Star Trek’s wealth of moral and philosophical thought and feeling have led Andrew West and Ellis Collins to name creator Gene Roddenberry a humanist hero.

Andrew West on Gene Roddenberry

My humanist hero is Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek and, I think, the most effective communicator of Humanism there has ever been.

For three decades, the universe of Star Trek brought a humanist viewpoint to mainstream audiences. Countless children watched weekly as the galactic Federation of the future was depicted as a philosophers’ state in which the humanist outlook is paramount. It was never hostile to the godly – religion is simply null, and irrelevant. This was never spelt out, because it somehow seems incredibly obvious that the future would be so. It just makes sense. Of course nationality won’t matter in the future. Of course we’ll make sure everyone gets to live to a decent standard. Of course humanity will eventually grow up and out of superstitious thinking. This was unlike anything that had come before. Critics called it a Marxist vision, but one of Gene Roddenberry’s assistants instead described it as Lennonist: a brotherhood of man.

Roddenberry’s quasi-utopian future was attained through the twin humanist beacons of science and moral development. Science fixed poverty with the ‘replicator’ which can make almost anything almost instantly – surely the most desired device in science fiction – while humanity developed a way to bring the disparate races of the galaxy together without coercion or violence. Key to this was the Prime Directive, probably the most vaunted –and most violated – commandment in television. Always problematic, the Prime Directive stated that the Federation must not interfere with other cultures – except of course the Enterprise was forced to intervene in pretty much every episode. This core humanist message was hammered home over the series and the years: people are free to do as they will, but if they need help, you go help.

This optimistic view of humanity’s possibilities was at the core of Roddenbery’s humanism, a life stance he didn’t have a name for when he began questioning religion in his teens. He kept such opinions to himself for years, but came to recognise the power of television to effect social change – both good and bad – and saw an opportunity with Star Trek to bring a non-religious, human-centric philosophy to the general public. He eventually described the show as his ‘statement to the world’.

But his genius was to wrap up all this philosophy in solid entertainment. Morality plays can make for dull television, so Roddenberry blended endearing characters with fantastical situations, cleverly making the resolution of moral conundrums key to the progression of the plot. And in doing so he quietly built a cultural dictionary of philosophy. Want to discuss the limits of artificial intelligence, and what it means to be human? Skip tracts of dialogue and get everybody onto the same page with the name of ‘Data’. The moral culpability of the soldier? The Borg will do nicely. This was never overt, and plenty (including me) were certainly watching for the phaser battles as much as anything else. But ideas etch, and the behaviour of these exciting and civil characters couldn’t help but have an effect. Star Trek always emphasised decision-making, and actually doing something. Every week the Enterprise crew would argue the rights and wrongs of their predicament, before the Captain took it out of the abstract by committing to one side or another, and acting appropriately. There are worse ways to live your life than to bear in mind, ‘What would Picard do in this situation?’.

The conservative nature of 1960s US television didn’t make this easy for Roddenberry, but he ran rings around network censors by setting the stories in space – it’s not about racial equality, silly, it’s about aliens who happen to be different colours. He refused to put a chaplain on the Enterprise, despite regular pressure, and consistently crafted stories about morality that were devoid of moral outrage. Religion is rarely mentioned outright in the original series or The Next Generation, but turns up subtly in the broad, overall themes. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the only alien with god-like powers is a jerk who hates humanity. But over time he watches humans solving their problems through reason and compassion, despite his offers of magical intervention, and, by the end, he’s won over. It’s hard to see that particular story arc going down well with US networks, so Roddenberry simply didn’t tell them.

