Stra Trek Fans? Catholic not-Christian. (Spoilers!)

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I found this article in another discussion forum, regarding Star Trek Enterprise series and the new writer hired to improve it.

Full article is here: Producers Reveal Tidbits about Season 4

I was struck by this long quote from the article discussing a future story line:
He nicknamed it “Vulcan of Arabia” because it’s an epic story taking place almost entirely on the hot, desert planet. “It involves a Vulcan Reformation,” he continued. “I’m equating the Vulcan High Command with the Catholic Church, which in medieval times strayed from the teachings of Christianity; similarly, the Vulcan High Command has strayed from the teachings of Surak. This individual wants to bring us back to those teachings, but it causes instability on Vulcan because he’s preaching pacifism…”
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Um yeah. I only bring this up because I just finished reading The Catholic Church, the First 2000 Years: from Martha Rasmussen. I learned that in Germany, many bishops and priests abused their positions and created distrust among the Catholics. However, to say the Church strayed from “christianity” is pretty big generalization, considering how large the Church was at that time.

My thoughts on this new writer, Manny Coto has dropped considerably. Can anyone set him straight?
 
The Church, as the divinely appointed mystical Body of Christ, has never strayed from Christianity, it IS Christianity. That would be like me straying from being human. The Catholic Church IS the embodiment of Christianity, because Christ Himself ordained it to be so. However, that does not mean that there have been many people within the Church who have fallen off the path, even Popes. Infallibility does not equal impeccability. Christ knew when He commissioned the Church that it would be full of sinners. That is who He came for “The healthy man has no need of a doctor.”

Does that mean that someone in Hollywood has a bone to pick with the Catholic CHurch. Oh my! Say it isn’t so! Who ever heard of such a thing? AND… they are willing to bend and twist facts to present the story as they see it? NO WAY! What a shocker! The Church has been persecuted since the time of Christ in one way or the other and will continue to be so until the second coming. Remember, if the devil isn’t resisting you, you are walking in the same direction.
 
Hmmm…I wonder if this producer is a protestant or a fallen away “catholic”

Such a comment would make sense then from the producer’s POV.
 
For whatever its worth…the Catholic Church still exists in that Star Trek Universe. Dr. Phlox spoke of visiting the ‘holy’ places of earth and attending Mass in St. Peter’s square.

dream wanderer
 
Serioulsy? How did that get past the “censors”? I always thought Star Trek to be devoid of religion, except for aliens or course.

I haven’t been to up on Enterprise, until that last couple of new episodes.
 
Oh, Star Trek has PLENTY of religion. You must have missed Deep Space 9, especially all the part about the Bajoran religions, etc. And Voyager had Janeway and crew supposedly MEETING God, etc.

On The Next Generation, there were lots and lots of people who had all sorts of religions, religious rites, beliefs etc.

And the original series had those darling episodes like “The Way to Eden” where the hippies forced the Enterprise to take them to the PLANET Eden (complete with poisonous vegetation, the character named “Adam” who died eating an apple); the planets where computers were gods, “Who Mourns for Apollo” where the Enterprise guys met up with Apollo (who finally left “on the wind” but not before impregnating Lt. McGivers, in true “greek god” fashion of raising up half-immortals).

Heck, Kirk and Picard officiated at weddings on board their starships, too.

But all ST people had no compunction about violating “the prime directive” in matters of religion, because so often religion was backward, repressive, and just plain “wrong”.

I love Star Trek, but in SPITE of its “views” on religion, not because of them. Probably that’s the main difference between me and the average New Age “Trekker.” (And please, NEVER say, “Trekkie.” That’s like calling an apostle a “posse” member. 😃
 
History is often meaningless. It is of little practical use to discuss what did or did not happen. You cannot change it, you wern’t there so you will never understand it, the writer of history is using conjecture and supposition to describe events, motivations, causes and effects. Other than basic facts (yes, there were Nazi concentration camps) history is one persons intrepretation. And there are many important events that have never been recorded.

If the Church strayed during the middle ages - so what? You can’t change it. If the Church did not stray during the middle ages - so what? We are here now under our present circumstances.

If historians want to delve into such matters, fine, that’s their profession. But except for a few basic facts, the average person doesn’t need much history.

PS. Captian Kirk could whop Picard any day of the week.
 
