'Whistlespeak' breaks from the Trek tradition of being pretty chill about believing in a higher power
TNG and religion #startrekdiscovery #startrektng #startrekthenextgeneration #religion #klipp #klipp
The future of Star Trek is secular. Franchise creator Gene Roddenberry was an outspoken atheist, and the series and its spin-offs have routinely criticized organized religion as manipulative, illogical, and harmful to a society's development. Individual members of the human race may have an undefined spirituality, a curiosity about the afterlife, or a sense of wonder at the unknown or unknown, but specific religious beliefs are usually reserved for alien cultures.
But if Trek's fervent pro-science and anti-superstition has remained constant, so have the attempts of various storytellers within the franchise to approach religion from other, more tolerant angles. And the latest episode of Star Trek: Discovery, "Whistlespeak," may present Trek's most honest take on faith yet.
Star Trek: The Original Series, somewhat restrained by the standards and mores of 1960s television, used sci-fi allegories to criticize religion as an institution that stifled progress and expression. In two episodes ("The Return of the Archons" and "The Apple"), Captain James T. Kirk and his Enterprise crew encountered a planet where a population was driven into willful ignorance or oppression by a deity who turned out to be a computer, which Kirk summarily destroyed.
