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I dropped a torch in my house in whiterun and somehow it was lit. It was actually very helpful as it lit up dark areas of the house. Is there a way to make this happen again (on xbox)? I can't seem to make this happen again.
I've been experimenting with dropping torches (Don't ask), and it seems there is a bug. The first time I dropped them, 69 were in an unlit stack and two more were lit and not stacked. Picking them up and dropping them again caused them to consolidate into a stack of 71 unlit torches. Try gathering more torches and see if some of them end up being lit upon dropping is the only advice I can offer.
There is a bug,
Have a living person holding a lit torch, then kill him while he is holding it lit. The torch will be lit when he drops it and when you drop it, but make sure to kill him in one hit or he will put the torch away and draw weapons.
If playing on the PC, there's a mod that allows you to drop lit lanterns and place them wherever you want - Wearable Lanterns:
Highlight it in your inventory and then press (X) to drop it, it will automatically be lit.
Mine works like this: collect a load of torches, then when your ready to light some place up drop all your torches except for 6, then equip a torch and drop the last 6 and those 6 torches will be lit as one, it wont work if you just equip a torch and drop 6 out of however many, because the torch in your hand wont count as one of the 6.
Drop the unlit torches, leave your house for a period of time, and when you return they should be on the floor lit.
I dropped a ton in the Housecarl's bedroom and now it glows like the sun.
Drop individual torches, (lit or unlit does not matter) Place them where you want them to be, leave the building your house whatever, save the game then load the save, enter the house and they should all be lit.
Even though the topic is 2 years old i found an easier solution that you don't have to enter or leave areas (or kill someone lol).
The drawback on this one is that it you need 6 torches each time.
For some reason for this to work, when you have an equipped torch, it has to let you choose how many torches to drop in order to drop a lit one. That is why you need to have at least 6 to trigger it. Otherwise, (e.g. 5 or less torches in the inventory) you are going to drop each one individually.


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For all I've read about Quantum Field Theory I've never seen the concept of the living vacuum accredited to someone in particular. Given the importance of this very application of the uncertainty principle that always seemed rather strange to me.
The "living vaccuum" was obvious to everyone by 1930, it didn't require a discoverer. Perhaps you should credit Dirac, perhaps Jordan, perhaps Fock, perhaps Fermi, perhaps Heisenberg, perhaps Bohr/Rosenfeld, perhaps Klein, who knows.
I would credit Heisenberg, Kramers, and Schrodinger, for the development of stationary state perturbation theory. The Kramers Heisenberg ideas allowed for virtual atomic transitions, between absorption and emission of light, and Schrodinger's perturbation theory allowed you to calculate the properties of eigenstates from these virtual states.
Once the quantum field theory was formulated by Heisenberg, Jordan, Dirac and others, the stationary states were clearly fixed particle occupation number states, and virtual states became virtual particles automatically, without any need for discovery, because the idea of virtual states was already understood.
One major motivation for the quantum field concept came from the Klein paradox--- the Dirac equation, if interpreted as a single particle equation, is inconsistent because it allows transmission and reflection coefficients to add up to more than one. This violates the basic ideas of probability. Oscar Klein was a major unsung player in the development of early quantum field theory.
Aside from fluctuating virtual particles, there are other concepts of dynamical vacuum which are different, and which are associated with different people:
There are also failed dynamical vacuum models
Uncertainty principle for pairs $x$ and $p$ or $E$ and $t$ data written for a physical particle has nothing to do with virtual pair production.
The "presence of higher states" in a given state has a limited and certain meaning and it is not due to fluctuations.
