Dondi said:
Ciel, you must not be much of a Star Trek fan. I mentioned Star Trek because in this television series, which takes place some two hundred years from now, there is peace and harmony with all the peoples on planet Earth. We learned to get along with each other and there are no wars amongst ourselves (however, there are conflicts with beings from else where in the universe). But this comes about with no apparent help from any higher intellegence, we seemed to have accomplished this on our own. It is a fictional setting, but one in which Gene Roddenbury, who I believe was an atheist, If I'm not mistaken, had farsight to create. That is why the show was so popular. It created an ideal setting to explore new worlds as a collective, peaceful group.
The kind of new epoch you are talking about seems to imply some kind of whole scale spiritual awakening, perhaps brought about by a higher being. Or certainly a new level of consciousness. But any change to our way of thinking must be whole scale as well. How do we as human beings so diverse and with so much individualism achieve this without some common dimension or dynamic? Something has to set us right.
As far as Planet Mars, I have no idea what you are talking about.
Rodenberry was Agnostic. And his "eutopian" dream did not come about through enlightenment and sudden peace. In 1996 (ST timeline), the "Eugenics conflict" began. That's right, in 1962 (when Rodenberry dream of his "Wagon Train to the stars") he saw genetic manipulation of man and animals as a future form of trouble for mankind.
Back to ST history...by the year 2010 man was at WW III, with genetically superior humans on one side (lead by Colonel Thomas Green) and normal humans on the other. By 2020 earth was a waste land except for small pockets of wilderness. Two thirds of the population of earth were gone. The Eugenics war had ended with the defeat of the "superiorly enhanced humans", but at what price? This was followed by a fuedal system of governing.
Even Rodenberry's dream went through a Apocolypse of sorts. In 2061, Dr. Zephram Cochrain developed and tested his "Delta field" theory and (warp drive) ship successfully. The "signature" of that drive caught the attention of "aliens" mining for ore in the Main Asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and they came to investigate. They decided to make contact with earth because any species that had "warp technology" was considered "advanced", or had the potential to be. Their philosphy was if they lived long enough to create warp drive, then they survived their Nuclear age; these "aliens" were from the Epsilon Erindani star system (16 light years from earth), and the planet was called (40 Erindani A), or
Vulcanis.
What they didn't realise was that it was a one shot deal. There were no other resources around to create another warp capable ship from earth. The knowledge would have died with Cochrain (already an old man).
Earth was saved, and nutured back to health (physically and philosophically), by beings from the heavens...
Roddenberry, never took God out of his Star Trek equation. What he did was concentrate on the human factors (of which God is a part). However the amazing thing is that he thought of all of this back in 1962, and pushed until it became a reality (first start in 1964), then finally realised in the first series in 1966. What is errie is how accurate his "predictions" have come to real life so far...
What ever he dreamed of must have struck a nerve or caught the frequency of man, becase 40 years later Star Trek is known and appreciated world wide.
Not bad for a Los Angeles Motorcycle cop with a dream to send a Wagon train to the stars...
v/r
Q