But Star Trek went beyond entertainment and subtle dissemination of humanist ideas – it’s not unreasonable to claim that Gene Roddenberry is partly responsible for accelerated pace of modern scientific progress. It’s impossible to know how many children had their sense of wonder stoked by the show, but you can get an anecdotal impression by asking any science graduate if they’re a fan. They probably are. The remarkable correlation between Star Trek fans and scientists may be because the show built upon established knowledge, but pushed it a bit. The ideas weren’t completely out there, so any children interested enough to investigate for themselves wouldn’t be disappointed. They’d discover that warp drives aren’t real, but impulse engines make sense. So why can’t you just use impulse engines to travel around? Because the distances are too great. Wow – just how big is the universe? And what about those communicators that allow the crew to keep in touch on different sides of the planet? Is that possible? Well, no, but radio waves can do that – we just need to figure out how to generate them in something hand-held…

Gene Roddenberry’s humanism affected forty years of children (and adults!), and continues to do so. Generations were raised on a regular diet of secular decency and resolving crises by weighing evidence and listening to all sides. Star Trek lodged abstract philosophy into the public consciousness, and is a pivot around which modern science turns. And above all this, Roddenberry’s vision was a source of hope. Gene Roddenberry brought a hope for humanity to millions, and is a humanist hero for that.

Ellis Collins on Gene Roddenberry

As soon as I started watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, I was hooked. I remember being around nine or ten years old at the time. There was really nothing else quite like it. Here, you had all kinds of Humans – black, white, men, women, some strange people called Klingons and even an Android working together aiming toward the goals – ‘to explore strange new worlds and to boldly go where no one has gone before’. Any problems that happened to occur along the way to these goals and the whole staff would sit down and decide the best course of action, based on two things – reason and logic. It’s easy to see now, looking back at this program, that it was a humanist’s dream.

It took me quite a long time to discover what a Humanist was – I would have been about 20 years old at the time. One late night I was looking through pages among pages of internet information, some of it useful, some not. I happened to stumble across Gene Roddenberry’s Wikipedia page. Scrolling down to Gene’s religious beliefs it stated that he was an ‘agnostic’ and ‘humanist’. ‘A humanist?’ I thought. I really had no clue what this was. A simple click of a button and suddenly I knew, I have to say, it made more sense to me than any other world view I had encountered.

I am 29 years old now. I can honestly say that I truly feel I owe my current outlook and views on life to Gene Roddenberry. If it wasn’t for Gene Roddenberry I honestly don’t know whether I would have got involved in the activities that I like and whether or not I would have learned about some of the most interesting people I could ever learn about, people like Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins and James Randi to name a few. Upon further research I discovered that Gene had lots of problems just getting Trek onto TV at all. TV executives were very worried about the original series because Gene wanted to include a certain alien with pointy ears and even worse, he also wanted to include a woman on the show – a black one at that. He had to push and push so that he could get his vision of a future society onto TV. A vision of society where there was no superstition, no people dying from things like hunger, no racial or other prejudices but most importantly a world where there was no war, on Earth at least. Another reason why I think so many people took to Star Trek is because Gene always liked to tackle important social issues in the episodes – issues like Slavery, Welfare and discrimination amongst others were all covered many times. Unfortunately Gene died on October 24th 1991, aged 70.

I just want to say thank you Gene, you are solid proof that just one person can change the world for the better.

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These posts are part of a series written by members, friends and Distinguished Supporters of the British Humanist Association about their own ‘humanist heroes’.

Andrew West is photographer-in-residence at the British Humanist Association.

Mr Ellis Collins, is 29 from Nottinghamshire. He is currently re-taking his GCSE’s after 13 years hoping to get out a dead end job. He also enjoys Philosophy and Psychology.

‘Spirituality’: Jeremy Rodell argues that it’s an important facet of our humanity.

As Marilyn says in her piece, there are fewer differences in our views than you might expect. My main concern is that we should not feel so insecure in our own position – that you can lead a good life without belief in the supernatural – nor feel so hostile to religion, that we should be afraid to recognise experiences and use language that are also used by religious people if the experiences are real and important, and the language is useful in communicating what we mean.

In the same discussion on Radio 4’s Today programme that Marilyn referred to, on the well-worn topic of whether atheists should be allowed to contribute to the “Thought for the Day” slot, Christina Rees, a member of the Church of England’s General Synod, argued that:

“Most people, more than 80 percent, understand life as having a spiritual dimension…”  whereas atheists are “…coming from a position that denies the spiritual dimension… a partial and diminished perspective…There is more to life than you can see, touch and measure”.

