God and ‘Star Trek’

“Star Trek” was a fantastic movie, especially in IMAX, one of the most entertaining I’ve seen in a long time. But there wasn’t much about God in the film. After all: “Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.”

Writing for Beliefnet, Paul Asay explains the absence of God from the “Star Trek” series:

When Gene Roddenberry created “Star Trek,” he pictured a future dominated by science and human ingenuity—without a lot of religion to muddy things up. Oh, sure, Federation crew members met scads of religious sentient beings around the galaxy, but it turns out most were worshipping computers, power generators, or toga-wearing aliens. Roddenberry didn’t place a lot of faith in faith.

“Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all,” Roddenberry once said. “For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain.”

And yet, Asay writes, the series has had quite the penchant for the Ten Commandments. Here are his 10 examples.