Kirk and Spock on the Planet of the Atheists : Dispatches from the Culture Wars

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Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)

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Kirk and Spock on the Planet of the Atheists

Posted on: January 12, 2008 9:16 AM, by Ed Brayton

Pam Spaulding found this and it just has to be seen to be believed. It's a Christian drama group doing a bad knockoff of Star Trek to make fun of atheists. The acting is almost as bad as the real Star Trek series. Video below the fold:

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Comments

That skit is so wrong, it's scary. Evolution says life came from a rock? No God means no morality? Yikes!

At least the line about "You can't kill us. We're the stars of the show!" was kind of funny.

Posted by: J. J. Ramsey | January 12, 2008 9:57 AM

"It doesn't matter if it is logical or not, that's what we believe."

Ironic.

Posted by: Dizzlski | January 12, 2008 10:03 AM

Planet Atheist doesn't have the "ten" commandments? Those guys are at least up on earth-based religious constructs. Or perhaps ten is a universal constant for such things.

Posted by: Zeno | January 12, 2008 10:27 AM

Teh Stoopid, it burns. "Broadcast Him" superimposed is particularly poignant.
Can you imagine if the equivalent idiotic, false protrayals and scarecrow-burning was done about christianity, with the villians, say, Jesus and St. Paul? No? Me neither.
But if it was, FauxNews and the 700Club would be on it 24/7.

Posted by: Foggg | January 12, 2008 10:29 AM

"Fascinating" indeed. The sad thing is that this type of crap is still what passes for reasoned arguments against evolution and for the existence of God within most congregations of the religious "right" in America.

Posted by: tacitus | January 12, 2008 10:30 AM

A few years ago I came across a Muslim site that had a "Mr. Spock converts to Islam, the most logical of all religions" fan script, but I can't seem to find a copy anywhere. Oh well, here's a very special Christian missionary group instead.

Posted by: jpf | January 12, 2008 10:33 AM

Combining two of my least favorite things, Star Trek and christianity. I cannot make myself play the video, I would rather fry my brain cells with alcohol.

Posted by: Janine | January 12, 2008 10:39 AM

I found it via archive.org: "MR. SPOCK'S LOGICAL QUEST FOR RELIGION" For added fun, Spock uses Pascal's Wager to come to his decision that it's logical to be a Muslim.

Posted by: jpf | January 12, 2008 10:50 AM

Oh how morals change with the times... "All men created equal" hahaha, thats if you were a wealthy white man. If you were black you were a slave, a women you were subordinate to men, an indian your a savage. That was painful to watch, I'm not going to attempt to finish it.

Posted by: Chris | January 12, 2008 11:09 AM

You are a member of ScienceBlogs and you DON"T like Star Trek??

You think Star Trek had bad acting??

I guess atheists really don't have a basis for morality. Jeesh.

Posted by: Gingerbaker | January 12, 2008 11:10 AM

Foggg: "Can you imagine if the equivalent idiotic, false protrayals and scarecrow-burning was done about christianity, with the villians, say, Jesus and St. Paul?"

Yes, actually.

Posted by: J. J. Ramsey | January 12, 2008 11:19 AM

"I am Emperor Carl Sagan"

I kind of like that.

and "I love this job." You know, they really did get right some of the silliness, got to give 'em that.

But he doesn't get the "Billions and Billions" right. I couldn't watch more than snippets.

(The good Sagan never actually said that, by the way, though word has it that the TV producers had him pronouncing "millions" in the weird way because of his once-heavy Brooklyn accent, which rendered it pretty well unintelligible -- I certainly could see that they might also want something more palatable to non-New Yorkers. I haven't heard any tapes of the younger Carl Sagan, so I can't say how true that story is).

Posted by: Jesse | January 12, 2008 11:34 AM

Christian Drama.

Sometimes, that's redundant.

