life story<\/a> is fascinating, and the Star Trek phenomenon that he created is something to marvel at. Today\u2019s theme in class was \u201cancient aliens\u201d and so we looked at clips from \u201cWho Mourns for Adonais?\u201d, \u201cBread and Circuses,\u201d and (from The Next Generation) \u201cWho Watches the Watchers?\u201d It is interesting that so many stories on Star Trek and other science fiction shows explore the scenario that advanced aliens are mistaken for gods and advanced technology for magic or miracle. It allows the exploration of longstanding traditions of storytelling to continue in the framework of our modern scientific worldview. But it also allows the gods to be challenged, rejected, taken on, beaten, and brought down to size. And so if, on one level, doing that posits that such beings as Apollo really exist, on another it allows human beings to outgrow them and treat them as beings like us, and not infallible sources of truth worthy of worship. All of us who explore religious topics and\/or science fiction in the present day owe Gene Roddenberry a debt of gratitude.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On this day in 1991, Gene Roddenberry passed away. I didn\u2019t even realize that when I talked about Star Trek today in my class on religion and science fiction. Roddenberry\u2019s own life story is fascinating, and the Star Trek phenomenon that he created is something to marvel at. Today\u2019s theme in class was \u201cancient aliens\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":18584,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,90],"tags":[3827,10169,11010,11012,11819],"class_list":["post-18582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religion","category-star-trek-science-fiction","tag-gene-roddenberry","tag-religion","tag-secular-humanism","tag-secular-humanist","tag-star-trek"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>On this day in 1991, Gene Roddenberry passed away<\/a>. I didn\u2019t even realize that when I talked about Star Trek today in my class on religion and science fiction. Roddenberry\u2019s own life story<\/a> is fascinating, and the Star Trek phenomenon that he created is something to marvel at. Today\u2019s theme in class was \u201cancient aliens\u201d and so we looked at clips from \u201cWho Mourns for Adonais?\u201d, \u201cBread and Circuses,\u201d and (from The Next Generation) \u201cWho Watches the Watchers?\u201d It is interesting that so many stories on Star Trek and other science fiction shows explore the scenario that advanced aliens are mistaken for gods and advanced technology for magic or miracle. It allows the exploration of longstanding traditions of storytelling to continue in the framework of our modern scientific worldview. But it also allows the gods to be challenged, rejected, taken on, beaten, and brought down to size. And so if, on one level, doing that posits that such beings as Apollo really exist, on another it allows human beings to outgrow them and treat them as beings like us, and not infallible sources of truth worthy of worship. All of us who explore religious topics and\/or science fiction in the present day owe Gene Roddenberry a debt of gratitude.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"