Picard a creationist?

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-02 09:06am

See the episode "Where Silence Has Lease", Season 2. In this episode, Picard and Riker make the decision to self-destruct the Enterprise (strangely enough from engineering with their hands on a panel presumably for authorization)- giving themselves 20 minutes to prepare for it.

Leaving aside how irrational it is to self destruct the ship when the entity they're being held hostage by is only planning to kill 1/3 to 1/2 (so it can learn the nature of death- it's immortal), Data asks Picard what death is. On one hand he has religion and on the other hand he has stark atheism. He supposedly rejects both and gives a sickening spiel that sounds exactly like intelligent design nonsense, with Picard saying that he believes our existence is beyond what we currently percieve blah blah blah .....

Post by **haas mark** » 2002-12-02 09:17am

Metaphycisist?

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-02 09:19am

Yeah I guess it'd be that too *shrug*

Man that was a stupid episode though. Season 2 SUCKS so far. Am I going to have to wait till Q Who for a good episode!? (am watching my friends dvds)

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-12-02 09:23am

Season 1 was quite bad, no scratch that, VERY Bad

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-02 09:37am

Incidentally, do any Trek fans find that Doctor Pulaski is a better character than Crusher?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-12-02 09:42am

Vympel wrote:Incidentally, do any Trek fans find that Doctor Pulaski is a better character than Crusher?

She knew how to make a splint. This already makes her far more competent than Crusher, who took an entire episode to figure out that a disease which spread through the ship like wildfire might be (gasp!) airborne-transmitted.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-12-02 09:54am

Picard can make a splint so its not exactly amazing as for Crusher not figuring out that disease was airborne just another example of Fed over reliance on tech since looking for airborne diseases is standard procedure as we see in later episodes, outside the body its just another molecule but once inside the body it becomes a virus thus why the scanners dont detect the Virus floating around in the air is what the writers we aiming for.

Picard states that he doesnt think the universe is pointless and it makes him a creationist??? interesting spin there, he simply says life is more than a sum of its parts etc.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-12-02 10:37am

Anyone remember the episode in which the Duckblind on the Proto-Vulcan world was discovered? Picard made some pretty harsh statements AGAINST religion.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2002-12-02 04:03pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Vympel wrote:Incidentally, do any Trek fans find that Doctor Pulaski is a better character than Crusher?
She knew how to make a splint. This already makes her far more competent than Crusher, who took an entire episode to figure out that a disease which spread through the ship like wildfire might be (gasp!) airborne-transmitted.

Even better, earlier in that episode, she had identified it as a respiratory tract infection yet still didn't know how it was transmitted.

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2002-12-02 04:07pm

Pulaski at least had spunk persay...Crusher just sorta shuffles along.

My problem was that TNG crew was nothing more than we'll agree with Picard...all the time...I mean forbid he might have been wrong or something.

and yes season 1 was bad.......very bad....oi

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2002-12-02 05:31pm

Ghost Rider wrote:Pulaski at least had spunk persay...Crusher just sorta shuffles along.

But Crusher was better looking than Pulaski.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2002-12-02 05:44pm

But Crusher was better looking than Pulaski.

So put Crusher in a bikini and have her oil herself up. Let Pulaski heal the crew.

paladin · Post by **paladin** » 2002-12-02 08:52pm

Vympel wrote:. Leaving aside how irrational it is to self destruct the ship when the entity they're being held hostage by is only planning to kill 1/3 to 1/2.

I don't think it's a question of rationality. It's a question of morality. It's alittle hard to seat by while some entity murders from 330 to 500 members of your crew.

data_link · Post by **data_link** » 2002-12-02 09:41pm

SPOOFE wrote:
But Crusher was better looking than Pulaski.
So put Crusher in a bikini and have her oil herself up. Let Pulaski heal the crew.

You want to see Crusher in a bikini? ewww...

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2002-12-02 10:06pm

While the eyes would burn...her in a Bikini would be far more helpful then her in medical affairs.

As for him being a creationist...I always thought Roddenberry's perfect future just denied all religon and considered it basically small man thinking .

