io9 
Enter your username and password.
-
posts about #religiontrek more → 
Thank God For Star Trek... Literally
San Francisco, 4:58 AM
Mon Nov 9
12 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors: tips@io9.com
Editor-in-Chief:
Annalee Newitz | Email
News Editor:
Charlie Jane Anders | Email
Associate Editor:
Meredith Woerner | Email
Assistant Editor:
Lauren Davis | Email
Weekend Editor:
Graeme McMillan | Email
Contributors:
Joshua Glenn
Stephen Goldmeier | Email
Ed Grabianowski | Email
Austin Grossman
Paul Hogan | Email
Lauren Davis | Email
Chris Hsiang | Email
Lynn Peril | Email
Ann VanderMeer
Alasdair Wilkins | Email
Graphic Designer:
Stephanie Fox | Email
Interns:
Tim Barribeau | Email
Julia Carusillo | Email
Alex Eichler | Email
Cyriaque Lamar | Email
Caitlin Petrakovitz | Email
Mary Ratliff | Email
Josh Snyder | Email
| posts about #religiontrek more → |
Thank God For Star Trek... Literally |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
05/16/09
That would also make Israel extremely fucking dangerous.
05/16/09
05/16/09
05/16/09
"Specifically, let's put our minds to the question of what the world is going to be like for us and our allies if 20 or more countries have nuclear weapons-up from the current nine (we think). ... Do we really think, in such a missiled-up, nuked-up world, that treaties will keep us and our allies safe?"
In Star Trek, the planet Earth is united. Not only that, but the planet Earth is also part of the United Federation of Planets. I can't connect what Pinkerton is saying here to Star Trek at all, especially if he's talking about the new Trek.
Pinkerton's God talk about Star Trek? Fine. I get it. I don't agree with it, but I understand. It's when he goes off on his war rant about nukes and Israel that he loses me.
05/16/09
Science Fiction has been pointing the way towards tomorrow since its invention, kinda its main purpose. And his appeal to conservatives is ... odd, especially when the Catholic Church is unwilling to use "every form of protection" provided by God.
This article stinks of the basic inability of a bronze-age culture to embrace the electronic technology of today and the possibilities of tomorrow.
05/17/09
b) Beating Pinkerton's head with a lead pipe until his cranium was a deformed, fine mush would be a mercy killing, not murder.
05/16/09
"(Abrams can also be praised for seeking out expert advice: though I recall no uses of the Klingon or Romulan languages, the film does credit Marc Okrand, creator of the Klingon language, as its "language advisor," and noted astronomer Carolyn Porco was on board as "science advisor," though one doubts she contributed to, or approved of, the film's preposterous device of black-hole-engendering "red matter.")"
[www.locusmag.com]
05/16/09
05/17/09
05/16/09
More so than me, and I'm the sci-fi geek of the family.
05/17/09
05/16/09
05/16/09
Waaaaait if we were created in God's image... who created all them aliens???
05/16/09
"Waaaaait if we were created in God's image..."
to quote
"Then how do you explain peewee herman????? "
05/16/09
I went and saw it.
My thoughts?
Still hate the new Enterprise.
HATED how they made the engineering sections of the ships look. (hey guys, I KNOW what the interior of an industrial plant looks like. Just FYI)
And if Nero had the red matter why didn't he just go blow up the sun that was supposed to go nova BEFORE it does?
Bottom line, this movie depressed the hell out of me.
I'm pretty sure this movie was the final blow to my love of all things trek.
I'm gonna go to bed now.
05/16/09
Just saw it a second time.
He says "I'm goingn to make you suffer and save my planet." or something like that. So his plan is to save his planet in the future. And bring about some sort of future where romulans rule the galaxy free of traitorous letches such as the Federation.
It's a stupid and implausibly vengeful plan. But it actually was covered.
Unlike:
1) Why the main computer can tell Original Captain Kirk the autopilot is offline. But still synthesize a voice to tell him it's offline. Of those two functionalities. One takes a lot less processing power. (Hint it's not the one that turns the ship and shoots at anything that moves without an IFF).
2) Why they dropped parachuting human bombers instead of... parachuting bombs.
3) Why the romulans were drilling in the first place.
4) How they planned to get off the platform after placing the explosives. (All of their parachutes were destroyed).
5) Why starfleet has no backup chutes like modern skydivers.
6) Why the parachutes had no release like modern skydivers.
7) Why the romulans left Spock within walking distance of a base to warn Vulcan.
8) Why an escape pod can't land within 1km of a target.
9) Why nobody on earth didn't shoot the drill
10) Why were they drilling!? Just drop the red matter in low orbit. It'll take an extra 5 seconds to consume the planet.
11) Why Old Spock was carrying enough red matter to destroy 100 universes when 1 drop was all he needed.
12) Why waves and waves and waves of people from earth didn't beam onto the enemy ship in low orbit over their headquarters and shoot everything on board.
