Star Trek: The Motion Picture Part III

 I just finished the Star Trek novel The Lost Years.

It's about the Enterprise crew's time between the end of the original series (ST:TOS) and the first movie.

Since it was a while since I watched Star Trek: The Motion Picture, I watched it again.

In 2014, I wrote two blog posts about the movie.

The posts came down to the longing for God along the Augustinian line (no rest for my soul until it rests in Thee, God) and baptism.

Upon re-watching the movie, it actually seems more like the sacrament of the Eucharist.

V'ger wants to touch the creator, who is human.

In reality, we touch and become one in a real, physical way with the One True God through Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Jesus, the second person of the Trinity physically joins with us in a real and spiritual sense, since he is truly and substantially present in the form of bread and wine that enters our body. He joins with our body.

We don't join together with a halo or energy around us like Decker and V'ger's probe did. However, our lives are never the same.

Hitting the Mark

Sin is a word and concept that is contemptible in our libertine age. The only "sin" is even implying that an action or feeling is not right for someone else to do or feel. According to former President Obama, a sin is to do something against one's principles; there is no external reference for those principles.

Well, the above approaches to sin would be correct if there were no God. As Sartre wrote, we create our own meaning without reference to any god. His entire philosophical matrix would fall apart if God existed-in-fact.

If God existed, He made you and me a certain way to live rightly. What sin really includes is missing the mark of living in the right way.

Think of a bow, arrow, and target. The goal of bow and arrow shooting at the range of life is to get a bullseye. We have to train, practice, and obtain the correct materials/equipment to get the maximum number of bullseyes. We'll more likely hit the mark.

Then we'll be truly happy.

Answering Hitchens's Impossible Question

Let's start the year with a religious post and attempt to address the late Christopher Hitchens's "impossible question."

The question is, "I challenge you to find one good or noble thing which cannot be accomplished without religion." Or name something good a believer can do that an Atheist cannot.

I found two answers by Christians on YouTube here and here. There is one by W. L. Craig on the internet somewhere.

Years ago, I read Prof. Dawkins's The God Delusion where he suggested that we create a believing machine to get around the obvious answer to this question: only believers can believe in God, only believers can love God with all their heart, soul, and strength. According to Dawkins, the machine could believe in God for us so we can go about our business. Prof. Dawkins also derided parents who taught their impressionable children about any religion, especially Christianity with its belief in hell: it is on par with physical child abuse.

From this alone, I can report that no Atheist, or non-theist could believe or teach positively about the Judeo-Christian God, the only living and true God.

But is this good?

I'm part of a non-denominational Habitat-for-Humanity-like apostolate called Good Works in a poor part of PA. At the beginning of the work day, we have a small talk that comes from the Bible and ask for prayer requests. We then pray together with the home owner before we work at the worksite. If someone is not Christian, they can come to the work site after this. From my observation, the Christians show up more often than the non-Christians to work on the houses.

St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta always made it a priority to pray and attend mass before helping the poorest of the poor, to take scheduled breaks for this throughout the day. I'm not Mother Theresa, but it says something that belief in God motivates more consistent and harder work for the poor who are Jesus in disguise (Matthew 25: 31-46).

However, this does not actually address the most important action: loving God Himself. Love requires action. We do this by receiving Jesus bodily into ourselves in the sacrament of Communion and being forgiven in the sacrament of Reconciliation. No non-theist would ever do this in Truth, only mock and/or invert it.

I wonder why debaters against Hitchens didn't say this type of answer every time? Where they afraid that Hitchens would shoot them down? Could it perhaps be that most were Protestant, who believe in sola fides? Love requires more than faith; it requires works, some only Christians can do.

The Search for Spock and the gods of Genesis

***Spoilers Alert!*** Between Star Trek II and III, there were really three main people who wanted the Genesis device and its "secrets": Dr. David Marcus (Kirk's son), Khan, and Klingon Captain Kruge.

Image source: http://cdn.filmschoolrejects.com/images/startrek2_commentary3.jpg

The Genesis device was capable of bringing to life a dead planet or killing a live one for its "new matrix" (or creating a new planet all by itself from nebula matter some how). In either case, already existing matter had to be present to reorganize matter at the subatomic level.

Dr. David Marcus, Khan, and Captain Kruge wanted the power to create or destroy for themselves (for honor and/or "ultimate power"). It was like the battle of the Roman or Greek gods once again, except now, the mortals used science.

The battle raged between them until they were all dead.

On the other hand, God created the universe (or multiverse, etc.) out of nothing. He (not male, just subject placeholder) created all time, matter, and dimensions. The Book of Genesis describes this in a poetic manner, where the point is that God created it out of love, not domination.

For more on this see this video by Fr. Barron.

The Host Part III

In the last post on The Host with Saoirse Ronan, the concept of the soul was introduced. In this post, I would like to look at another aspect of the soul, freewill.