Posted by: Russell Miller | January 12, 2008 12:21 PM

Thank you Foggg for the term 'FauxNews'.
Otherwise: the skit is sooo bad that it just might make some creationists think. Those that don't think never will. But let's that some do.
Rod

Posted by: Rod | January 12, 2008 12:28 PM

Gingerbaker wrote:

You are a member of ScienceBlogs and you DON"T like Star Trek??
You think Star Trek had bad acting??

Everyone thinks Star Trek had bad acting. Even the most diehard Trekkie isn't delusional enough to think that the acting on the show was good. And I'll let you in on a little secret: I'm really not a sci fi fan at all. Or fantasy. I've never read Tolkien. Hated Star Trek. Never read Heinlein. It just isn't my thing. I think that's why I finished dead last in the ScienceBloggers' nerd contest. My only claim to nerd cred is that I knocked Wil Wheaton out of a poker tournament a while back.

Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 12, 2008 12:34 PM

I was a fan of Star Trek, and even I thought it had bad acting.

Frankly, I think Star Trek: TNG also had bad acting *and* bad writing. At least in the beginning. There were a great deal of inconsistencies in canon, and even as a teenager I found it really easy to see it as a bunch of people play-acting with a bunch of expensive toys rather than a bunch of people on a starship doing starshippy things.

Sadly, it wasn't until DS9 and maybe Voyager that they even began to address that problem.

The problem is, when TNG came out, it wasn't about Roddenberry's vision, it was about the *franchise*.

I wish they'd make Greg Bear's "Eon" into a movie. I'd watch that.

Posted by: Russell Miller | January 12, 2008 12:38 PM

Okay, full disclosure: I'm a Christian and a Star Trek fan ... but this video almost makes me wish otherwise, on both counts. Any one of us could complain about a lot of things, from pseudo-Sagan's ignorance of evolution to pseudo-Darwin being younger than pseudo-Sagan. The producers show their ignorance (willfully or otherwise) not only of evolution and morality but also of Star Trek. Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was himself an atheist, and more than one episode of Star Trek had biological evolution as an underlying premise (although the writers' understanding of evolution was often as poor as any creationist's). Moreover, there's a very strong dose of cultural relativism in Star Trek, encoded in Starfleet's "Prime Directive." None of the leading Star Trek characters were ever moral solipsists, but they were always going on about not imposing human morality on other species. Basically, almost everything that pseudo-Kirk and pseudo-Spock criticize in the skit are actually things that--if explained better than pseudo-Sagan explained them--that Spock and Picard (if not Kirk) would most likely endorse.

Posted by: Christopher Heard | January 12, 2008 12:45 PM

I loved the original series as a kid. I was 7 or 8 when it was first aired on NBC. Believe me, that show was a BIG DEAL. I got to stay up way past bedtime on Friday nights.

I never really caught on to any of the later versions, although I warmed up to Voyager once Seven-of-nine came onboard. She was a great character: a Borg given her individuality back in adulthood. And she was very ambivalent about it. Interesting stuff. Now that I think of it, she was similar to adults being deprogrammed after being raised in a cult.

"We are the religious right. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile".

Posted by: Rick R | January 12, 2008 12:48 PM

And I'll let you in on a little secret: I'm really not a sci fi fan at all. Or fantasy. I've never read Tolkien. Hated Star Trek. Never read Heinlein. It just isn't my thing.

That's comforting to hear. I can read H.G. Wells, Philip K. Dick and watch Miyazaki movies, but all other sci-fi/fantasy does nothing for me. When I tell people I didn't like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, they sometimes react as if I just said I don't like breathing air.

Posted by: Mister DNA | January 12, 2008 12:48 PM

While Roddenberry was an atheist, there isn't that much of it in Star Trek itself considering the network suits more or less insisted that he leave out anything even remotely objectionable out of the actual show.

Posted by: Romeo Vitelli | January 12, 2008 12:54 PM

So I guess using copyrighted material without permission is a new cdeign proponentsists passtime?

Did you notice that in the "acting" credits, Kirk and Spock were mentioned by name, but Sagan and Darwin were "Alien 1 and Alien 2?"