13) Why Old Spock would allow his incredibbbbbbly dangerous cargo fall into the hands of the enemy and not just self destruct.
14) Why a mining vessel is armed to the teeth with shield penetrating munitions.
15) Why young spock would fly straight into a line or torpedos instead of warping to another battle ground to try and get the drop on the ship again.
BTW loved the movie. Just thought the plot was mentally retarded at every single turn.
05/17/09
"The good news: your cancer is treatable. The bad: we'll be burning it out with Zippo lighters and a snow shovel."
And if American, "That will be $598,035 for your co-pay, thanks."
05/17/09
1) Call forwarding.
2) Because no matter how they tried, they couldn't get a red shirt to fit over one of the parachuting bombs.
3) They weren't miners, they were dentists
4) Transporter (once comm was restored)
5) & 6) They have transporters. They had to use cave drawings and 5.25" floppy discs to figure out how to reverse-engineer these "para chutes".
7) Romulans, raised in Los Angeles, figured walking further than two blocks was a physical impossibility.
8) Spock wasn't trying to maroon Kirk, he wanted him dead. (Spock 1.1 has quite a thing going with the ladies and, c'mon, it's Kirk.
9) Remember that horrible, rasping sound a dentist drill makes against your skull as it powderizes your teeth and burns their nerves? Imagine that, times a million.
And the tapes of Romulan fingernails scraping on chalkboards were also being projected planet-wide (yup: they're the bad guys, all right)
10) This actually makes sense: if it's not centered, it'll send planets careening across the system like an errant pool ball. Ruining condo sales opportunities accordingly.
And the only thing more scary than planet death-dealing miners? Planet death-dealing real estate agents.
...OK, I'm getting carpel tunnel. Someone else will have to contribute. Or X mine out for better-thought (or better: funnier) ones.
05/16/09
A being roaming the universe, seeing a cloud of dust and deciding a solar system would look good right THERE.
(stirs it a bit)
OK - I'll check back in a couple billion years or so.
05/16/09
Science: We don't know but we're going try and find out!
Religion: We know because our book compiled from a few old guys writings from over 1000 year's ago tells us the absolute undeniable truth!
They conflict :P
05/16/09
So, no, they don't have to conflict. But conflict wins ratings, so that's what gets all the press.
05/16/09
05/16/09
05/16/09
I really don't understand how people can't grasp this concept.
They're equally as ridiculous and both require an immense amount of faith.
05/16/09
people educated to make judgments and deductions based on empirical and experimental evidence, do not see enough evidence to confirm the existence of an interventionist god, be it benevolent or otherwise.
the only real existing evidence is the various bodies of religious tradition and mythology of miracles, divine inspiration and states of grace.
All of those traditions have been shown to be morally fallible to a greater or lesser extent (e.g. greater=slavery, lesser=misogyny). So the witness of believers is dubious at best.
So for someone of an empirical, materialist mind set the default assumption about the universe is that its existence was brought about by natural phenomena, according to the laws of physics.
Whether this was random ( very vague idea), or whether we know the full extent of those laws, is moot.
maybe that will help you understand where we're coming from Theoutlet :)
cheers
05/16/09
It is empirical; but it's also the sort of thing that transcends the distinction between subject and object.
Science cannot function without that distinction--it depends entirely on the separation between the observer and the phenomenon being observed. As such, the methods of science are ill-equipped to analyze religious experiences, which can really only be discussed metaphorically (because speaking directly about something depends on the subject-object distinction as well).
This is why it's so hard for theology to defend itself to logic--it it's core it defies objectification. That's also why it's so easy for religious people to get confused about their own teachings.
So much of what non-believers consider to be "religion" is not really religion at all, but the political and cultural fallout of actual religion. It's people mistaking the myth about God for God him/her/itself.
10/20/09
It is absolutely possible for a religious experience to be real, to have a positive effect on a person, and to not indicate that there was any truth to conclusions reached by the person having this experience.
To clarify, let us picture a person having a religious experience in a situation where we can be objectively observing that experience. Currently, this is impossible, but we can get close by scanning them with an fMRI and and EEG simultaneously. For the purpose of this thought experiment, just imagine a somewhat more effective version of this technology.
So the person has their experience, and we observe the patterns of excitation within their brain. We can see now for ourselves that this person had an out-of-the-ordinary neural event, and can even get some idea perhaps of what sort of mental images or physical sensations they had. So it was, indeed, a "real" experience. The person really did have it.
Next, we observe this person to see what effect this experience has on their life. Let us say, for the sake of this thought experiment, that the effect is positive. Furthermore, let us say (although this is by no means established) that the average effect similar experiences have on all other people is positive. Given these observations, we can say that the religious experience is "good". In other words, it tends to have a positive effect on people's lives.
So, it is real and it is good. Now for analyzing the contents....
Let's say that our subject had a vision of God as a Penguin. This person decided, as a result of this transformative experience, to devote their life to the good of penguins, who this person now believes to be God's chosen people and the pinnacle of evolution. Our subject devotes their life to this cause, and is happier, filled with purpose, and more moral as a direct result. Can we conclude, based on our observations that this person did have a vision, and that the effect was positive, that the contents of the vision were empirical fact?
