, the robber, then became a killer. The beggar had then created a situation in which he introduced a greater evil by refusing to give to one who asked for his money. Had he been more generous he might have tried to tell the robber a sob story and offered to share his new-found wealth. Instead he paid the price for his greed with his life.

As Jesus said in Luke 6:30 (CEB) = "Give to everyone who asks and don’t demand your things back from those who take them."

 

...We're never going to be friends, you and I.

Well, between the various warring factions, on any given day the villain could be a Romulan would-be-conqueror, or a Klingon, or the Borg, or whatever else. And that's the nice thing about TNG - it challenges us. It doesn't say, "Here's the bad guy the good guys have to fight against", it says "Here are various warring factions - we have a clear protagonist but no clear best objective." It forces us to think about it, and when we do, it's normally quite clear. But we have to think to begin with.

Yes, just like in real life, on a geopolitical scale, there is no evil - sure, individuals can do evil things but a society as a whole is not evil; rather, there are conflicting goals and social norms. Just like in real life! And of course, we root for the federation, because they have the societal norms that we find moral, but the show expects us to respect, if not accept, the norms of various other cultures who do things slightly differently, and reject the norms of cultures such as the borg, which ignore all of the ethics we know today.

Maybe you should watch the movies - the very first movie shows Picard as a very conflicted, vulnerable man. Data has constant struggles to deal with his humanity while being a robot. The first officer has trouble dealing with his ex-wife. I'm not sure we watched the same show, honestly.

You don't get Star Trek at all.

 

The "Prime Directive" was StarTrek's religion.

 

Blackrook is also not taking into account that Star Trek is deliberately utopian. The people of Earth I that universe have been exposed to infinite energy, infinite resources, and a post monetary/post market/post capitalist society for more than 100 years.

Religions and philosophy are fairly consistent across the board that need/want causes conflict/sin/suffering. How do you think society would look if there is no need anymore? When all needs are fulfilled at no cost and people are allowed to pursue their wants and higher impulses without having to worry about putting food on the table or if they can afford to send their kids to college?

 

If it's any consolation, I always suspected Capt. Picard was a closeted homosexual...

 

Almost every statement you make is incorrect, except that there was little jesus infuence in the show, as it is with 95% of TV shows and movies.

- - - Updated - - -

Yo also mentioned you only watched 2 episodes.

 

I love TNG. I thought it was the best TV show ever made. I have all seven series on DVD and consider it my "Bible". I often refer to specific episodes, not so much for answers but more for guidance on asking the right questions with regard to certain ethical or moral concerns.

Some classic examples are: the crystalline entity in "Datalore", when a rapacious, planet destroying crystal is destroyed by the very scientist sent to investigate it. She lets a personal grievance stand in the way of her professional conduct and because of that we never learn its motivation or if it's even aware, from our perspective, of the harm its causing. Communication could have led to accord.

How about "Who Watches the Watchers?" when an early atheistic society of proto-Vulcans suddenly "gets religion" due to an accident on the part of the Federation. They begin to revere Picard as a god even though he appears to them and insists he is not. In fact, if anything, his appearance threatens to turn them into even more "true believers". To me, this strikes at the heart of unwavering religious fundamentalism.

If there is anything close to the concept of sin, it is the sin of boredom suffered by the seemingly omnipotent "Q" continuum. Despite having almost limitless powers they instead prefer to treat species like humans as metaphorical insects to burn the legs off of.

Rodenberry was a Humanist as were my parents. If I learned anything from them both, it's that how we ask the questions is often far more revealing and edifying than whether or not we'll ever have all the answers.

By contrast 'Star Wars" seems to me a lot more simplistic. There's a good guy and a bad guy and then this happens, and then this happens, and then this happens.

Sure, it's fun and often spectacular but it doesn't leave me with much to contemplate once the spectacle is over (except how truly terrible Jar Jar Binks was )

 

Hey, guess what? I'm putting you on "ignore." I invite you to do the same to me. Goodbye.

 

Ok, so the Star Trek universe is boring compared with the Star Wars universe, but which one would you rather live in? A world where pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, sloth, and wrath have been eliminated or a world where slavery and racism is tolerated and religious factions constantly battle for control? My view is Star Wars is what the world is now, Star Trek is what the world could be.

As for the Federation being some kind of Communist heaven, don't forget who is the biggest enemy of the Federation is, the Borg, the ultimate Communists.

 

The Star Trek universe is impossible because man is not perfectable. We are all tainted by original sin and will always be tempted to do evil. Some people will resist those temptations and live good lives. Others will give in to temptations and live a life of wickedness and evil. The conflict between good and evil is the foundation of good drama. Star Trek eliminates the possibility that any man can be evil, and therefore eliminates the possibility of good drama. Hence, the show is boring as all get-out.

 

Why thank you. Coming from you, I will take that as a compliment

- - - Updated - - -

If man is not prefect, then gods creation of man is not perfect. If gods creation is not perfect, the he is not god. Perfection only begets perfection.

Another logic fail by theists.

 

Can you get your head around the idea that there are people who share your planet but not your views or upbringing? I wasn't inculcated in ideas like "original sin". I know what they are but I learned them more as an academic study than a belief.

To me the Bible is an interesting book like the Gita but I don't believe the content of either of them and don't need their perspective to understand something like Star trek which clearly wasn't influenced by them.