I was insulted. Here was a member of the General Synod telling me that, as an atheist, I’m a sort of Mr Spock – superficially like other people but missing a core part of what it means to be human. And, by implication, telling me that “spiritual” is not a word I’m allowed to use.

Unfortunately, as we’ve heard from Marilyn, many Humanists go along with this point of view, fearing they will somehow get contaminated by religion if they use the word, or admit to having a spiritual dimension in their lives. I think it’s time we moved beyond that.

What is “spirituality”?

It isn’t hard to define a Humanist spirituality that doesn’t imply any supernatural beliefs, yet accepts the reality of a spiritual dimension to being human.

The key is to recognise the reality of personal “spiritual” experience. Some people have this type of experience a lot in their lives, others only rarely. When a religious person has it they attribute it to an external supernatural cause – a deity, saint, or whatever fits with their beliefs. Of course, we think that’s a mistake. But the experience itself is a fact. Neuroscience can now show us what is going on in someone’s brain at the time, and it’s even possible to create the experience artificially in the laboratory. But that doesn’t diminish the power of the experience itself.

Of course, there’s actually a spectrum of experiences here, ranging in intensity from those stimulated by great art or, in particular, great music, to the more profound and unexpected, as described by the former Sorbonne Professor of Philosophy, Andre Compte-Sponville in this extract from his Book of Atheist Spirituality:

“The first time it happened I was in the forest in the north of France. I must have been twenty five or twenty six. I had just been hired to teach high-school philosophy in a school on the edge of a canal, up in the fields near the Belgian border. That particular evening, some friends and I had gone for a walk in the forest we liked so much. Night had fallen. We were walking. Gradually our laughter faded, and the conversation died down. Nothing remained but our friendship, our mutual trust and shared presence, the mildness of the night air and of everything around us…My mind empty of thought, I was simply registering the world around me – the darkness of the undergrowth, the incredible luminosity of the sky, the faint sounds of the forest…only making the silence more palpable. And then, all of a sudden…What? Nothing: everything! No words, no meanings, no questions, only – a surprise. Only – this. A seemingly infinite happiness. A seemingly eternal sense of peace. Above me, the starry sky was immense, luminous and unfathomable, and within me there was nothing but the sky, of which I was a part, and the silence, and the light, like a warm hum, and a sense of joy with neither subject nor object …Yes, in the darkness of that night, I contained only the dazzling presence of the All….

…’This is what Spinoza meant by eternity’, I said to myself – and naturally, that put an end to it.”

Personally, I’ve had a couple of similar experiences, neither of which were in any sense “religious”.

If none of this is meaning anything to you, these two quotes from Albert Einstein may help:

“A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe – a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as separate from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to the affection for those nearest us.“

And:

“There are moments when one feels free from one’s own identification with human limitations and inadequacies. At such moments one imagines that one stands on some spot of a small planet, gazing in amazement at the cold yet profoundly moving beauty of the eternal, the unfathomable; life and death flow into one, and there is neither evolution nor destiny, only being.”

There are plenty of other examples where people from a wide range of backgrounds and beliefs report similar perspectives and experiences. Whether we’re talking about something as intense as Compte-Sponville describes, or a few seconds of “otherness” brought on by a Beethoven slow movement, spiritual experiences seem to have some common characteristics:

• They are non-intellectual. As Compte-Sponville found, as soon as you start trying to analyse the experience, it disappears.
• There’s a sense of connectedness with a greater whole, other people, wider humanity, the rest of the universe, or simply “something greater” (easy for a deity or two to slip into the religious imagination here!).
• They involve a diminishment of the ego, sometimes to the point where there is no sense of separation between subject and object (not “you” looking at “it”, but simply “looking”).
• They are very individual – others in Compte-Sponville’s party just had a nice walk.
• They are associated with a sense of elation, joy and – often – compassion; they are powerful and positive for the person involved. (And anything that diminishes the ego and increases compassion for humanity is surely a good thing for society.)
• Knowing that they purely subjective does nothing to diminish their power.

And, for most people, intense spiritual experiences are pretty rare.

Whose language it is anyway?

Even if we accept that Humanists have a “spiritual dimension”, it can still be argued that we shouldn’t use the word “spiritual” because of its religious connotations and lack of clear definition.