No. It does not follow logically that for the vision to really have occurred, and to have had positive results, that it must have consisted in part or in whole of empirical fact.
Traditionally, due to the lack of appropriate technology, the brain has been a "black box" and purely mental events have been unobservable and unverifiable. This is now changing, and formerly mysterious mental experiences can be examined in the light of reason and empirical data. We need not assume that there are any "metaphysical" occurences at all, if we can these religious visions are simply hallucinations accompanied by activation in the parts of the brain responsible for assigning importance and moral validity. People truely do experience illusions, but this does not prove that the illusions are real. #startrek
10/20/09
I wasn't saying there was any proof that the images / symbols contained in religious experiences are somehow real in any physical sense.
What I said was that it didn't matter if they were real. The effect they have is real and important.
Let's say you have cancer, and are stuck in bed in constant pain. You can imagine a white light bathing your body and taking away your pain. And there's research to at least tentatively indicate that this is often effective as a means of controlling pain.
Does this mean that the light you imagined was actually there in a measurable, physical sense? No. But it may help ease the experience of pain by focusing the person's attention on something positive.
And there's other ways these "hallucinations" can be useful. They are often symbolic, reflecting emotional forces in the psyche of the person having them. With analysis, they can help a person discover things they are feeling but can't articulate in words.
Also, while one religious experience may leave you worshipping penguins, a lifetime of religious experiences will show you that penguins--and other symbols--are only that: symbols. They are the map, not the territory. #startrek
10/20/09
10/21/09
I believe (and if I understand you correctly now, so do you) that religion is a valuable and potent tool for connecting with our subconscious thoughts, exercising indirect control over various aspects of brain function, and seeking clarity amidst ambiguity. And then there are the important social aspects of religion such as social bonding. Like any tool, it can be misused, but that doesn't make it a bad tool. Thus, I disagree with BigFatPussyCat's argument that because self-described religious people have failed to be perfect, that religion/spirituality is a bad tool. A better question would be, "Were they better people with their religion than they would have been without it?" Or, since not all religions are necessarily good uses of the innate human spiritual instincts, an even more pointed question would be, "With an optimized religion, could these people have been better than they would have been without them."
Obviously we don't have the data to answer those questions, and it would make more sense to ask them about participants currently alive who are assigned randomly to control and experimental groups. Unfortunately, the ethics of such an experiment would be highly questionable at best. We'll have to make do with correlational research (sigh).
Personally, I've observed many instances of superstitious beliefs apparently heightening the efficacy of brain functionality. A phenomenon I would love to look into further is "chi". In a number of different martial arts contexts I've noticed that when the concept of "chi" is explained to new students, those that express belief in it seem to have a sudden increase in speed of ability-acquiration compared to those that express skepticism about it.
My interpretation of this effect is that the concept of "chi" provides a more effective bridge between the conscious mind and the subconscious motor-control areas. It provides a model of understanding that allows for more efficient translation of intended effects (from the conscious mind) to the subtle and complex interplay of tension and relaxation in muscles throughout the body.
Ironically, I would probably be a better martial arts student myself if I truely believed in "chi" as an actual physical force, rather than seeing it as a useful mental schema. Similarly, I would probably have more profound spiritual experiences if I truely believed in some divine being or metaphysical power, rather than just accepting that such belief and such experiences are potentially useful tools without implication of "metaphysics" or a "higher being". #startrek
10/21/09
I mean, it's such a broad and complex topic that it's hard to say where religion ends and other aspects of culture begin... such that so much of religion is wrapped up in politics and so forth.
I tend to agree with people like Joseph Campbell, who said (to paraphrase), that religion is a powerful and useful set of metaphors, but when people mistake their metaphors for the truth itself, that's when religions get into trouble.
It's like the old Kung Fu proverb of the finger pointing at the moon. Concentrate too much on the finger and you miss all that heavenly glory above.
Our metaphors and symbols are the finger; and the actual truth is the moon--which we can never actually grasp, we can only point at.
As you say: Chi in the martial arts is a perfect example. I think the trick with any religious or mystical metaphor is that you kind of have to be of two minds: on the one hand, you're aware that you're dealing with a metaphor / symbol, and on the other hand, you're immersed in the narrative associated with that metaphor or symbol, allowing you to use it to it's fullest.
Incidentally, you may be interested in this TED Talks video; which describes brain function with respect to spirituality...
[www.ted.com] #startrek
05/16/09
05/16/09
05/16/09
My thoughts exactly.
05/17/09
Yup: the father of Modern Conservativism was a bleeding idiot even before the Alzeimer's kicked in.
Imagine the generational loss from him to GW Bush and one quickly realizes why Terri Schiavo being a bigger priority than attacking countries that actually, y'know, harbored al-Queida got so much support from their base.