No Need For Trek Anymore 790
dcsmith writes "In an article at the LA Times, Orson Scott Card says 'So they've gone and killed Star Trek. And it's about time.' SciFi blasphemy? Not really. Card makes several good observations about the growth of SciFi over the past 30+ years. The article also comments on several other genre gems, including Joss Whedon's Firefly." From the article: "...the hungry fans called their friends and they watched it faithfully. They memorized the episodes. I swear I've heard of people who quit their jobs and moved just so they could live in a city that had Star Trek running every day."
Re:Orson Scott Card (Score:4, Informative)
Astroturfing for OSC Movie (Score:2, Informative)
Ender's Game is coming out eventually, and the studio wants it to be a hit. The book is literally a masterpiece (one of several by Card) and should be required reading for everyone serious about life, before they enter kindergarten. It was inevitable that someone who had read the book would eventually get the word to a moron at one of the big movie studios, and via blackmail or drug haze, a studio would pick it up. We're not far away from the release.
This story is the introduction of Orson Scott Card to the moviegoing world. There's no telling how much planning went into what story should go and when it should go out, but the fact of the matter is that you're all being played. The world of dumbasses doesn't touch the world of genius without reason, and money is a good enough reason.
Re:Orson Scott Card (Score:2, Informative)
Card Doesn't Read Credits (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It's true... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Orson Scott Card (Score:2, Informative)
You're talking about a guy who had little kids running around killing "buggers" in his most famous novel...
Re:It's not a fair evaluation. (Score:4, Informative)
If Star Trek hadn't been successful, there would have been no TNG or movies. It would have been something different that milked the nerd-urge of the seventies and eighties. Trek had decent grounding and so got quite a bit more popular, but TNG was what made Paramount their real cash on TV, and the movies made a killing.
Without its rabid fanbase that created success, Trek would have died an earlier death. A much earlier death...
Re:Orson Scott Card (Score:3, Informative)
OSC is not known for judgement... (Score:4, Informative)
See
http://dir.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/03/car
and his actual views
http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.htm
Those articles will turn you off on that guy.. or at least stop purchasing his books.
Re:Orson Scott Card (Score:4, Informative)
Good point. Let's check the Oxford English Dictionary.
The official name for the Mormon church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [lds.org]. The subtitle of the Book of Mormon is Another Testament of Jesus Christ [wikipedia.org] (the first being the Bible). Articles of Faith 1, 3, and 4 [wikipedia.org] (which they basically brainwash their children with via ritualized repetition) all claim belief in Jesus Christ as a member of the Godhead and their personal savior.
Ergo, Mormons fit the definition of "Christian".
As you said "There is no need for this to be an issue of opinion. Words have definitions."
(For the record. I'm an ex-Mormon. I was raised one, but left once I actually started thinking about what I was told rather than just accepting things.)
Re:Orson Scott Card (Score:1, Informative)
This defines who is a Christian.
They say it all depends on who you ask...:)
Re:Orson Scott Card (Score:1, Informative)
* God is a Trinity, the single eternal being existing in three persons: Father, Son (Divine Logos, incarnated as Jesus Christ), and Holy Spirit.
Mormons believe in all three beings, however we see them as three separate beings. We believe them to be distinct, separate entities, however joined in purpose and nature.
* Jesus is both fully God and fully human, two "natures" in one person.
Mormons believe this as well. Jesus is a God-like being as God is, however he has a body of flesh and bone. This gives him a duality of humanity and Godliness. His resurrected body lacks blood, which signifies immortality.
* Mary, the mother of Jesus, bore in her womb and gave birth to the Son of God (who is, himself, likewise God), who although eternally existent was formed in her womb by the Spirit of God. From her humanity he received in his person a human intellect and will, and all else that a child would naturally receive from its mother.
Again, Mormons believe this as well, with the exception that God and Jesus are separate entities. One example of this (I'm no Bible scholar) is during Jesus's baptism. As he was baptized, the voice of God was heard [biblegateway.com].
* Jesus is the Messiah hoped for by the Jews, the heir to the throne of David. He reigns at the right hand of the Father with all authority and power forevermore. He is the hope of all mankind, their advocate and judge. Until he returns at the end of the world, the Church has the authority and obligation to preach the Gospel and to gather new disciples.
Aligns with Mormon faith perfectly.
* Jesus was innocent of any sin. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, believers are forgiven of sins and reconciled to God. Although virtually all Christians agree on this, there are a variety of views on the Significance of Jesus' resurrection. Believers are baptized into the resurrection and new life (or death in some groups) of Christ. Through faith, they live by the promise of resurrection from death to everlasting life through Christ. The Holy Spirit is sent to them by Christ, to bring hope and lead mankind into true knowledge of God and His purposes, and help them grow in holiness.
Once more aligned with Mormon faith. The Holy Spirit is sometimes referred to as the Holy Ghost, but the being referenced is the same. Regarding the crucifixion of Christ, we do not focus on His death, rather his resurrection and life, though His crucifixion was undoubtedly required of Him as the Savior of the world.
* Jesus will return personally, and bodily, to judge all mankind and receive the faithful to himself, so they will live forever in the intimate presence of God.
Ding ding. Another match.
* Some Christians, particularly in the West, refer to the Bible as the "Word of God." Other Christians, particularly in the East, believe that Jesus alone is the Word of God, and see Scripture as an authoritative book, inspired by God but written by men. As a result of these differing views, many Christians disagree to varying degrees about how accurate the Bible is and how it should be interpreted.