The snag is that no other word will do as well if we want to communicate what we mean. Terms such as emotion, aesthetic awareness, love of nature, or simply love, goodness or hope simply don’t do the job. Just because it’s used for everything from the experiences of Catholic nuns to New Age gurus, doesn’t mean it’s off-limits to us. In fact atheists are uniquely positioned to understand that all of these people are really talking about the same thing, but they interpret it through the filter of their (to us irrational) beliefs. We shouldn’t allow the religious to ban a useful word from our vocabulary.

Here’s an illustration: that well-known organ of Humanist thought, Photography Monthly magazine, recently carried an article by Joe Cornish – one of the most respected landscape photographers working in the UK today. In it he said:

“For some landscape photographers, Nature’s beauty is all the evidence they need of a Divine Creator. For others, scientific curiosity reveals an alternative explanation, where over unimaginable aeons our plant has evolved into the unique wonder that is our home today. This is a form of “terrestrial theology”, a belief in the fundamental, non-negotiable laws of physics. It’s not by any means depressing, reductionist scientific thinking based on the inevitability of nature’s immutable laws, but a broad church which encourages compassion and wonder in the beauty that we find in landscape, and humility in the face of what the world has to teach us. There is little doubt that for many of us, landscape photography is a spiritual journey.”

What should we say to him? “Sorry Joe, you’re obviously an atheist, so you’re not allowed to use that word”? I’d rather thank him for explaining that you don’t have to be religious to have a spiritual perspective.

The Humanist response

Because many Humanists put so much energy into being against religion, the important and enriching potential of the spiritual part of our lives has been under-developed. Yet, for many people, spiritual experience is a profound part of being human, even if they rarely experience it in their daily lives.

Christina Rees’s opponent in the Today programme discussion was the humanist philosopher A.C.Grayling. Unfortunately, he didn’t pick up the point about spirituality – perhaps because it’s the type of concept philosophers feel uncomfortable with, or more likely, because there was limited time and he had his own points to make about non-religious philosophers. But what he could have said is something like:

“It’s simply untrue to say that humanists are not spiritual, and rather insulting. Spiritual experiences are pretty much universal across cultures and beliefs, and can be shown to be a feature of the way the human brain works. Many Humanists have as profound a spiritual awareness and understanding as you have. The difference is that they know the cause is not any sort of supernatural agent. But the experience is profound and important in helping us understand our place in the world. If humanists have a fault, it’s that we’ve failed to do enough to acknowledge and develop this aspect of our humanity.”

My favourite humanist film is Miracle on 34th Street. Not the Richard Attenborough remake – the 1947 black-and-white original, with Edmund Gwenn and Maureen O’Hara. It’s lovely. Really. There’s a delightful humanist message at its core, and I think it’s the most positive, thoughtful and festively uplifting film out there. Unlike its modern counterpart, which is broken.

Admittedly, at first glance the premise may not seem terribly rational. A man claiming to be Santa Claus is sectioned, and a court case held to determine his sanity. How is a legal battle over the existence of Santa not a done deal? A hotshot lawyer has something to say, as do a judge up for re-election and a young girl taught not to believe in Santa – as the case captures the attention of the nation.

If you’re anything like me, you’re already thinking ‘metaphor!’. And you’re right. In the remake, Santa is standing in for a higher power. It’s not subtle. The climax of the case sees Judge Harper desperately seeking a reason to affirm Santa’s existence, which is provided by the epically cute Mara Wilson. She hands over a dollar note inscribed with ‘In God We Trust’, and Judge Harper immediately sees the potential: since the U.S. government is happy to declare a belief in God without evidence – as do we all, he says – Santa can reap the precedent. Case dismissed!

Ugh.

The original doesn’t do this. The original doesn’t mention God at all. Is Santa real? It’s ambiguous. He’s still metaphorical, and there’s still talk of the virtues of belief, but every mention of the word ‘faith’ is immediately followed by a sentiment expressing the goodness of people, and how it’s people we should believe in. We should believe that things can turn out all right. We should give people second chances, even when things haven’t gone our way. 1994 Santa is an inspiration to believe in magic; 1947 Santa is an inspiration to be all that we can be.

