VOY: "Mortal Coil"

[CharlesPhipps]

AKA Neelix's "The First Duty"

Neelix is the butt monkey for very good reasons but this is an episode that never would have worked with anyone else and the sheer depressing nature of the story, "Yeah, I don't believe in an afterlife and am an atheist after a near-death experience but I'll carry on regardless" ending the way it does is stronger for the fact he's such a goofball character. It's like Jar Jar being used to disprove the Force and frankly the better for it.

Mind you, I find it hilarious that it is in the same series as "Barge of the Dead."

[Frustration]

I find the very idea that people in the universe of Star Trek would take the idea of an afterlife seriously. They always seem to be the relatively ignorant and unsophisticated aliens to explore the concept, or in the example of B'Elanna, a person struggling with vicious impulses.

[CharlesPhipps]

I find the very idea that people in the universe of Star Trek would take the idea of an afterlife seriously.

Missing a word here, I think.

They always seem to be the relatively ignorant and unsophisticated aliens to explore the concept, or in the example of B'Elanna, a person struggling with vicious impulses.

Star Trek's relationship with religion has been discussed by people smarter than myself with DS9 being written (and they admit it) with a desire to push back on as many ideas as possible. However, I always note that it's interesting that the humans seem to be shown to have lost something when they interact with a lot of these cultures.

I also feel the Vulcans, for all their deadly rituals, are also shown as the most religious species in Star Trek. It's just it's a nontheistic Eastern style religion/philosophy.

[Madner Kami]

Ritualism doesn't equal religion.

[clearspira]

If you were living in same universe as the Q Continuum, the Prophets, the Pah Wraiths, the Organians, the Nexus, multiple parallel realities, functional time travel, spatial anomalies that make space and time bend to its will, technology that breaks the laws of physics, magic space mushrooms and whatever it is that Dr McCoy's liver is made out of, you too would be open to at least the possibility of there being an afterlife.

[Frustration]

Yeah, I did manage to leave out the final word; at least it's obvious that I did so. Probably I would have chosen 'ridiculous'.

The only religions that Star Trek hasn't proven false are untestable and therefore meaningless. We can always imagine that Q has, for his own amusement, copies of the minds of every organism that has never lived - but what conclusions can be drawn in this hypothetical scenario?

I actually rather liked the episode of Voyager in which Janeway finds herself seeming to haunt the ship after her death - and after refusing the coaxing of the 'angel' to 'enter the light', is more or less told it's a predator luring the information-rich afterimage of her mind into its maw, and then is revived by the crew treating the injury which it seems didn't kill her after all. No clue is given as to whether this was a hallucination or real experience.

[Fianna]

Star Trek's in a weird place where some religions have had their gods proven to be real (the Prophets, Apollo, and [if you count the animated series] Satan), with the debate only being over whether they're worthy of worship.

[Lazerlike42]

Yeah, I did manage to leave out the final word; at least it's obvious that I did so. Probably I would have chosen 'ridiculous'.

The only religions that Star Trek hasn't proven false are untestable and therefore meaningless. We can always imagine that Q has, for his own amusement, copies of the minds of every organism that has never lived - but what conclusions can be drawn in this hypothetical scenario?

I actually rather liked the episode of Voyager in which Janeway finds herself seeming to haunt the ship after her death - and after refusing the coaxing of the 'angel' to 'enter the light', is more or less told it's a predator luring the information-rich afterimage of her mind into its maw, and then is revived by the crew treating the injury which it seems didn't kill her after all. No clue is given as to whether this was a hallucination or real experience.

For what it's worth, I've known an awful lot of extremely intelligent, science minded people in my life -physicists working on and publishing things that I, a math and physics teacher, can't understand in the slightest, chemists, engineers who remind me of Steve Urkel in terms of the kinds of things they create just for fun in their spare time, biologists doing research for major hospitals, medical doctors, etc... half of these people have graduated from MIT, some of them have *taught* at MIT, etc. In general, they're a group of friends around whom I - a decently smart person - feel incredibly stupid.

They're all also some of the most deeply religious people you could ever find. These are the kind of people who go to daily Mass, make pilgrimages to sites on the other side of the world, voluntarily fast for months at a time (I'm not talking about things like Lent - I'm talking about things in addition to those sorts of things), they believe in miracles and go to visit sites of miracles, etc.

None of what I'm saying here means that there aren't also extremely intelligent, scientifically minded people who reject religion, profess atheism or at least skepticism, etc. My point is simply that having an advanced understanding of and investment in a deeply scientific worldview doesn't preclude being a person of faith.

[Frustration]

Studies have shown that the people most vulnerable to being taken in by groups like QAnon, the really crazy shared conspiracy stuff, are the least educated people - and the most. With the most, it's because they think they're too smart to be taken in by nonsense.

Application of this fact to religious belief is left as an exercise for the student.

(edit to add) Star Trek is both advanced, and rationalist.

[CharlesPhipps]

Ritualism doesn't equal religion.

Speaking as a student of anthropology, I feel like if you state that a religion has to have gods, that you have invalidated half the religions on Earth.

Then you have to define gods.