Let us consider an exact ground state $\psi_0$. It is often unknown as analytical formula. It is searched by the perturbation theory and is obtained in a spectral form like this one:
$$\Psi_0=e^{-iE_0 t/\hbar}\sum_{n\ge 0}C_{0n}\psi_n^{(0)}\quad (1)$$
This spectral decomposition is not a quantum mechanical superposition of states at all! All higher approximate states $\psi_n^{(0)},\: n>0$ are non observable in the exact state $\psi_0$; they are just dumb numbers to correct inexact value $\psi_0^{(0)}$ to get the exact one, the latter being still the ground state. No experiment can find an excited state, exact or approximate, in the ground state, even virtually (vacuum is a ground state). But in the formula (1) the approximate higher states are "present". This leads to an erroneous confusion that in the ground state one may "find" higher states for short period due to uncertainty relationship. No, they are not virtual states.
Note, the spectral expansions like (1) for other exact states ($n>0$) are involved in real calculations where exist observable exact states $\psi_n,\:n>0$ which bring their own $\psi_{n'}^{(0)}$ because of being expanded in the spectral series too. In that case, those approximate $\psi_n^{(0)},\:n>0$ may be called observable since $\psi_n\approx C_{nn}\psi_n^{(0)}$.
Again, in any particular state $n$ $$\psi_n=\sum_{n'} C_{nn'}\psi_n^{(0)}=C_{nn}\psi_n^{(0)}+\sum_{n'\ne n} C_{nn'}\psi_n^{(0)}\quad (2)$$ there are no other observable states $n'\ne n$, it should be clear. It is a state with a certain energy an nothing else can be found in it.
The only observable states in a general state $\Psi$ are those that are involved in the quantum mechanical superposition of exact states with their own energetic exponentials:
$$\Psi=\sum_n A_n\psi_n e^{-iE_n t/\hbar}\quad (3)$$
Often some higher observable states are just forbidden in this superposition by the energy conservation law, which valid, for example, in collisions. On the other hand, there is no limit on $n$ in the dumb spectral decompositions like (1) and (2). In perturbative calculations the observable states mix with dumb ones. But if you analyze examples carefully, you will find that the all "virtual states" are always the approximate functions $\psi_{n'}^{0}$ (corrections to $\psi_n^{0}$ injected from (2) to (3)) and never the exact states, in the regular perturbation theory or in the Feynman diagrams, whatever. This fact shows their true origin (1)-(2).
P.S. For those who did not get the point: there are no virtual states, as a matter of fact.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Hazardous Waste
In public places
If you find hazardous or toxic waste in public places you should contact us immediately on:
0121 303 1112 8am to 8pm, Monday to Friday
0121 303 4149 8pm to 8am, seven days a week.
Please make sure you have as much information as possible. We will follow the necessary procedures and offer the relevant advice from the Environment Agency.
If you get through to an answer phone, please leave your name, address, telephone number and as much information as possible about the waste, including its exact location.
In or on commercial premises
If you find hazardous or toxic waste in or on commercial premises, please contact the Environment Agency on 0870 850 6506.
- Hazardous Waste – Household
Hazardous household waste includes things such as:
- Paint
- Paraffin
- Fence treatments
- Garden chemicals
- Adhesives
You can take small amounts (up to six 2.5 litre containers) to your local Household Recycling Centre, provided they are stored in containers and you can transport them safely.
- I have some paint in my garden shed, how do I dispose of it safely?
If they are small amounts (up to 6x2.5 litres) and can be safely transported, you can take them to your local household recycling centre. For large amounts of hazardous waste you need to contact the waste disposal unit on 0121 303 7358.
- There is some toxic waste that has been dumped on the road, who should I report it to?
You should contact the Council immediately on 0121 303 1112.


text:
| Bloch, H. P., Hydrocarbon Processing Staff,
Amid pump industry consolidation, independent shops can provide upgrade and repair services for key process equipment.
