The Vulcan katra (specifcally, Spock’s katra) is a key plot point of the second and third Star Trek films (The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock).
Nope, it was always Mr. Spock. Dr. Spock was a completely different guy, who was also quite well-known in the media at the same time that the original Star Trek series aired.
Even if we take the Christian view of salvation of humans as gospel, there are still multiple ways one can allow for alien species. It could be that God became hnau, to save all hnau, and humans just happen to be the species of hnau that God chose. It could be that God became hnau many times, one for every species of hnau. It could be that, of all the species of hnau in the Universe, we humans are the only ones who ever Fell, and thus the only ones who need redemption. It could be that God redeems other species of hnau through methods that we can’t even comprehend.
For those who don’t know the term “hnau”, it’s a word from the science fiction trilogy of C. S. Lewis that means “member of an intelligent species”.
I wondered when Lewis’ Space Trilogy would enter the chat. Seems like most of the “Christians” advocating their racist silliness didn’t read the works of the foremost Christian apologist of the 20th Century, probably because C. S. Lewis was a furriner and therefore not really “Christian”.
It was also featured very prominently in the show Enterprise; Captain Jonathan Archer received the Katra of a Vulcan named Syrran and carried it around in him for a while (it lasted a few episodes I believe). I think that was my first time learning about it. (I became a Trekkie relatively late in life.)
It even happened in the original series; Spock’s Katra went into Nurse Chapel in the second season episode Return to Tomorrow. So it’s been part of canon for a long time.
Although I liked the Space Trilogy when I first read it, I’m increasingly dismayed at its pessimism. Humanity can’t be trusted to expand throughout the Universe because of original sin, and we would spread corruption to the planets and stars.
Honestly, Lewis, we are not that bad.
He also had good things to say about the National Health Service. Heresy!
Long before Omphalos, I read a story whose premise was:
- Aliens attack earth, planning to wipe out all humanity
- because their God is the One True God and God told them to do it
- Earthlings do some research, and determine that the aliens are telling the absolute truth
- so humanity’s only recourse is to basically war against God to try to save the human race.
It ends at that point - no clue whether the humans win the war against God and the aliens.
My google-fu is weak - I cannot figure out the right search terms to find the story. I know I read it at least 20 years ago, possibly 30-35 years ago.
Lorenzo Lamas?
Interesting. The Bible had plenty of situations where God ordains attacks on his people the Israelites. It doesn’t always mean that the Israelites lose, and, when they do lose, they still survive. None of this seen as “fighting against God,” since whatever happens must have been God’s plan.
For I Am A Jealous People, by Lester del Rey?
Lillie Langtry.
“And that’s my rulin’…!” - Walter Brennan
There was a page in one of the Superman comics back in the 1960s that pointed out all the LLs in his life. The list has only grown longer since then 9although Lorenzo Lamas is not among them):
https://www.supermanhomepage.com/comics/comics.php?topic=articles/ll-initials
Speak for yourself, I know people who are and that is for me motivation enough to keep on trying.
That’s it!
Laura Linney?
LL Cool J?
This thread has inspired me to re-read James Blish’s A Case of Conscience (Jesuit priest/scientist wrestles with whether sentient alien lizard people are a tool of the Adversary).
That’s not how it works.
I mean, sure, if you believe in gene theory and all that sciencey stuff then maybe (and if we grant the extraordinary premise that humans and an alien species could somehow be close enough genetically to produce viable offspring). But you have to understand that for a science-rejecting creationist like Ham, gene theory is bunk. Instead, he would likely believe something more like homunculus theory or some other version of preformationism whereby offspring is produced from a man’s “seed”, and the woman’s role is simply to provide a “fertile” womb for that seed to grow into an infant. It’s as if god gave seeds within seeds within seeds to people (like Adam and Abraham). Succeeding generations are, absent some new issue from God, supposed to exist all at once, like ever smaller Russian dolls within each other. Any traits a child might acquire from the mother would not be through gene transfer, but rather through something like maternal impression.
It’s why “every sperm is sacred” is a thing. People used to think you possessed finite “seed” within you.
Anyway, Spock, with a Vulcan father, cannot be “half human” according to such a worldview. At best, he is fully Vulcan with certain human-esque impressions from the time he spent in his mother’s womb. Like clay taking on the shape of a mold: take it out and it retains that impression (although perhaps subject to modification) and maybe some particulate matter rubbed off on it (like, tainted it or speckled it), but it’s still clay when it comes down to it. And so Spock must be a Vulcan, as must his children, and his children’s children’s children.
The truly absurd thing about Ham and his ilk is that in their fundamentalism, they basically discount and/or throw out hundreds, if not thousands of years of intellectual thought on subjects exactly like this.
Society of Catholic Scientists
It’s almost as if Ham and the clowns that follow his line of thought want to confine the divine in a small little box that is constrained to what makes them comfortable and/or advances their goals and worldview. Like it says in the second article:
if other embodied beings possessing reason and free will exist in the universe, they would have rational and immortal souls and be made in “the image of God.” God would love them and desire them to be in communion with him. If they were fallen, he would desire their redemption.
Kind of hard to argue with that, and it’s pretty much 180 degrees from Ham’s rather dumb-assed interpretation. And it doesn’t put limits on God either.