This I once believed: That the soul and spirit were inventions of the deluded and coerced mind, serving only the powers of oppression and willful ignorance.

This I now believe: that the soul exists, and that it is the part within us that spurs us on to the pursuits most defining of who we are as a people – the drive to explore, create, grow, and progress; that it is the responsibility, indeed, the duty, of the individual to affirm the soul, and to cultivate it for the betterment of oneself and society; that spirituality holds a rightful place in the soul of a balanced individual, justly prompting reflection on oneself, empathy for others, and an abiding tolerance for the world and its diversity of people and ideas.

My morning thoughts on this beautiful spring SUNday.

For the majority of my life I have been a Star Wars fan, and don’t get me wrong, I still am.  As a child, during the 7 year run of Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1987 to 1994, that show was always more of a background presence to my more direct love of George Lucas’ world.  I vaguely remember my parents turning on TNG every now and then in the evenings during dinner.  My brother and I had an obsession with having dinner on a picnic mat placed in the middle of the family room; TNG just happened to be a series on at dinner time that my mother somehow determined to be devoid of objectionable material.  (Later of course I realized that nearly every episode contains a ludicrous amount of sexual tension, though I was far too young to pick up on that at the time).

Star Wars was always more immediate; it was about action and adventure – two-dimensional and easily lovable/hate-able characters gallivanting about on epic crusades to save the galaxy and reestablish the noble and mysterious Jedi order.  This is a science-fiction universe that appeals to all ages, is simple to follow yet as complex as you want it to be (I happen to own the Imperial Sourcebook, a giant technical guide to the Empire’s starships and equipment), and a story that touches on from whence our civilization came – our past Christian and pre-Christian archetypal characters that have pervaded Western epics since the Greeks, possibly earlier.

Star Trek on the other hand, is harder to latch onto because it looks ahead, to where we might be.  Whereas Luke, Han, and Leia are detached from us in that their adventures happen “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”, the USS Enterprise in Gene Roddenberry’s story is built on our Earth, in our future.  After a second 21st century Dark Age of world war, the fragmentation of humanity, and near nuclear apocalypse, humanity eventually unites following the discovery of intelligent life beyond Earth (see the amazing movie First Contact).

How profound it indeed would be, to find that we are not alone in this vast sea of blackness, and that the differences that divide us here on Earth are in fact laughably minuscule compared to the infinte wonder of what is out there. In the words of President Whitmore (played by Bill Pullman) in the popular sci-fi thriller Independence Day: “Mankind… those words should have new meaning for all of us today.  We can’t be consumed by our petty differences any longer.”

By the end of the 22nd century, so the story goes, Starfleet has been established, world government formed, and humanity realigned with the goals of peaceful exploration and scientific knowledge of the universe.  Yes, we still have weapons, and yes, on occasion we have to use them; but our progress as a society, as a people, is no longer tied to military dominance or nationalistic goals.  In Star Trek, we mature into the core of what humanity is – intrepid explorers, not devoid of prejudice but rising above it, and always creating, learning, protecting, and pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

The following quote is from an essay posted to Living Trekism:

The whole show was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but to take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. We tried to say that the worst possible thing that can happen to all of us is for the future to somehow press us into a common mould, where we begin to act and talk and look and think alike. If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there. And I think that this is what people responded to.

More broadly, I think its a fair argument to make that Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, is a secular humanist.  As described by the Council for Secular Humanism, theirs is a philosophy that espouses the following tenets:

• A conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, whether religious, political or social, must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith.
• Commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence, and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.
• A primary concern with fulfillment, growth, and creativity for both the individual and humankind in general.
• A constant search for objective truth, with the understanding that new knowledge and experience constantly alter our imperfect perception of it.
• A concern for this life and a commitment to making it meaningful through better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and the outlooks of those who differ from us.
• A search for viable individual, social, and political principles of ethical conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance human well-being and individual responsibility.
• A conviction that with reason, an open marketplace of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children.

Reflect on every (if any) episode of Star Trek (especially The Next Generation) that you have seen, and I think you will find that one or more of these tenets are central themes of each.  I myself would not go so far as to call myself a secular humanist, but in general, the philosophy described here is one in which I find many principles that would take us far if we let them.

This vision is not just far off in the future.  There are men and women working today to make it real, perhaps not in terms of secular humanism, but certainly for the core spirit of peaceful and bold exploration and discovery.  Consider the memorable opening lines of the series, set to appropriately inspirational music (and spoken as dramatically as only Patrick Stewart can):

Space…  the final frontier.  These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise – its continuing mission: To explore the universe; To search for new life and new civilizations; and to boldly go where no one has gone before.

And compare to the mission statement of a particular agency of our government:

To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers… as only NASA can.

Further, reflect on the words of a great man, President John F. Kennedy, as he launched this great agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, on it’s most historic mission.  The whole thing is relevant here, but I have underlined a few choice phrases that drive the point home:

“For the eyes of the world now look into space — to the moon and to the planets beyond — and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding. Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and therefore we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others all require us to make this effort to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men and to become the world’s leading spacefaring nation.”

Profoundly moving, and to me clearly in keeping with the spirit of the creative explorer that Roddenberry so revered.  The respect that the world of Star Trek showed to the mission of NASA was acknowledged and even returned.  On September 17, 1976, America’s first constructed space shuttle orbiter, designated OV-101, rolled off Rockwell’s line near Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.  Roddenberry and many of the original cast were present; and before OV-101 was transferred to NASA’s nearby Dryden Flight Research Center for its first flight tests, it was christened… Space Shuttle Enterprise.

So lets reflect.  I have written here an essay on why I love Star Trek, yet not once have I  gone into detail about the characters, the worlds, the starships, the geek conventions, the special effects… these are fun and interesting to me certainly, but in my mind they are secondary.  The real reason I have come to enjoy Star Trek is what it represents – it is a bold and positive view of what we could become if we tried.  It is the idea that we can set aside our differences, that we can someday be free of militarism, that we can learn to use our strengths as a species and learn to grow from our weaknesses… and that all else will someday be secondary to the great quest of exploring the strange and overwhelming beauty that awaits us on that infinite final frontier.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a Starfleet uniform to iron.