Has he never heard of Unitarianism? Ecumenism.
I will say this is easily one of the best episodes of Discovery.
Real in what way? The locals are clearly wrong about a huge amount of their philosophy given Earth is still around. I'm actually kind of sad about it but then again, I am not an atheist so it's a "one group or the other would be getting the prize."Worffan101 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2019 2:14 am I thought this was an ambitious episode, albeit one regrettably leaning towards the religion being "real" in a way that I, an atheist, find offensive. However, credit for trying.
I think that you're confusing Iran with religious communes and hippies that have actually ended pretty well in the small term. Not every religion ends up exalting the power of the lash and fundamentalist orthodoxy. Quite of a lot of them end up exalting singing around campfires, sex, and mushrooms. I totally 100% agree with you, though, that Discovery should have told them about Earth continuing to exist. This is the same bullshit that Archer pulled on New Terra.That said, I think that they made the wrong decision here. This is a theocracy and those NEVER end well, and it clearly has some repressive policies already. They very much SHOULD have broken the PD and used the magic mushroom drive to bring Starfleet people in to tell the colonists that Earth is a paradise now.
People are not lab experiments.
Bluntly, putting on my "Pike's Dad has my former profession" hat, I should point out that the majority of human history does NOT work like the Catholic Church and Abrahamic Faiths in that they attempted to work out how this thing worked and everyone else was wrong. For the most part, in Ancient History and many places in the Modern World, if you find out about a new god then you just figure out how that God fits into your pantheon.Linkara wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2019 12:05 am I think Chuck's being a LITTLE unfair to the society of New Eden. Religion IS different from a government and hey, when you see something that looks preeeeetty divine as we saw with the angel's appearance, there's going to be some debate and eventually come to a decision on how to interpret it. In this case they decided the best thing to do was to merge the religions. The idea of just "letting everyone believe what they want" might work fine from a theoretical standpoint, but they were the ones actually there dealing with it and needing to figure out some way of making sense of it all. Hell, they're 2 centuries removed from the actual event itself, so maybe there was a lot more infighting and whatnot that actually occurred and this is just the official history that was decided on to try to make things more hunky-dory among them.
You don't assume they're idiots and worshiping a fake God.
It's how Voodoo got created.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephantclearspira wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2019 3:50 pmWhich makes no sense due to all of the individual stories conflicting.
A major element of Hinduism and Buddhism is based around the unknowable and personal nature of the divine.
Re: The Non-Religious Elements of the Show
I appreciate that Pike is taking the view that a sufficiently advanced alien would be indistinguishable from a god as that is something that Gene Roddenberry used a lot (so much so that Harlan Ellison said that Gene only had one plot). Q, the Organians, and the Metrons are all variations on what a "Good Alien God" would be while we have Kirk and Spock kill "Bad Alien Gods" (usually a computer) in the Archons, Eden, and I have touched the sky episodes. There's also Picard's anti-religious rant in Who Watches the Watchers.
There's a story that the writers expected that episode to be more controversial except religious people liked it more than atheists. Why? Because impersonating a god is one of the biggest blasphemies you can commit. Personally, I'm religious and disgusted that Michael and company would falsify a miracle. Why? Because religious people believe in what they're doing is TRUE. Lying to protect that belief is monstrous.
I do note this episode is very strongly about faith and they also talk about how it applies in non-believers as well. The poor scientist guy has faith that Earth is still around purely based on his gut belief and he is rewarded for it. Michael, of course, strongly believes in an IDEAOLOGY of science that is fundamentally different from science as a tool. It's also funny because Vulcans are a race that practices heavy mysticism and ritualism while being rationalist scientists. A distinction that would bother Western audiences more than Eastern I think.
Really the best part of the season was dealing with matters of faith like Saru discovering his worldview was a lie.