But Miracle 1947 isn’t a fairy-tale. The judge, the toy store employers and the psychologist all act out of self-interest, even when they’re doing something good. Even the main characters start off looking out for themselves: John Payne takes an interest in the little girl to meet her mother – it’s only later that he starts acting selflessly. Miracle 1947 doesn’t pretend the world is perfect, just that its muddle of humanity can come good in the end. People can do the right thing, and self-interest isn’t always a negative force.

The films’ differing world-views are clear: Miracle 1947 says ‘faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to’; Miracle 1994 says ‘if you can’t accept anything in faith then you’re doomed to a life dominated by doubt’. Let’s just go ahead and say Miracle 1947 is better. Its faith, always founded upon humanity, isn’t metaphysical – it’s the faith that keeps us going when all seems bleak, and gives us hope for humanity: it’s a faith informed by reason. Modern humanists might choose a different word, but we like the sentiment.

Sentiment itself is a touchy issue in the Miracles. Comparing 1994 with 1947, it’s obvious how filmmaking styles have changed – there’s much more sentiment in the remake, and this is generally considered a bad thing. Indeed, sentiment is critical kryptonite: describing a film as ‘sentimental’ is never an endorsement. But, from a humanist perspective, this is rather curious.

New Humanist’s Laurie Taylor, a man high on life if ever there was one, recently spoke of the role sentiment plays in our lives, pointing out that its derision is at odds with our own experience. Some of our most enjoyable and memorable moments, whether cinematic, literary, or whatever, are entirely sentimental. And this is obviously true: who doesn’t remember reading Little Women? Or watching E.T.? We seem more ashamed of some than others, but who can honestly say they were unmoved by Titanic?

Humanists are no exception. At this October’s TAM: London, Tim Minchin finished his musical set with White Wine in the Sun. The song starts out praising Christmas, but ends with a father expressing his love for his daughter. He wants her to know that no matter where she is, or how old she is, her family will be waiting for her at Christmas. It’s pure sentiment, and half the audience were in tears. I can’t even type it without getting misty-eyed. Give me a moment here.

Ok I’m back. The point is: despite the sentiment, I’ve not seen a bad word written about Tim Minchin’s performance. So it’s odd when critics describe sentiment as manipulative, as if that’s a bad thing. We don’t watch Some Like it Hot, then complain how it manipulated our humour reflexes. Maybe we only cringe when we’re worried that people might see our emotions, or maybe we’re just fussy about the way sentiment is expressed, but the peaks and troughs of life are part of the human condition, and as humanists we can surely appreciate that empathy is vitally important in living the good life. There’s nothing wrong with feeling for others, whether they’re real or not. I actually quite like the sentiment in Miracle 1994. Christmas is inherently sentimental, after all: most people choose to spend it with their loved ones. We don’t ask why that is – no explanation is required. As Laurie said, maybe we should give sentiment a break.

But a deeper problem with Miracle 1994 is its negativity. ‘I’m a symbol of the human ability to be able to suppress the selfish and hateful tendencies that rule the major part of our lives’, says 1994 Santa. His aim is to bring a little light to a hideous world full of fear and pain, and torn apart by consumerism and commercialism. The latter is pretty much in keeping with popular commentary: to listen to modern newspaper commentators, you’d think consumerism was cooked up by Voldemort, Skeletor and Nick from Eastenders to bring about the downfall of mankind.

But while Miracle 1947 has something to say about capitalist angst, it keeps a rational perspective: Santa has issues with the behaviour of the toy stores, and states them clearly, but doesn’t labour the point. I find this a relief: I think humanists can agree that consumerism and commercialism are problematic in some ways, but also see that wanting to own/sell things doesn’t immediately make you a reprehensible philistine. Similarly, humanists are familiar with self-styled moral leaders playing the oh-doesn’t-the-world-suck card. It’s a trick. We don’t think the world is a pit of moral decay, nor that human nature is inherently corrupt. And we’re suspicious of anyone who says otherwise. Even if it’s Santa.

