Some Star Trek bits

• Beliefnet presents an argument that Star Trek (TOS) was obsessed with the Ten Commandments. 
• ASSISTNews offers up a quiz linking Star Trek and scripture.
• Craig A. James, author of the Dawkinist evolutionary psychology tome The Evolution of Religion, reads way too much into the latest movie's one direct reference to a deity. I mean, I acknowledged that I had to dig a bit to find a theological thread in the film, but this is going a bit too far!
• This one's just confusing. At FoxNews.com (*shudder*), James Pinkerton turns what could have been an interesting theological essay on Star Trek and the divine origins of imagination into... a rant about Israeli security? Ooookay.

Comments

[Thomas Treasure]

One sort of religious/philosophical underpinning of Star Trek I never hear discussed is this:
"170 Submission. One must know when it is right to doubt, to affirm, to submit. Anyone who does otherwise does not understand the force of reason. Some men run counter to these three principles, either affirming that everything can be proved, because they know nothing about proof, or doubting everything, because they do not know when to submit, or always submitting, because they do not know when judgment is called for.
Skeptic, mathematician, Christian; doubt, affirmation, submission."
From "Pensees" by Blaise Pascal.
McCoy is a skeptic, Spock is a rationalist, Kirk is a believer.
(this is a philosophical character triumvirate that seems to crop up in a lot of science fiction, from the theologically and philosophically minded SF film Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky, to lighter fare such as Ghostbusters or Joe Dante's Explorers)

[Erin]

That Fox article... wow. While I have no interest in arguing against the assertion that Trek is a gift from God, I feel secure in saying that that article was of the devil himself. Remind me to send Beelzebub a thank you card, though, because that was hilarious.