Comments on: Star Trek Made Him an Atheist

By: LMS

LMS — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:33:37 +0000

I think Star Trek is the greatest sci-fi series of all time, but it’s never been a factor in shaping my religious views. I am amazed, however, by the many people who indicated that the series contributed to atheistic perspectives. I’ve seen every episode of all the series, from the original series to Enterprise. My faith in Jesus Christ has never been eroded the least bit by this fun fiction. In fact, while the characters were often atheistic; occasionally a Christian-friendly writer would insert a faith perspective into one of the characters, as demonstrated by Captain Kirk’s response to the alien Apollo (in Who Mourns for Adonais): “Mankind has no need for gods. We find the one quite adequate.” I’m with James Tiberius on that viewpoint. He apparently believed in God at least in that episode. For those who are interested in the faith perspectives of real scientists, check out the article, Scientists and their Gods, by Professor Henry F. (Fritz) Schaefer (http://www.leaderu.com/offices/schaefer/docs/scientists.html) or the book, The Fingerprint of God by Dr. Hugh Ross. And if you want more sci-fi, try C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy. Live long and prosper.

By: Star Trek made him an atheist? « The Defiant Skeptic

Star Trek made him an atheist? « The Defiant Skeptic — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:24:06 +0000

[...] interesting article on Nick Farrantello’s story from The Humanist in which he describes how Star Trek made him an atheist. As I got older and learned more about suffering around the world, the more I wondered why [...]

By: Tom N

Tom N — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:50:01 +0000

Another thing to keep in mind is the theory behind the transporters. A theist friend who respects my POV told me, after seeing the new Star Trek movie, that the ST universe can’t believe in a god since each time you are beamed somewhere in a transporter, your body is destroyed and a copy is made at the location where you materialize. This pretty much precludes the possibility of any soul.

By: Kaleena

Kaleena — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:24:57 +0000

Star Trek certainly helped me to become an atheist, not to mention getting involved with social justice!

By: JohnFrost

JohnFrost — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 01:27:24 +0000

Hemant, I lived, breathed, and slept Star Wars… and I actually walked out of the theater in disgust at Episode II. Please, do yourself a favor and watch the original series… though manyhats is right, Star Wars isn’t exactly on the thought provoking end of the scifi spectrum.

For me, one of the biggest scifi influences on my atheism were the Dune books. Seeing Muad’dib build up his own messianic mystique, and then watching it grow out of control, really made me look at religion in a whole new light.

By: manyhats

manyhats — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:03:29 +0000

Science fiction and Fantasy can both be thought provoking in that they can both fall under the larger category, “speculative fiction”. And as we all know, thoughts turn against religion when provoked. On the other hand they can both be mindless fluff in as much as they fall under “escapist fiction”.

Fantasy all too often though is trivial fluff and I haven’t gotten as much from it as sci fi. I’m surprised that we’ve had this much discussion of the topic address just TV and movies. How can you LotR fans in particular not present your guy’s best work in the field of religion, the creation myth in the Silmarillion?

Sci fi has a far better record of addressing social issues than Fantasy. But you have to look beyond the superficial kids stuff put out by Hollywood today. BTW, Hemant, don’t feel bad that you don’t like Star Wars after only seeing Episode 2. Episodes 1, 2, and 3 are just about the worst science fiction of all time. Episodes 4, 5, and 6 are far better but they are still just “space opera”, which is the shallow end of the pool as far as provoking thought goes. Star Wars is escapist fiction with a dash of alarmism about the ability of a democracy to devolve into a totalitarian system. Star Trek, on the other hand, is speculative fiction. I hope you can see the difference.

If you want to get a sense of the power of science fiction to explore the human condition and expand readers minds you should read the Grand Masters (Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, etc…). My particular favorite is Heinlein because I love his emphasis on self-reliance and his libertarian political ethic.

Frankly, unless you’ve read classic science fiction from the likes of the Grand Masters you haven’t even experienced science fiction in my opinion. If you don’t have time or inclination to actually read a book the best material out there to see why thinking people value scifi is the original Star Trek TV series, with The Next Generation and Deep Space 9 tied for second. The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone are also good series that tried hard to push the envelope and question particular aspects of human morality.

By: Mathew Wilder

Mathew Wilder — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:16:55 +0000

Claudia, please, PLEASE, tell me you were making a joke when you wrote “kardashians.”

By: chanson

chanson — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:49:30 +0000

I remember riding my bike to the movie theater (as a teenaged Mormon) to go see The Wrath of Khan — and how deliciously subversive it was to hear Bones call The Book of Genesis a “myth”. I was still a believer at the time, but Nick Farrantello is totally right about how it makes the question OK to pose.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:13:27 +0000

Like any genre, there is good stuff and crap. Be sure the watch (read) the good stuff.

By: Philosos

Philosos — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:37:42 +0000

One of the The Original Star Trek series episodes that was pretty awesome was the one that had the crew interacting with a greco-roman ‘god’ that seemed to have been one that had long visited earth long ago and DEMANDED praise and worship. He was the last of his kind that was in the vicinity. I think this episode showed me and others that I know that it was quite possible that what people called ‘gods’ God were just people that were more advanced than they were.

DEFINITELY Hemant… watch some Sci-Fi… except Battlestar Galactica’s last episode lol