[repair shops]
For the hydrocarbon processing industry (HPI) to
routinely rebuild an older or vintage
centrifugal pump to original equipment manufacturer (OEM)
specifications is not practical, given present pump rebuilding
and testing technology. Pump users realize that
changes to system performance do occur over time, and technology advances make efficiency
gains possible. A highly qualified independent rebuild shop
with up-to-date design tools and experienced personnel can
verifiably offer high-quality upgrades that improve both uptime
and efficiency consistent with current system performance
requirements. Considerable consolidation has taken place within
the pump industry; thus, the distinct possibility exists that a
particular OEMis no longer able to offer the same
engineering competence they had provided decades ago. In
addition, some equipment vendors have downsized or
right-sized their traditional inspection
departments into oblivion. The user-owner often sees the
consequences reflected in unexpected pump downtime and repeat
failures. Fig. 1 shows how consolidation has taken place.
To continue reading please, log in to hydrocarbonprocessing.com.
Subscribe now for premium access and unlimited access to the site, including archived articles and the process handbooks. Start a free trial to gain access to articles from the current issue of Hydrocarbon Processing.
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A searchable database of project activity in the global hydrocarbon processing industry
Engineers and designers are highly skilled individuals. Forcing them to enter design changes using tables, forms and spreadsheets is unproductive and uneconomical, and it increases the likelihood of human error—this is the way that most instrumentation software systems currently work. For too long, software vendors have denied engineers and designers the simple practicality of a graphical visual engineering interface with "drag and drop" capability and inbuilt intelligence, ensuring changes are automatically replicated into all the associated data and databases.
Is 2016 the peak for US gasoline demand?
Too soon to tell
July 2016


text:
Softball Set for Lady Bulldogs on SundayFebruary 14, 2014
ANDERSON, S.C. – After having its mid-week and Saturday doubleheaders postponed, the No. 20-ranked Anderson softball team returns to the diamond this weekend, traveling to Orangeburg, S.C. on Sunday, as the Trojans square off against NCAA Division I South Carolina State. First-pitch versus the Lady Bulldogs is set for 1 p.m.
The Trojans
Anderson has opened the season with six straight wins, marking the Trojans' best start since the 2010 squad began the campaign with seven consecutive victories after having its first five games washed out due to inclement weather.
The Trojans hot start has fostered South Atlantic Conference accolades, as freshman hurler Lauren Rudesheim was named SAC Pitcher of the Week following the opening weekend and senior shortstop Abby Child earned SAC Player of the Week this past Tuesday.
Child leads the SAC with 12 RBI, ranks second in total hits (11), third in doubles (3), fourth in batting average (.611), fifth in on-base percentage (.636) and slugging percentage (1.111). Teammate Danielle Swygert is batting .529 and has an on-base percentage of .579, which ranks seventh and 10th, respectively in the league.
All-America second baseman Jessica Neidigh boasts a .421 batting average and is second on the team with a .579 on-base percentage. The left-handed hitting leadoff hitter has hit safely in all six games and ranks seventh in the SAC with her nine runs scored. She has three doubles and is a perfect 3-for-3 in stolen bases on the early season. Center fielder Molly Child has eight hits in 19 at-bats, including two home runs and a pair of doubles on the season. The sophomore leads the league in runs scored (10) and is hitting at a .421 clip.
In the circle, Rudesheim is tied for third in the conference with her three victories and is ninth in ERA (1.00), while holding opponents to a .146 batting average. Freshman right-hander Augie Pena (1-0) is tied for third in strikeouts per contest, averaging 8.75 K's a game, while junior hurler Katelynn Howser is a perfect 2-0 on the season with 11 strikeouts in 12 innings of work.
The Lady Bulldogs
South Carolina State concluded the 2013 season with a 16-27 overall record and 4-10 mark in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC).
Third-year head coach Tonja Braxton's Lady Bulldogs will be coming off a seven-day layoff after opening the season with a 2-2 mark at the 2014 Hampton Jordan Classic hosted by Claflin University.
S.C. State opened the tournament by rallying for a 7-5 victory over Alabama A&M, with the Lady Bulldogs of S.C. State recording eight hits, including a home run by senior Kelsey Grochow. Georgia Southwestern hurlers no-hit the Lady Bulldogs and took advantage of three SCSU errors in the second game, as GSW earned a 9-1 win in five innings past S.C. State.