Tantum ergo:
Oh, Star Trek has PLENTY of religion. You must have missed Deep Space 9, especially all the part about the Bajoran religions, etc. And Voyager had Janeway and crew supposedly MEETING God, etc.

On The Next Generation, there were lots and lots of people who had all sorts of religions, religious rites, beliefs etc.

And the original series had those darling episodes like “The Way to Eden” where the hippies forced the Enterprise to take them to the PLANET Eden (complete with poisonous vegetation, the character named “Adam” who died eating an apple); the planets where computers were gods, “Who Mourns for Apollo” where the Enterprise guys met up with Apollo (who finally left “on the wind” but not before impregnating Lt. McGivers, in true “greek god” fashion of raising up half-immortals).

Heck, Kirk and Picard officiated at weddings on board their starships, too.

But all ST people had no compunction about violating “the prime directive” in matters of religion, because so often religion was backward, repressive, and just plain “wrong”.

I love Star Trek, but in SPITE of its “views” on religion, not because of them. Probably that’s the main difference between me and the average New Age “Trekker.” (And please, NEVER say, “Trekkie.” That’s like calling an apostle a “posse” member. 😃
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granted their was religious imagery and “strange new” religions in the Star Trek universe, but the fact remains the Gene Rodenberry was…shall we say “unfriendly” to Christianity. Aside form this I still watch the original series when I get the chance…it is a fun t.v. show to watch imo.

It’s a secular myth that the Church strayed from “True” Christianity during the middle ages. It reinforces the secular idea that the Church is only human institution. This is the opinion of most of the writers and producers of the various t.v. series in the s.t. franchise, however, so nothing new with this new writer.

Live long and prosper…and most importantly, God bless
 
I used to watch Star Trek all the time, every series. That was until I seen the episode of Enterprise where they were comparing the mind meld with homosexuality. Some Vulcans are apparently born with this special gift and were forced to repress it because the bigoted vulcans called it unclean. Mind melders were closeted and there was a disease caused by mind melding. It was too much for me. No more Star Trek. Too PC.
Captain Kirk would have never stood for it.
 
I am not surprised. Star Trek is always pretty pc. So of course they attack Catholicism. Gotta keep those credentials up. And they seem to enjoy the bigotry.

I like the old Star Trek too. Kirk was always fire phasers first and ask questions latter.
 
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Poisson:
I used to watch Star Trek all the time, every series. That was until I seen the episode of Enterprise where they were comparing the mind meld with homosexuality. Some Vulcans are apparently born with this special gift and were forced to repress it because the bigoted vulcans called it unclean. Mind melders were closeted and there was a disease caused by mind melding. It was too much for me. No more Star Trek. Too PC.
Captain Kirk would have never stood for it.
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Really. :confused: Iwould have thought that was about people being born with birth defects or somehow ‘not perfect’.

But then I’ve always been a bit of a divergent thinker.

dream wanderer
 
Did anyone see “Bread and Circuses”? That one almost seemed to promote Christianity and see it as a positive thing on society.

A great quote from Kirk in another episode: “Mankind has no need for gods. We find the One quite adequate.” Nice! But alas, most of the more recent series (Enterprise excluded) has at least subtly attacked Christianity and earth religion. (DS9 was a bit better, but only with the Bajorans)
 
Ah, yes. And apparently Uhura was a Christian. . .in the episode where Kirk and company found a planet which was technologically 20th century Earth-like but the people were Romans of the 1st century A.D., it appeared that JESUS was present on that planet AT THAT TIME period. She brought out that the "Blessed be the " didn’t mean that the people worshipped a Sun god but actually was “Blessed be the SON”. Kirk even wondered how it would all turn out.
 
After reading all these wonderful response posts on this thread, I must add my “two cents worth” and some may think it isn’t worth much more than that! (lol).

I graduated from a Catholic 4-yr college in the late '90’s and before doing so, I took a very interesting course titled, “Star Trek and Religion.” What we did was to watch certain episodes from ST the Original Series, ST the Next Gen. and ST Voyager and then read several theology and philosophy text books. I took the course first, because I am a serious “trekker” (since the original series in the late Sixties), and second, I needed to take an extra course. It was a senior level religion course and turned out to be one of the most difficult and interesting courses I took in my undergraduate studies.

