This would be why I find it hard to watch Star Trek: TNG
Well, okay, there’s the fact that the Prime Directive a) makes no sense to me and b) infuriates me for how it is alternatively an object of slavish devotion or an easily-ignored suggestion, depending on the emotional investment of the ship’s captain in the people (read: women) whom the Directive says should be ignored.
And there’s the “no alcohol” thing.
And the “no money” thing.
But above and beyond those considerations, Star Trek: The Next Generation has always bugged me for the whole “no Religion” thing that the Federation has going for it, and its portrayal of same as some kind of post-Christian secular utopia in which the needs of all are taken care of and nobody lives out life in a way that could be called “set upon.” And not only because the concept of a post-religious secular utopia is every bit as much a fantasy as an effective spaceborne cloaking device that functions in the manner portrayed in Star Trek. No, my problem with the concept stemmed from the fact that Star Trek was still about humans, and humans — at least while they are still beings with mortal flesh — cannot thrive in a utopia. Nor could they fashion one for themselves, as numerous bloodbaths throughout history (and then often in conjunction with atheism at a state policy level) have demonstrated.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine did wonders in (ahem) “breaking the spell” that Gene Roddenberry cast when putting together TNG’s underlying philosophy. It showed a Federation that was still plagued by organized crime, which still had poverty of sorts to deal with, and which still was vulnerable to — and complicit in — all manner of machinations and duplicity. TNG seems, to me, to be almost farcical in its portrayal of humans in an empirical paradise; DS9 strips away the facade and reminds its viewers that a human-made secular utopia is just that: human made, and thus prone to error and failure.
Still, thanks to the likes of far too many pop culture atheists who have been in some orbit of humanity’s efforts to explore Space, a certain peculiar delusion has been fixed in the mind of many who eschew the notion of God in favour of the notion of Martians:
[Self-styled Brights know] ahead of time that Catholics are censorious idiots who fear Truth. So it only stands to reason that Rome fears the discovery of life on other worlds because the first Vulcan we meet will conclusively prove that advanced civilizations have outgrown the god myth and Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End is the only truly prophetic book ever written. Therefore, it can only be that “Rome” is preparing a last-ditch spin defense for That Great and Terrible Day: the Definitive Eschatological Event when the Hope of Atheists is fulfilled as we make First Contact with ET and our Elder Intergalactic Brothers Who Have Outgrown god Reassure Atheists They Were Right All Along.
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The curious thing is that atheist materialists, deluded by their fantasy philosophy, tend to inhabit a mental universe populated by creatures of Gene Roddenberry’s imagination rather than cold hard fact. As strange as it sounds to say it, the best thing these allegedly scientific atheists could do here is stop listening to fairy tales about Klingons and Vulcans and face the fact that the real non-human intelligences have been known to the Church since its birth. They are called “angels” and “devils”. The only thing the Church (and real science) is agnostic about is the existence of organic intelligent creatures. If it turns out God made those too, then glory to God! He can do as He likes. It is, after all, His universe.
Of course, if as a Christian you try and argue as much, you’re liable to be told that you’re just covering your ass. That was the general response to recent statements made by the Vatican concerning how the discovery — should it ever happen — of extraterrestrial life would pose no threat to Christian faith or Theology.
But in truth, as Mark Shea notes in his article (linked above), Christians really aren’t threatened by the possibility of aliens, until and unless certain specific criteria are met:
The best short essays I’ve seen on this question are from C.S. Lewis. One is called “Religion and Rocketry” and the other is “Will We Lose God in Outer Space?” Lewis points out several basic criteria that have to be met before organic life on other worlds would pose a theological problem to Christianity.
- First, it has to exist, which we don’t know.
- Second, it has to be sentient. Alien oysters cannot sin any more than ours do.
- Third, it has to have fallen. An unfallen race is not in need of redemption.
- Fourth, we have to know that, being fallen, it has been denied the chance of redemption by God. How on earth (or Thulcandra) we’d ever figure that out beats me.
- Fifth, we have to know that the redemption will be forever denied this hypothetically existent, hypothetically rational, hypothetically fallen race. After all, if you’d visited earth 10,000 years ago you would not have seen too many obvious clue that redemption was in the works for us. And since the only way to know that God has no plans to redeem them is to know the mind of God, this seems an especially tricky hurdle to get over.
- Sixth, we have to know that redemption via an incarnation, death and resurrection of God the Son in this fallen alien nature is the only way in which God redeems fallen creatures and that such a redemption will never be granted such creatures.
As Lewis says, if our faith never encounters a bigger challenge than this, we are sitting pretty.
Just so. And while I cannot remember if it was Mr. Shea or John C. Wright who said it first, I too tend to wonder if the day we do meet ET, we will not be wiped out by them not because we are primitive God-fearing savages with no hope of achieving the enlightenment that will wipe away all our myths, but because the visitors will step off of their shiny spacecraft and ask: “Where is he who has been born king of the No’top’qua’hi? For we have seen his star in Malfethica, and have come to worship him.”
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