Posted by: BaldApe | January 12, 2008 12:56 PM

Yet in this future Jesus STILL hasn't returned.

Posted by: flubber | January 12, 2008 12:57 PM

flubber:

Oh, he was scheduled to come in 2259, but it turns out humanity wasn't quite ready for him, so he decided to spare us. But you see that proton storm over there? That's a sign of the end of the world.

Which world? Oh, don't bother me with details.

Posted by: Russell Miller | January 12, 2008 1:00 PM

"he leave out anything even remotely objectionable out of the actual show."

I don't agree. For it's time, Star Trek dealt with a lot of important and potentially touchy subjects in the guise of "fantasy". Racism, the futility of the cold war, totalitarianism, children being indoctrinated into subversive cults by evil leaders, many others.

A lot of it was silly from today's perspective, but back then it was quite new for TV.

Posted by: Rick R | January 12, 2008 1:01 PM

While Roddenberry was an atheist, there isn't that much of it in Star Trek itself considering the network suits more or less insisted that he leave out anything even remotely objectionable out of the actual show.

I'm not sure how much Roddenberry was responsible for it, but don't forget the interracial kiss between uhura and kirk... In the 60's, this certainly was more than "remotely objectionable" to some people.

Posted by: doctorgoo | January 12, 2008 1:04 PM

Yes, Rick brings up another controversial topic... having a Russian serve on the ship... as a good guy?

Posted by: doctorgoo | January 12, 2008 1:06 PM

True, I forgot about Chekhov. Actually the entire Federation was refreshingly multicultural.

Although it wasn't until the later shows that women or aliens showed up in true leadership roles.

Posted by: Rick R | January 12, 2008 1:12 PM

I wonder if Christianists notice the irony - the Xian Kirk character was the only one who resorted to unprovoked physical violence, not the evil atheists.

At least they spelled "atheist" correctly.

Posted by: op99 | January 12, 2008 1:15 PM

Did I just make a statement about aliens in leadership roles?

God, I just bukkaked geek all over myself.

Posted by: Rick R | January 12, 2008 1:17 PM

Okay, full disclosure: I'm a Christian and a Star Trek fan ... but this video almost makes me wish otherwise, on both counts.

Yeah right Jesus throws people into hell all the time and I don't see you complaining to Jesus about that. Ask him to stop please. Thanks!!

I cannot make myself play the video,

Cannot... play... video... must... play... video... noooooo...

Posted by: 386sx | January 12, 2008 1:31 PM

Roddenberry was not all that responsible for it, though he was happy to approve it in the script. Remarkably, it is Shatner who actually made it happen. Apparently the network demanded that they reshoot the scene without it. Shatner screwed up every take, in passive refusal to do it without the kiss.

Posted by: DuWayne | January 12, 2008 2:14 PM

According to wikipedia, apparently they BOTH screwed up the scene.

Posted by: Russell Miller | January 12, 2008 3:02 PM

Counter one of the above comments, much of the acting on the original StarTrek was pretty awful. But, in its defense, it was one of the first, if not THE first, TV series (I'd include movies here) that not only did not demonize science, but appreciated science. It is that fact that made it a ground-breaking series.

Posted by: raj | January 12, 2008 3:18 PM

quoth op99:
I wonder if Christianists notice the irony - the Xian Kirk character was the only one who resorted to unprovoked physical violence, not the evil atheists.

I dunno - I considered the unprovoked slapstick "Sagan" whapping "Darwin" to be violent too. (But I never though "3 Stooges" was funny either.)

Posted by: Theo Bromine | January 12, 2008 3:54 PM

You're right, Theo - forgot about that. But that the Xians writing the scene had an Xian let loose with a gratuitous punch is telling, nonetheless.

Posted by: op99 | January 12, 2008 4:28 PM

It's rather odd that the video shows the atheist characters actually admitting to being unscientific, illogical, and immoral. That would be the equivalent of atheists making a video where the Christians agree that they deliberately invented the story of the Resurrection and use their religion as a cover for doing whatever they want and believing whatever they want. The "good guys" never even have to argue their case, the opposition simply rolls over and makes it for them.

