Talk:Star Trek franchise

Do you have episode sources for the Klingons and Ferangi religions? It seems it may have been mentioned, but wasn't a major part of the focus such as with the first two examples.

One of the difficulties with the series is that there is nothing approaching the God of monotheism. The religions are seen as false and stupid, ignorant people worshipping living entities who they don't understand. Learn together 13:48, 2 October 2007 (EDT)

The people aren't normally seen as ignorant or stupid. They respect freedom of religion. There are many points where the prophets in the Bajoran religion actually intervene. Although the ethiest charecters likely dismiss them as powerful wormhole aliens. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Double Edge (talk) circa. 31st October 2007.

Religion

At one point when Captain Picard dies and goes to the "afterlife" he makes a comment "The Universe is not so badly run."

I believe this is a reference to the episode "Tapestry", where Picard dies and goes to the afterlife only to find Q. His comment is not against religion, but rather an attack on Q.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mgroop (talk)

It is an attack on Q. But suggesting that the universe is run means that he is not an ethiest.

Double Edge

I'm inclined to disagree. How well it's "run" is probably just a euphemism, not a direct indication that he believes that it is run as such. It could also be making point on the assumption that it's "run", which would be the case if Q was in charge, i.e. merely refuting Q's claim within Q's assumptions, but without necessarily accepting those assumptions. In other words, I don't think you can draw that much out of that comment. Incidentally, I changed to wording of that part to reflect this just before reading this talk page! Philip J. Rayment 01:19, 24 December 2007 (EST)

Having not watched TNG in quite some time and never having the fondness for it that I did for the original, I've been reluctant to access that area of my brain, but a couple of thoughts do come to mind. When was it ever stated that Q ran the universe? He was an observer of the universe, and he would play with various parts of it, but I never picked up the idea that he was in any way responsible for running it or in charge of it. Also, there is an episode where the Enterprise is trapped in a section of space with an entity that is going to experiment on them to see what different forms of death are like; it would take about half the crew. There is a discussion between the captain and 'Ryker' and 'Troi' (actually the alien) about whether or not Piccard believes in God, and he states something to the effect that he does because the universe is just a bit too orderly otherwise. TNG accepts the existence of God, but it's the concept of a personal God where He has revealed Himself that is harshly denigrated in other episodes. Learn together 12:42, 8 January 2008 (EST)

I don't recall the Q episode very well, but the article says that Q implied that he ran the universe. It would be typical of Q to claim or imply something like that, simply because Q was loose with the truth like that. The "statement" was probably nothing more than Q grandstanding. Philip J. Rayment 17:55, 8 January 2008 (EST)

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Learn together changed:

Roddenberry rarely had the shows overtly reject religion, seeming instead to simply ignore it.

to:

Roddenberry rarely had the shows overtly reject religion, but would make reference to it as a part of culture.

followed by some examples of references to religion.

Now, I'm not criticising the edit, but I do wonder... Do we know whether this was Roddenberry's doing, or perhaps the initiative of the writer(s)? What I'm suggesting (and a suggestion is all that it is) is that one or more writers introduced these religious references, and because they were not overtly promoting Christianity, Roddenberry didn't object to them. If my suggestion is correct, then perhaps the article should reflect that somehow.

Yeah, I suppose I could do some research and see if Roddenberry wrote any of those episodes, or see if they all had the same writer, but I thought that someone else might have some idea on this.

Philip J. Rayment

I have no personal knowledge. To be safe we could remove the mention to Roddenberry specifically and replace it with more generic wording. Learn together 12:42, 8 January 2008 (EST)

I've made the wording more generic. Philip J. Rayment 17:55, 8 January 2008 (EST)

ChrisSmith's edit

I consider this edit to be parody, but will hold off reverting it in case someone thinks that there is something that can be salvaged from it. Philip J. Rayment 23:00, 17 August 2008 (EDT) (Administrator)

Hrm, I didn't intend for it to come across as "parody", but maybe it was a little enthusiastic. I think removing all of the content was a little far - I was wondering why there's no mention of the clear socialist ideals of the show: working towards the betterment of humanity, with no money etc. If this isn't left-wing I don't know what is. ChrisSmith 18:40, 18 August 2008 (EDT)