Mark S · Post by **Mark S** » 2002-12-02 11:16pm

What gets me is that Crusher watched an alien virus that she knew nothing about spread from Riker's leg, through his nervous system and to his brain. She had no idea how to treat this and she neither a: put him in suspended animation so that he could be taken to an actual SPECIALISTS or b: cut off his damn leg at the first sign of spreading and grow him a new one. They have the technology. Why was she fucking around with his life?

beyond hope · Post by **beyond hope** » 2002-12-02 11:25pm

Ghost Rider beat me to it, but that was always the impression I got from the show as well. The episode with "Ardra" in it (I can't remember the name) is a good example of this undertone to TNG. Or you could look at any one of the myriad super-powerful beings they run into who they always manage to show up. If I had to classify Picard as anything based on that one quote, it would be a deist.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2002-12-02 11:45pm

paladin wrote:
Vympel wrote:. Leaving aside how irrational it is to self destruct the ship when the entity they're being held hostage by is only planning to kill 1/3 to 1/2.
I don't think it's a question of rationality. It's a question of morality. It's alittle hard to seat by while some entity murders from 330 to 500 members of your crew.

Also note that the entity said he wanted to see all manner of death, including extremely painful forms.

So. Let up to half the crew die in various means of torture, leaving the other half scared shitless for that period of time (and watching their comrades bite it, let alone the children) and possibly leaving them psychologically scarred for life as well? Or let everyone die relatively quickly and painlessly as every explosive device (which includes several large explosive charges throughout the ship, in the event that the computer controls to the warp drive have been severed) on the ship detonates?

I think Picard was right in setting the autodestruct, denying the entity it's wishes and sparing 500 people from excruciating death.

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-02 11:48pm

Bah I'd rather watch others die horribly than kill everyone needlessly.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-12-02 11:53pm

Keep in mind, however, that Roddenberry was simply not all that bright. Look at the idiotic "Progenitors" story. DNA sequences encoded 4.5 billion years ago which survived completely un-altered today, and which GUIDED our evolution in advance?

Sorry, but Star Trek IS creationist. It's just "intelligent design" creationist instead of young-earth creationist.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-12-02 11:55pm

Darth Wong wrote:Keep in mind, however, that Roddenberry was simply not all that bright. Look at the idiotic "Progenitors" story. DNA sequences encoded 4.5 billion years ago which survived completely un-altered today, and which GUIDED our evolution in advance?

Sorry, but Star Trek IS creationist. It's just "intelligent design" creationist instead of young-earth creationist.

However the Intelligent Design was by aliens, not some all powerful deity.

data_link · Post by **data_link** » 2002-12-02 11:56pm

Darth Wong wrote:Sorry, but Star Trek IS creationist. It's just "intelligent design" creationist instead of young-earth creationist.

Wong, you forget. There is nothing intelligently designed in Star Trek.

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2002-12-02 11:57pm

Good point.

I guess through all the technobabble and blathering it's just hard to see it.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-12-03 12:06am

Alyeska wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:Sorry, but Star Trek IS creationist. It's just "intelligent design" creationist instead of young-earth creationist.
However the Intelligent Design was by aliens, not some all powerful deity.

True, but by teaching that evolution can be guided and planned in advance, it panders to the worst misrepresentations of evolution theory being promoted by the creationist crowd. This is precisely the sort of evolution strawman that creationism thrives on.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2002-12-03 01:08am

Darth Wong wrote:Keep in mind, however, that Roddenberry was simply not all that bright. Look at the idiotic "Progenitors" story. DNA sequences encoded 4.5 billion years ago which survived completely un-altered today, and which GUIDED our evolution in advance?

Sorry, but Star Trek IS creationist. It's just "intelligent design" creationist instead of young-earth creationist.

I think Brannon Braga came up with that one. Season 7's "The Chase" happened after Gene Roddenberry died, and he wasn't exactly all there in the months beforehand.

The last active involvement the Great Bird had creatively in the Franchise was in co-writing the script for "Encounter At FarPoint" back in 1987.

TNG-era/BragaTrek™ has become the repository for all sorts of goofy, unscientific, and outright anti-intellectual ideas. TNG after all endorsed the Theory of Atlantis in "Family", indicating that planetary cartography for Earth was undoubtedly being drafted by a descendent of Charles Berlitz.