***Spoilers Alert!*** There was a whole bunch of will assertion in this movie, especially in Saoirse Ronan's characters (two persons together for most of the movie).

But first, backing up further to see the larger view, the alien race that took over Earth was pushing their agenda to keep the native people from destroying themselves and their environment (as was mentioned in the first post). Unlike the Ender's Game movie, the reason for the takeover was not for land or resources, but to essentially save the planet by inserting an alien world government and populace (that sure sounds familiar).

This scenario of the movie seems forced. Why would a peaceful alien species who values non-violence forcefully take over people against their own will? Do they see themselves as the doing the right thing (good means and ends) or simply the necessary thing (good ends matter only, not means)? Do they really believe in free will?

This last question seemed to be a shock to the aliens. There was never reported to be a human that still asserted his or her (free) will after becoming a host. This is why Saoirse Ronan's alien character was alarmed and kept secret (for most of the movie) the fact that her host was asserting herself.

Perhaps the aliens did not believe in free will. I've argued before that if there is no free will (no God), there is no morality. If they did not believe, the alien actions would not have to be justified, since it's just those whom blind processes (nature) determine are stronger who get to decide (determinism). However, the hosts did assert their freewill, therefore, there are good and bad means (means matter).

The aliens who became friends with the humans realized that there was a right-and-wrong that the humans had at least a grasp of. This realization was attractive to them.

This attractiveness seemed to be ultimately an attractiveness towards God.

The Host Part I

The Host is a relatively new movie with Saoirse Ronan that was written by the same person as the Twilight series (I found this out just now). I never watched any of Twilight, but this Host movie was creepy.

It was creepy because it reminded me of a reverse demon possession.



Usually, in the Bible and in movies, when people are possessed by a demon, they try to destroy their host. For example, "Lord [Jesus], have pity on my son, for he is a [possessed] lunatic and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water." (Here's another example (Legion).)



There was a reversal of this tendency in The Host. The alien "souls" who were possessing the humans were stopping them from being violent to other humans and the Earth.

Why is this a bad thing? (Why don't you tell me in the comments below?) Perhaps it is because taking away someone's freewill is against God's prime directive (God's will).

(Speaking of prime directive, the Trill on Star Trek (Dax et al.; Dr. Beverly's Trill) had hosts who freely submitted to being used as hosts. So, the same objection can't really be raised in that case.)

The Lone Ranger Part II

Here's Part I of The Lone Ranger.



***Spoilers Alert*** In the last post on The Lone Ranger, it was pointed out that the The Lone Ranger was really the natural man as written about in Locke's Two Treatises of Government instead of the scholarly man John Reid.

In this post, I would like to examine the Christians in the movie (without excusing them).

Most of the Christians in The Lone Ranger were hypocrites. The greatest bad guy in the movie, who portrayed himself as a Christian, says of Tonto's village years after he and his brother slaughter them for a fortune in silver, "Nothing is accomplished without sacrifice." (His brother was a cannibal.) The head cavalry man (Was is Custer?) prayed before he mowed down the Native Americans.

Could it be true that we're all hypocrites?

It's the saints who know they're hypocrites, pray to God for forgiveness, and ask for absolution in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Most of the Christians in The Lone Ranger didn't know their hypocrisy. It is in knowledge of ourselves and especially our God that we have hope to escape from our sins. The truth will set us free.

May God forgive us, we know not what we do (Luke 23:34). That's why Jesus is The Way (Acts 9:2) out of hypocrisy.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture Part I

I thought for a long time that Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Star Trek I) was the second worst Star Trek movie after number five, but the more I think about it, the richness in its symbolism is pushing it higher and higher on my list (at least past number three).

I love Star Trek because of the gadgets, gismos, and science that are incorporated or forced into the show. I'm not as interested in the characters, save for Spock, especially the actors who play them. (This is why Sheldon of The Big Bang Theory TV show logically makes no sense to me in this regard. Why should he be interested in the actors who play the characters since they are just speaking and bringing alive the words that the writers make up? Though I digress.) The Heisenberg compensator (for beaming to work) alone has given me hours of pondering as to how it could work.

I wonder, in their final analysis, whether the writers realized the theological profoundness of their project. This post will mention a single overarching one.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 27 (CCC 27) reveals that, "The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself."

V'ger represents man and Decker represents God (Creator). V'ger, although knowing the accidents (or the stuff/workings) of the universe, nevertheless desires with a great passion to know the Creator from within its innermost core, the old stuff of ancient TI calculator circuitry. (Just because the heartfelt longing is old doesn't mean it is not there as from the beginning. / Sidebar: It has been said that all the electronics of the Apollo hardware could now fit in a single TI calculator.)

Although growth in knowledge of the universe seems to be completed at infinity, it is not enough for V'ger. It's programming is not complete. Hence the search climaxes in Star Trek: The Motion Picture with the interaction between Decker and V'ger via the probe (more on this in a later post).