Star Trek

Just curious if anyone knows? I've noticed after my many run through's of Trek that Brannon Braga is almost always the writer on the various episodes of Trek that deal very heavily with evolution and/or plots that deal with a race or religion or some form of afterlife that is alledgedly proven to not exist. He seems to always be involved with the episodes which ultimately say, science proves all, and there's nothing more to this life/existence than what we can see. No creator, no heaven, no afterlife of any kind.

I noticed that Voyager often has this theme, which Braga worked very closely on. And TNG eventually started having alot of stories on that type of theme as well, but not until about Season 6 and 7, which is when Braga really getting control in TNG.

From the stories he writes, he certainly seems to have an anti-God, anti-religion agenda. Perhaps that's why he didn't work on DS9, which deals very heavily on religion.

I've never made the correlation with Braga, but I have noticed there are a lot of episodes like that. In fact, there are a few episodes I refuse to watch because they are so blatantly anti-God that it's ridiculous. I don't know, but you may be on to something. Braga may be an atheist. Wouldn't surprise me.

Yeah, I mean like I said, I just started noticing that Braga's name is on almost all of the there's no God episodes.

Out of curiosity, which episodes were you referring to that you don't want to watch anymore?

It's been a while since I watched through my TNG, and I only have season one and two ov Voyager, and I can't find DS9, so the only one that jumps to mind right off is the one from TNG, don't remember the title, but it's the one where they're doing surveillance on this planet and somehow end up getting found out and the people end up referring to the captain as "The Picard" and he basically spends the whole episode telling them he's not a god and there are no gods. It came across to me as very anti-God. I know there are others, but as I said, it's been a little while since I watched through TNG.

Oh ok, yeah that episode that you are referring to is from Season 3 of TNG. It's called Who Watches the Watchers? It's the Mentokans who think Picard is a God. I don't recall who wrote that episode, but I think in Season 3, Braga wasn't around yet.

That episode doesn't seem anti-God to me. I felt like it was more, Picard wanting to show that he himself is not a God, and he shouldn't be put into their beliefs.

I mean see what you're saying too, but that particular episode didn't occur to me.

Some of the episodes I was referring to with the Braga thing, is episodes like Season 6 of TNG, Rightful Heir, where Kahless returns, where it's basically the Klingon version of Jesus coming back, and it turns out that the Kahless who returned was a fake clone, thus making it appear that Klingon belief was just a myth, and they made a clone to try and fool the people. Which I saw as a connection saying that Jesus is a myth. Perhaps I read too much into it?

The next one is TNG Season 7 the episode Genesis, where the crew de-evolves into frogs, spiders, cave men, you name it. I think Worf turned into some type of Klingon snake/scorpion type thing.

The next is TNG's finale All Good Things, where Q takes Picard back to the beginning of time, showing Picard where some molecules are supposed to come together and create life, thus the origin of evolution.

There are several examples in Voyager,

Season 2 Threshold, Paris and Janeway go Warp 10 and once again, Evolve into some kind of Salamander or something.

Season 3, I don't recall the episode title, I want to say it's Coda, where Janeway and Chokotay are talking, and they refer to Adam and Eve being a myth and that science has proven that life developed from a single celled organism, and Janeway says, yes that's what I always taught.

Another Season 3 episode called Distant Origin, where the crew finds evolved Dinosaurs from Earth, and these Dinosaurs refuse to acknowledge that they came from earth, but in a nutshell, it's once again more evolution.

In Season 6 I believe it is, the Doctor is inside the Fair Haven holodeck program, and someone says something er other about God or something religious, and the Doctor says, "Divine Intervention is unlikely"

All these episodes that I listed, have Brannon Braga all over them. That's why I feel he really tried to have a anti-God agenga added into the show. Which is interesting with how much DS9 focused on religion, and TOS even seemed to embrace Christianity. I'm a big fan of Rick Berman, but I can do without Brannon Braga.

Yeah, I remember the TNG episodes you reference and I've seen the first two episodes of Voyager you reference. And, yes, with Star Trek being so very science oriented, they do focus a lot on that kind of stuff. I don't know if I'd relate it to Braga, exactly, because there are such things all through Star Trek. In Star Trek 2, McCoy makes the statement "According to myth, the Earth was created in six days", there was an episode of TOS where Spock says "I for one do not believe in angels" and they always reference evolution. A lot of these kind of things I simply overlook, as it's part of the scientific part, even though I don't believe it's correct. All Good Things is one of my favorite TNG episodes. I just ignore that specific scene or look at it as what the entire show is: Science Fiction. lol  It's just the one's like the one I referenced that I can't stand to watch because it feels like it has a specific anti-God agenda.

Yeah I totally get what you're saying. That makes sense. I understand that it's science fiction and I too overlook the evolution stuff. I really enjoy some of the episodes I referenced. I really don't have a problem with them, because I am a Christian and I know what I believe, and what the bible tells me, and I'm not going to lose my faith over some storylines in Star Trek or any other tv series.

I just started to notice that a good bit of those stories that are heavy into evolution started happening when Braga got alot of control. And you are right about evolution having some standing all through the franchise even before Braga, but it seems like it became more of a dominant theme when he was involved.

But maybe that was the best move for Star Trek in general, because it allows them to tell science fiction stories from a scientific point of view, while also allowing them to stay neutral on the subject of religion, thus they don't have to take sides on any given religion one way or the other, and that way no one is offended thinking that their religion was insulted or ignored.

Sora, just because someone accepts the theory of evolution does not necessarily mean that person is an atheist. Nor does being an atheist automatically make someone believe in evolution. The two have very little to do with each other: atheism simply means you don't believe there is a god; evolution is a way of explaining how lifeforms change over time.

Many religious people believe in evolution. Many atheists don't, or they misunderstand it, or they have their own skewed interpretation of it. Brannon Braga's own ideas were awfully mixed up on the subject: In "Threshold" Tom Paris breaks the warp barrier and somehow "evolves" into a salamander. This assumes that evolution has a predetermined endpoint encoded in our genes; rather, evolution is a series of reactions to natural selection and environmental pressures, neither of which would have been working on Tom Paris at the time.

So, atheist or not, Braga flunks evolutionary biology.

Fair enough. Like I said I was just curious. I don't hate Brannon Braga or anything. I think he wrote some incredible episodes of Star Trek, and I don't dislike the evolution episodes either. Truth be told, I really enjoy Threshold and Genesis, whereas many fans don't. But Braga wrote some great stuff that wasn't anything to do with Evolution, such as in Voyager's 2nd season, Projections and Non Sequitor, both are amazing episodes, at least I think so.

Like I said earlier, I believe in God, I believe in the bible, but I don't feel threatened by stories having to do with evolution or anything. I just know generally speaking, chances are someone who is religious, most likely wouldn't be writing stories about evolution and how there is no God.