In fact, Miracle 1947 is surprisingly rational, and actually provides some decent lessons in critical thinking. When Santa’s defence lawyer glibly asks the state to prove Santa isn’t real, the court insists that the burden of proof rests with those making the claim – a line omitted in the remake. Shortly afterwards, the lawyers and judge agree that the anecdotal evidence of witness testimony is of little value, and stronger verification is required. Skeptics may also appreciate the scene where Santa channels Ben Goldacre, calling out a ‘psychologist’ for practising without a real qualification and describing him as a disgrace to the noble profession of psychiatry. Said quack is later accused of obtaining his license through a correspondence course. Of course, this was 1947, and such a ridiculous notion would be impossible today.

Miracle 1947‘s main characters are rational and, I think, very humanist. Santa does good for the sake of doing good. John Payne quits his job to defend Santa, because it’s the right thing to do. But the most interesting character, from a humanist perspective, is Mrs Walker – the woman who discovers Santa, but struggles with his delusion. In both Miracles, Mrs Walker’s journey from skeptic to believer is the heart of the story, but the take-home messages differ wildly.

Miracle 1994 goes off the deep end by having Mrs Walker start off as the humanist straw-man of creationist screed. Half Vulcan, half Dalek, she tells no fairy tales, teaches her child the truth about Santa, doesn’t really like Christmas all that much, and will not stand to be questioned. She even tells her daughter to ask Santa for something ridiculous, saying his failure will provide evidence he isn’t really magic. By the end she’s converted, and it’s transparent and all a bit annoying.

1947 Mrs Walker is much more subtle. She still tells her daughter Santa isn’t real, because the truth is the best defence against disappointment, but comes to realise that the world is a better place than she thought. Santa shows her that people can be good. In 1994 she decides that faith in magical beings is shiny and brilliant, but in 1947 she discovers that trusting and believing in people is a worthy endeavour. She becomes a modern humanist – rational and compassionate, and willing to invest in those around her. Still not so much with the magic, though. 1947 Mrs Walker would politely tell 1994 Mrs Walker where to get off.

You get the impression that neither Mrs Walker is too fussed about Christmas. The überlawyer would-be-boyfriend, though, is obviously a nut for the festive season, and their viewpoints bounce off each other throughout the film. This is a nice mirror for the contemporary humanist perspective on Christmas.

I haven’t met many humbug humanists. Sure, there are some who disavow the entire season, but they’re a rarity and best avoided. In my experience, most humanists enjoy the chance to relax, take stock and celebrate whatever they choose to celebrate. The religious aspect is a non-issue. But (as with many Christmas films) Miracle has an implied question that we all hear from time to time: why do we even acknowledge Christmas, when we obviously don’t believe?

The obvious and immediate response is to detail the actual roots of Christmas: that the Roman festival of Saturnalia just so happened to be at the same time; that holly, candles and carols come from Scandinavian traditions; that Christmas was barely celebrated until Charles Dickens rendered it awesome; that ‘traditional’ trees are only a recent addition to the holiday – and don’t forget Jeremiah 10:3-4:

For the customs of the peoples are false: a tree from the forest is cut down, and worked with an ax by the hands of an artisan. People deck it with silver and gold they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.

All of which is true, and, you know, quite funny, but perhaps misses the point. We fall into a trap when we say ‘aha, but you didn’t come up with the idea, did you?’ Because it doesn’t matter how it started. Even if Christmas was 100% described in the Bible, we’d still get to strip the weird stuff and enjoy the rest. This isn’t rude or disrespectful – we’re not preventing others celebrating, but we’re not bound by their rules, because we’re not in their club. There’s no copyright on celebration, and nobody gets to forever assign meaning to ritual. I don’t care why we put up coloured lights – I just like pretty lights, dammit! This is the pleasingly secular message of Miracle 1947: celebrate however you like, and don’t worry about what other people think, but stand firm in your convictions.

All of which is to say: 1947 Miracle on 34th Street is nice. It’s an uplifting festive story, full of understandable motivations, worthy sentiment, and plenty of humanist brain-fodder. And if you’re wondering how the court resolves the issue of Santa’s existence without recourse to deities – well, I won’t spoil the surprise.

Merry Christmas.

Andrew West – 22/12/2009