This passage almost shows that Mormons are indeed Christian. We believe the Bible (King James Version) to be the Word of God in so far as it has been translated correctly. We also believe that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus. It is not a replacement for the Bible, but is to be used in addition to it. One does not "override" the other.
All that said it sounds like your professor was just spouting personal beliefs. Many people do consider correctly that Mormons are Christians.
If you look around [google.com] you'll find conflicting results, but this is true of absolutely any philosophical or religious claim.
OSC is known for bad judgement... (Score:5, Informative)
See
http://dir.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/03/car
and his actual views
http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.htm
Those articles will turn you off on that guy.. or at least stop purchasing his books.
(this was originally buried in another thread, but reposting here as OSC is really not a nice guy, so does not surprise me that he would turn on a large segment of his fans.)
Re:So They Have Gone and Killed ... (Score:3, Informative)
Authors Website (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Orson Scott Card (Score:1, Informative)
The other things were creations of the Catholic Church. If they were right, then they are still right and unless you are Catholic you are wrong. If they were wrong, then everyone was led astray and the ideas needed reforming.
Re:six days off (Score:2, Informative)
What about the recently-announced TV series [themovieblog.com]?
(Ironically, there's a SW Ep 3 banner on the comment page as I write this.)
Re:So They Have Gone and Killed ... (Score:3, Informative)
The point of literature is to help the reader/viewer answer "What does it mean to be human?" Convetional fiction does it by showing us what it means to be some other human, in some other circumstance. Historical fiction does it by showing us what it was to be human in some other time. Science fiction does it by showing us things that are not humans or by showing us humans in situations we've never been in before. By that measure, it doesn't really need ubertech, though it clearly helps.
<pompous intellectual mode off>
Trek != Science Fiction. (Score:3, Informative)
Here is a case in point:
They find a Dyson sphere!!! Wow!!! SciFi addicts are drooling. Against all odds, they find an easy way inside!!! We're on the edges of our seats!
But oh - wait - we spent too much time on the interpersonal stuff between Scotty and LeForge - so now all we can do is to invent some reason why they have to immediately escape from the sphere and leave all of the interesting stuff to someone else.
Bah! I wanted to know how the Sphere designers solved the problem of needing day/night cycles - how the poles are structurally abilised - about how the land area inside is so vastly huge that many civilisations must be spread across it's internal structure. How the population of the sphere probably exceeds that of the enture galaxy outside.
Now go read RingWorld to see how a Science Fiction plot line *should* be done.
Now, I have to say, I enjoyed that episode - but it just didn't have very much to do with SciFi.
Most Trek episodes do something like this - they usually end with the ships' deflector dish being redesigned with three keystrokes to emit wibble-rays which remodulate the theta band babbleometer and thereby save the day in the last 2 minutes. This only works because it's not being treated as a SciFi program.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing - and it certainly made the series popular amongst people who wouldn't know a SciFi plotline if it bit them in the leg.
Re:Orson Scott Card (Score:3, Informative)
> I don't think the concept of the trinity could be considered nitpicking. It is the thing that most differentiates Christianity from the other Abrahamic religions.
I diagree on two counts:
1. Christ = Messiah is the fundamental belief that differentiates Christianity from Judaism & Islam.
2. Trinitarianism is but one, very successful branch of Christianity. At one time, most Christians were non-trinitarian, but that was a long time ago and mixed up in Imperial politics. Today there are still a few Unitarians [mac.com].
Re:RTFA (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Coke or Pepsi (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's true... (Score:3, Informative)
Now, now. If you're going to bring that up, we've got to post the originals too! These are definitely worth looking at.
The Picard Song (Flash) [nyud.net] [coral cache] You can hear the entire song here [nyud.net] [coral cache].
There's several other Star Trek animations on that site [rainbowanimations.com] that are pretty funny. There's also some very odd ones, like the Unlucky Ant (dealing somewhat with the Schiavo issue).
Re:Orson Scott Card (Score:2, Informative)
[Christianity] teaches that God the Father and God the Son (Jesus) are one and the same person - Mormonism denies this
Depending on how you want to define the Trinity, I'm pretty sure many Christians would have a problem with the idea that they are the same "person." But you are correct in that Mormonism holds that God the Father and God the Son (Jesus Christ) are two separate individuals.
Christianity teaches that Satan is a fallen creation of God- Mormonism teaches that Satan is equal with Christ- his brother
Mormonism does NOT teach that Satan is equal with Christ. It does teach that we are all spirit brothers and sisters, as all of our spirits were created by God. Mormons believe that Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of the world who atoned for our sins and is a member of the Godhead. Satan is a fallen angel who stands in eternal opposition to God. I'll give you one point on the brother part, but minus a infinite number of points on the "equal" garbage.
Christianity teaches that Christ though fully God became man incarnate- Mormonism teaches that Christ came to be as the result of an incestuous relationship between God and Mary (not my words- a leader of the mormon churches words)
Absolute total utter BS!
Mormonism doesn't teach that, and I would love to see your "leader of the mormon churches words." I can guarantee you that you there isn't a single quote out there from a Mormon leader.
I'm not doubting your motives. You probably honestly believe the anti-mormon propaganda that your have read. Just realize the method that they use: For every truth add in a couple of lies for good measure. Good enough to confuse those who don't know the difference. It worked on you.