Apparently, there are different levels of attacking a strawman position, and this little play is perched on one of the very lowest rungs.

Posted by: Sastra | January 12, 2008 4:30 PM

J. J. Ramsey: Yes, actually.

I'd love to see what you imagine the equivalent script would be.

I suppose it's possible some ignorant teenagers or someone mentally ill might actually sincerely believe it and go to the lengths of producing a proselytizing video, but these guys don't have those excuses.

Posted by: Foggg | January 12, 2008 4:37 PM

Yes, Rick brings up another controversial topic... having a Russian serve on the ship... as a good guy?

True, I forgot about Chekhov. Actually the entire Federation was refreshingly multicultural.

On the contrary, the bridge was a proto-neocon fantasy microcosm where the people of Earth set out to set things right in the universe under the benevolent intellectual and moral guidance of the Americans. Look how often Kirk has to jerk the chain of the hot-headed Russian. Some of this was pure cold war propaganda, not an airing of scandalously progressive values.

Posted by: Bobby | January 12, 2008 4:46 PM

Well one thing (2 things, actually) they got right was the man-boobs on Kirk. Had friends who used to call them "shatners" for that reason.
Bobby, you're a paranoid nut.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | January 12, 2008 6:12 PM

Yet in this future Jesus STILL hasn't returned.

Star Trek: The Next Generation had an episode in which an alien world's Devil-equivalent has promised to solve societal problems, then return in a thousand years to rule over the planet. In this case, the long-promised "second coming" actually occurs, but Picard et. al. are able to demonstrate that the return of "Ardra" is actually a scam being perpetrated by a con artist in order to capitalize on the planet's mythology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_Due_(TNG_episode)

Posted by: Stegve | January 12, 2008 6:18 PM

Yet in this future Jesus STILL hasn't returned.

Well, there is the possibility that it's all the imagination of a mentally unstable African-American pulp sci-fi writer.

Man, that show got surreal.

Posted by: Turcano | January 12, 2008 6:46 PM

Ugh. Could not make it past the assertion that "survival of the fittest" justifies slapstick comedy. Or something.

Posted by: JakeS | January 12, 2008 7:09 PM

I tried watching the clip in question, but had to shut it off after 3-4 minutes.

It's wasn't even funny bad - like a Jack Chick comic - it was just painfully bad.

Posted by: CHV | January 12, 2008 7:20 PM

I dunno - I considered the unprovoked slapstick "Sagan" whapping "Darwin" to be violent too. (But I never though "3 Stooges" was funny either.)

But no one seems to enjoy the liberation from morality as much as Kirk does.

Posted by: ScottH | January 12, 2008 8:43 PM

Posted by: BobbyOn the contrary, the bridge was a proto-neocon fantasy microcosm where the people of Earth set out to set things right in the universe under the benevolent intellectual and moral guidance of the Americans.

It was a balancing act, Bobby. The network heads would have made every character on the show white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant.

Roddenberry pushed the envelope where he could. He wanted the crew to be 50/50 men and women; the network wanted it all men. He wanted a woman as second in command; the networks insisted on firing the first officer he cast and replacing her with a male. Trying to get someone other than a white male as the lead wasn't even worth trying. He couldn't even get a non-action-hero lead past the studio (they fired his first captain choice as well). He *fought* to get anything other than whites on the bridge at all.

And as for atheistic TNG episodes, see this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Watches_the_Watchers

Here, we have a primitive people who accidentally become aware that the Federation (with their "magic") is watching them and try to build a religion, but Picard puts them back on the correct path by convincing them that superstition is wrong (translation: Religion is wrong and there are no gods).

Posted by: Michael Suttkus, II | January 12, 2008 9:09 PM

Some Christians have made a new show
where the Atheists are really quite slow.
With men made of straw
the floor hurt my jaw
as their stupidity hit a new low.