In fact, there is quite a bit of religion to be found in the various episodes of ST, all three series. Altho Roddenberry was originally a Protestant (Methodist, I think) he practised Judaism for awhile and then became an agnostic and before he died, a humanist; but he was a religious man by nature (oxymoron?). He did not care to impart direct religious dogma into his ST series but he did believe that both moral and spiritual themes were part of the human experience and therefore introduced as much of that as he could into the original series. However, that original series was a victim of the times and the TV Execs; many of his ideas for his phenomenal series were discarded as too volatile for the TV audiences of the post-war era (Roddenberry wrote many of the original episodes in the Fifties when he was a TV writer for such programs as The Twilight Zone). I have read that the Next Gen. series had more of what he wanted to incorporate into the original episodes. Unfortunately, he passed away during production of that series.

Now, there are several books written by college professors who have joined their talents in religious studies, theology and philosophy and who now teach such a course on ST and Religion. My professor, who hails from Chicago, was the first to design such a course and she received national recognition for her innovative ideas.

So, trekkers and Catholics, there IS religion in many of those episodes. I challenge you to re-view them and find some of them on your own.

An aside here: I am a journalist and I wrote a rebuttal editorial to someone that postured just such a question: is there no religion in Star Trek? Yes there is, but you have to look for it…I wish you all Happy Hunting
Live long and prosper,
Victoria
 
JMJ

From the time of Christ, His followers were called Christians, although they disguised their Faith for many years to avoid the persecutions. There is still in existence a letter written by St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, which calls the Christian religion the “Catholic Church.” This letter was written in 110 A.D. while he was enroute to be executed for his Faith. The Church of Rome, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, headed by the Vicar of Christ, St. Peter and his successors, is and remains in full union with ALL of the teachings of Christ under the guarantee of Christ Himself. The protestant revolters have used and continue to use the ruse that Catholics are not Christian, but protestants are. They claim Catholics fell away from the teachings of Christ. They make this claim in contradiction to the very bible they hold as the sole revelation of God’s Word.

I know many protestants and some ex-Catholics who claim that Catrholics are not Christian. Some call themselves Lutheran. What does that tell you? To be Catholic means you belong to the “universal” Church. To be Lutheran must mean you belong to a Church founded by Martin Luther, an ex-Catholic priest who could not maintain control of his morals, so he declared that no one could follow the Ten Commandments and “reformed” his Catholic Faith into the “image and likeness” of his own weaknesses. Does this mean that less than 500 years ago Christianity appeared? Does this mean that Christ failed totally in His establishment of a Church, but Martin Luther, etc., came to the rescue? — And he based his religion exclusively on the bible ** (sola scriptura) which the “failed” Catholics produced ** by gathering from 1000’s of documents, declaring which were “inspired,” giving titles, dividing into chapters, and then into verses.

The One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church is THE Christian Church. Great sinners and numerous sinners do not destroy the Mystical Body of Christ of Which He is the Head. Failure of that Mystical Body means the failure of Christ, The Word!
Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus est.
Cor Jesu Sacratissimum, miserere nobis.
 
I believe that Martin Luther WAS a RC priest when he nailed his protests to the cathedral door in Germany. One of those protests was indignation that the RC Church was selling indulgences for money. He had many other concerns as well.

The word “Catholic” does mean “universal.” The Evangelical Lutherans and the Episcopalians (who also consider themselves to be Catholic as well as Christian) in our community use the same daily and weekly readings as the RC Church. I know this because my sister is a Lutheran and I have attended many of their services. I know several Lutheran ministers, both men and women and they are as reverent towards the Word as any Catholic priest or Bishop I know.

If I recall the history, Martin Luther was also a very devout priest, not an ex-priest, and certainly not a man of loose morals. He is credited with many inciteful writings on faith, religious practice and and was a renowned theologian of his time. He also was a composer of church music and lyrics. He composed the Christmas hymn, “Away In A Manger,” which Catholic parishes and dioceses still use. The Evangelical Lutheran churches here believe in and espouse to, the “universality, or Catholicism, of the Christian Church.” Luther’s outrage at the scandal caused by the RC Church at the time caused him to post his protests. He hoped that the church fathers would listen to him but they scoffed at him.

