# Jesus on Star Trek **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 22, 2009, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-on-star-trek/511126 "2009-09-22T19:49:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-on-star-trek/511126/41 "2009-09-23T15:36:30Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Get past him? He [wrote](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_Circuses_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series)) it! That must have been during his heavy alcoholism period. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-on-star-trek/511126/42 "2009-09-23T15:48:35Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I recall that episode; _The Magics of Megas-Tu_. The animated episodes aren’t canon though. The devil guy, named Lucian is one of a race of beings who visited Earth long ago and helped create the myths behind magic. They live in a realm where thought defines reality, and technology doesn’t work; thus all the “magic” trappings. Basically Lucien would be the Devil without Jesus/God, except he wasn’t especially bad. > > Can you imagine the reaction if they’d put out an episode where it turned out Jesus was an alien? That sort of thing is pretty much restricted to written sci-fi. Kinda sorta, but (and I read Alan Dean Foster’s novelisation, but didn’t see the ep) IIRC the Megans told Kirk that Lucien was more properly called Lucifer, but that wouldn’t account for all Earth references to the Devil, since they were about the place in time to run into trouble in 1692 or whenever, but not all through Earth’s history. So the intention was to prejudice Kirk against Lucien, not to claim that Earth never had any other devil. As to other religions, there was also a Voyager episode featuring Klingon Hell, with Torres visiting there in a near-death experience to redeem her mother or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-on-star-trek/511126/43 "2009-09-23T16:26:04Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Christmas has survived into the 23rd and 24th centuries. There have been episodes of TOS and Voyager which have featured or made references to “the ship’s Christmas party.” And Picard experienced a fantasy Christmas celebration with an illusory family while in the Nexus in "Generations."Although that doesn’t have to mean Christianity survives, as many of today’s Christmas traditions are taken from pagan observations rather than from the Bible. Christmas may survive more as a secular festival of peace and goodwill to all of mankind’s fellow sentients than as a religious celebration. Heck, I bet even now there’s quite a few people who have a secular (or rather capitalist) Christmas. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2009, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-on-star-trek/511126/44 "2009-09-24T01:41:01Z")
> [@Loopus](#): > > Gene Roddenberry was an atheist and, in general, his (unrealistic in the extreme IMHO) view was that religion in humans had died out by the 24th century. > > [Cite:](http://sidmennt.is/2006/08/16/every-religion-has-a-mythology/) Interesting but then again that’s Braga doing the speaking – up to the reader if he’s recognized as Guardian of the True Word of the Great Bird. It does fit with what is known about the man Roddenberry, but one wonders about whether this was actually so directly advised to writers. AFAIK the actual TOS “writer’s bibles” of the 60s merely told writers that no references were to be made to the state of religion or politics on Earth. Everything was kept ecumenical and nondenominational. The Enterprise has a chapel (Balance of Terror); “we need no more gods, the One is enough”, etc. It would not surprise me if Roddenberry had overtly adopted the more direct “we have outgrown this” line by the time he started TNG. _However_ let’s remember at this later time he also preached hard the “we have outgrown” line for money, capitalism, political power, etc., and eventually that had to be set aside. The “we have outgrown” line, at least in the economic/political realms, has become seen by a large fraction of fandom as vain utopianism at best , and at worst as GR flailing against what he saw as the direction society was moving in the Reagan 80s. … And yes, how convenient that still many of the alien religions, and Chakotay’s mix of various forms of tribal animism, end up being shown as respectable and even valid (even if it gets technobabbled with an explanation of some sort of alien energy beings or internal mental process). Oh, no, it seems only the “establishment” human religions – or maybe just religions with actual commandments and moral dogmas, as opposed to mere “cosmic spirituality” – are supposed to have died off or been relegated to the category of quaint superstitions. :rolleyes: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-on-star-trek/511126.md?page=2)