I'm okay with satirical fun.
It can be funny if it's well done.
But when it's this bad
I wish that I had
an anti-stupidity gun.

Maybe when the next episode airs
they'll fix the scientific errors.
But, then, it seems
that would just leave
the credits, as if anyone cares.

Posted by: Rich Stage | January 12, 2008 10:23 PM

did he say "Nude Life Forms"? which I guess he didn't find.

Posted by: Kevin | January 12, 2008 11:59 PM

I guess I fail at being the uber trekkie, but wasn't there an episode of TNG when Picard was with a family celebrating Christmas and it made him uncomfortable?

But yea, I do find it a bit funny that the xians decided to pick a theme that actually counters their approach. Humanity in the Star Trek universe by about the 23rd century had effectively abandoned the old ways of religion, nationalism, racism, and the other forms of ailments which plague modern society. It wasn't because of "Darwin"; it's because the general populace gained the necessary toolkit from education that allowed them to disembark from organized religions.

Since the acting group failed to pick a theme which would've allowed religion (say...Firefly), they ultimately fail at driving home any point.

Posted by: Shawn Wilkinson | January 13, 2008 12:16 AM

I had to stop when they did the hand-shake bit. It's so bad! I can't believe my computer didn't spontaneously burn up.

Posted by: Jacob | January 13, 2008 3:53 AM

The acting is almost as bad as the real Star Trek series.

Harrumph. Maybe there is some virtue to those blasphemy laws after all. :)

Posted by: Bill Poser | January 13, 2008 3:56 AM

I am a Trekkie from way back - old enough to remember the first series being shown on the BBC - and I still have my uniform around somewhere.

I still think you should cut the actors a little slack. Having read about the making of the show, it's quite clear that the leads were only given a very sketchy idea of what their characters were supposed to be like and had to do a lot of fleshing out themselves as they went along. And, apart from the first season of TOS, they had to work with some poor dialogue, although nowhere near as bad as a lot of the writing in TNG.

The test, though, is how they did when they were given something better to work with. I'm thinking, for example, of Walter Koenig as 'Mr Chekov' - brought into TOS to appeal to the Monkees generation and as a sop to Russian feelings - who went on to turn in a great performance as 'Bester' in Babylon 5. And Patrick Stewart's skills as an actor need no defending.

Star Trek was groundbreaking in many ways, and I still love it,but it was later series like Babylon 5 and the Stargates which showed what could be done with better writing, better character development and much better effects.

Posted by: Ian H Spedding FCD | January 13, 2008 9:06 AM

I'm surprised that no one has brought up the episode Bread and Circuses. From Wikipedia, the episode ends:

Spock expresses curiosity to Kirk and McCoy as to why the slave "Sun" worshipers seemed to adhere to a philosophy of peace; again incorrectly, Spock says that in most societies sun-worship is a primitive religion of superstition, with no philosophy behind it. Uhura, who's been monitoring radio transmissions from the planet, informs them that the worshippers are actually referring to a "Son," rather than "Sun," as in, "the Son of God." Kirk replies in realization: "Caesar ... and Christ; they had them both," referring to a historical figure of war, and a historical, messianic figure of peace, making obvious note of the continued parallels of this planet's history to Earth history. Kirk remarks that it would be interesting to observe this period of time on the planet below.

My guess is that this is another example of Roddenberry balancing between his vision and network demands. He mentions christ in a positive context but does not acknowledge him as other than a recurring/parallel historical, cultural phenomenon.

Posted by: Ex-drone | January 13, 2008 10:53 AM

Romeo Vitelli: "While Roddenberry was an atheist, there isn't that much of it in Star Trek itself considering the network suits more or less insisted that he leave out anything even remotely objectionable out of the actual show."

There was the episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," an anvilicious episode with a deadly rivalry between a half-white-half-black alien and a half-black-half-white alien. Gee, wonder what an episode about contention over trivial skin color differences could possibly be about?

Foggg: "I'd love to see what you imagine the equivalent script would be."

