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« Roundup of religion in the Lost season finale | Main | Robert J. Sawyer to high-school student: "Skepticism can be dogma" »

May 15, 2009

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.

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