Those years were not our best and many, many people, Catholic priests included, were determined to initiate reforms in many of the Church’s practices, which they later did. Some broke away from the church, others stayed and helped initiate those reforms.

It is true that there was a chasm of separation in idealogy and dogma between the churches at the time. That’s what started it all. I am happy though that now the RC Church is working with many Protestant churches towards ecumenism, throughout the world. Our Holy Father believes in this strongly, he has written on it and promotes it; that dialog with other churches is necessary in this world of terrorism and violence, including our own Culture of Death here in the US. What better way to overcome evil than for all Christian churches to work together?

I guess it depends upon the people in your own community but I know of no Lutherans that consider Catholics to not be Christians. Where I live, our churches are working together for dialog and understanding between the different faiths. We celebrate our common belief in Jesus, who we believe to be the living Word of God in our communities, both Lutheran and Catholic.
Victoria
 
Victoria, while I know that Martin Luther gave us “A MIghty Fortress is Our God”, apparently he did NOT give us “Away in a Manger”.

The publication of Away in a Manger was in a Lutheran Sunday school book and this created the misconception that the lyrics of Away in a Manger were actually written by Martin Luther himself–according to www.carols.org.uk.

My grandmother was raised Lutheran and converted to Catholicism when she married my grandfather, and she never attributed “Away in a Manger” to Luther. Our lullaby of choice from her was “Guten Abend”, anyway.

I’m glad you enjoyed the course. And I hope you are enjoying your work now as well. I’ll look forward to your getting the Pulitzer in the not-too-distant future. 👍
 
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chrisg93:
History is often meaningless. It is of little practical use to discuss what did or did not happen.
If historians want to delve into such matters, fine, that’s their profession. <<>> But except for a few basic facts, the average person doesn’t need much history.
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ACK~! :eek: :eek: :eek:
You must have had** terrible ** history teachers in school!

Those who do not understand history are DOOMED to repeat it. There is MUCH to be learned from the study of history.
 
Hey, don’t automatically blame the teachers! 😃

Different people have different learning styles. They also have different cultures and traditions. They have different life styles. They have different goals.

I know a LOT of students who “hated dull rote history” and saw NO need for it turn into young adults and adults who suddenly found themselves drawn to scrapbooking, genealogy searches, museums, etc. Wow! All this great stuff was the HISTORY that they hadn’t appreciated until they decided that they wanted to “own” it as a part of themselves. Maybe Chris will be one of them some day. (Make us proud, Chris).

Then again, look at the proliferation of “debunkers” out there who have made terrific inroads on convincing the average person that “history” is: 1. Incomplete. It was only “written by the winners”. Thus, it is unreliable, propaganda, not relevant. 2. Intolerant. Since it was just “one perspective”, there exist millions of OTHER perspectives that aren’t being given “equal weight”. Why study just that ONE perspective that WON? (It’s obviously WRONG, because it is unfairly attempting to present itself as being ONE and RIGHT, instead of acknowledging DIVERSITY). Why not enjoy the boundless possibilities that debunk that ONE perspective and convince yourself that unlike the average “fool” YOU really know “the REAL history” that has been hidden, distorted, or otherwise kept away from people. Hint: Dan Brown’s “The DaVinci Code” is accepted as HISTORICAL FACT though it is a work of fiction RIDDLED with errors. But since it is written as a thriller, with “likeable” people being in danger, working out puzzles, and coming up with “SECRET KNOWLEDGE”, on all those levels it appeals to people. It’s not “dull and dry” but exciting and new–plus, it is virulently anti-Catholic, and the average person today prides his “individualistic” self on being “anti” the “old, corrupt ways” and “pro” the NEW, ways of “reason”, “inclusiveness”, "and “tolerance”.

Historians have become not historians in many cases, but politicians angling for “their” view.

Chester G. Starr, author of “A History of the Ancient World”, (4th edition), says this:

While history must rest upon the actual facts insofar as these are preserved to us, the meaning of the story which is presented in any historical volume is the fruit of the author’s meditation. It does not rise automatically from the facts. As a result, each historian will emphasize different facts and may even differ from his colleagues as to which statements in the sources are really true; and his views of the past will depend quite largely upon what he thinks about the present and expects for the future. (97)

Something to consider each time we read “history”.
 
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