While I don't think that a script about Jesus and St. Paul themselves would be that likely, it isn't too hard to imagine a story with "equivalent idiotic, false protrayals and scarecrow-burning" about Christianity. One could have Christian fundies being treated as representative of all Christians, and include a preachy message that was a rehash of nineteenth-century theosophical junk about Jesus as a myth made up from pagan gods.

Posted by: J. J. Ramsey | January 13, 2008 12:14 PM

Although it wasn't until the later shows that women or aliens showed up in true leadership roles.

Actually, for awhile women were going downhill: On Pike's Enterprise, there were TWO women at the helm -- as in steering the ship and firing weapons. On Kirk's Enterprise, there was one woman on the bridge as "communications officer" -- who sorta looked like a receptionist/secretary, until you realize that communications officers deal with languages, sigint and codes. On Picard's Enterprise, the one woman on the bridge was a "counselor" -- she wasn't even in the chain of command, and dealt entirely with "emotional" issues.

It wasn't until "Voyager" that women gained any ground back, with a female captain (Janeway) and a female ass-kicker (Torres, who was actually half-Klingon).

Posted by: Raging Bee | January 13, 2008 6:38 PM

This was Next Generation, not the original series, but there was also the episode Rightful Heir. In that episode the Klingon messiah finally returns, only it turns out that it was all a hoax perpetrated by the Klingon church--the guy was a clone who was created to believe he was the messiah, and had all the knowledge of the scriptures implanted in his head.

Posted by: Skemono | January 13, 2008 10:57 PM

So doesn't this violate Paramount's trademarks?

Posted by: Ian Gould | January 14, 2008 5:21 AM

Rick R. wrote

Did I just make a statement about aliens in leadership roles?
God, I just bukkaked geek all over myself.

ROFL.

That's one of the things about sci-fi that I love. You can acknowledge that there may be serious issues lurking under the surface, but you don't have take it all that seriously.

Posted by: Leni | January 14, 2008 8:00 AM

J.J. Ramsey: ...Christian fundies being treated as representative of all Christians, and a preachy rehash of ...Jesus as a myth made up from pagan gods.

Well yes, I too could imagine those, but they would hardly be equivalent to this. The skit's skeptic villains are almost universally respected by seculars (including one who "made it possible to be an intellectually fulfulled...") -- not Stalin, etc. The "plagarized Jesus" is at least an argument based on some similarities, however weakly supported or strongly contradicted in the end, and if made by the heros, would eliminate their conventional-wisdom, everyman appeal. A genuinely equivalent script might have the xian villain shouting something like, "No man cometh unto the Father but by nudism!"

Posted by: Foggg | January 14, 2008 8:28 AM

I am dumber for having seen this.

And what's with the lame "intelligent life" joke? I thought all the xians sobbed and blubbered all the time because "atheists call us stupid."

Hypocrisy, much?

Posted by: Rob | January 14, 2008 10:40 AM

Janine, Star Trek and Christianity are two of my least favorite things too. That's exactly what made it so funny.

And damn it to hell, my employer's web surfer blocked the Islam site. Great, now, they'll probably peg me for a terrorist.

Rick R, though I couldn't sit still through Star Trek, I get what you're saying about what were new topics then seeming old and silly now. I'm a big fan of sit-coms and loved the Mary Tyler Moore Show and also feel that it was my first glimpse that I could make it on my own and could be independent of a man. (Boy, am I ever! Thank you, Mary.) My daughter grimaces at the horrible sexism of the show.

Posted by: Donna | January 14, 2008 11:00 AM

No one seems to have made it to the end, with that Psalm which says that anyone saying there is no god is a fool. As Shakespeare said, even the devil can quote scripture, so I respond:
Matthew 5:22, New American Standard Bible:
"whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell."
Thanks for playing Bible quotes, the game where no one ever wins because every quote in the Bible has another that directly contradicts it.

Posted by: logoseph | January 26, 2008 12:38 AM