S.C. State saw Limestone rally for four runs in the sixth inning and take a 4-2 decision past the Lady Bulldogs on day two of the tourney, with SCSU coming from behind to defeat St. Augustine's, 7-4, in the final game of the tournament.
Sunday afternoon's twin bill is the home-opener for the Bulldogs. First-pitch versus S.C. State is slated for 1 p.m. at Lady Bulldogs Softball Field on the campus of S.C. State.
The Series vs. South Carolina State
Last season's matchups in Orangeburg marked the first-ever meetings in school history between the two programs, with AU claiming a sweep by scores of 4-0 and 3-0.
Third baseman Bri Cason was 3-for-5 with a double in the sweep, while Swygert went 3-for-6 with a home run, a double and four RBI on the afternoon.


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Ladies' Paddock Boots
Our large selection of women's paddock boots makes it simple to find your ideal pair. Suit your preference of black or brown and lace or zip in your favorite brands such as Ariat®, Grand Prix®, Mountain Horse®, TuffRider® and more. Many of our women's paddock boots are waterproof as well, ensuring you stay comfortable while you're at the barn.


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I've looked through the literature on this topic , but it seems way to complex for me. I need some help , would you guide me through the process , from beginning to end.
At first you may take a look at Proof without words, it's just the general definition for expressing mathematical statement by diagrams and pictures, start from Proof without words .
There are great book in the field of two parts Proofs without Words: Exercises in Visual Thinking and Proofs Without Words II: More Exercises in Visual Thinking, it's good for training your motivation in general in many fields of mathematics, at least it's worth taking a look at the beginning.
After that you can proceed with textbook in fields you are interested in, for example if you interested in computer science you may want to take a look at Mathematical Visualization: Algorithms, Applications and Numerics.
From my personal experience, if you interested in mathematical visualization it's worth having any other fundamental textbook in the field at hands, just in case if you want going further into details.


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DAVID BERGELAND/Durango Herald file photo
DAVID BERGELAND/Durango Herald file photo
Felix the Cat stays put for another two months, but then another mural could take the grinning feline�s place on the side of the Everyday convenience store at East Eighth Avenue and College Drive.
The compromise was reached after Felix supporters such as 10-year-old Nick Brieger spoke up at a Durango Design Review Board meeting Monday.
�Hello, my name is Nick,� he said from beneath the podium. �I don�t think the hard work of artists should be taken down.�
The mural put the board in a difficult position of having to decide what to do with public art that had not gone through the standard review process.
�I�m concerned about getting forgiveness rather than approval, that�s a bad tendency to get into,� said board member Dan Stalker.
Board members, however, emphasized they appreciated the art.
�When I drive into town every day, I chuckle,� said board member Marcy Pryor. �None of the other murals in town thrill me (as much). It�s wonderful art.�
But Nicole Killian, a city planner, said the mural, which was painted in early April, already has begun to peel. �It did not seem like the wall was prepped in any way,� she said.
Vandals have drawn squiggly lines over the bottom of the scene showing a Native American chief, some hipsters, a chicken and a Futurama-style robot.
Greg Hoch, the city�s chief planner, said all murals should have a maintenance plan before they get city approval.
Killian also said murals have traditionally demonstrated a historical or cultural connection to the city. On a positive note, she did not believe the mural was a store advertisement, which is the main justification for subjecting art on commercial buildings to a review process.
A mix of national and local artists who had participated in the �Open Art Surgery� show at the Durango Arts Center painted the mural with aerosol cans. It was an impromptu project by the artists that was not sanctioned by the Arts Center.
One of the artists, Brian Simmons, 25, said he did not think it needed city approval because it was on private property. Kathy Chastain, the store manager, apologized to the board for the oversight.
Aaron Schmitt, another artist, argued that the mural represented the voice of the city�s youth.
Tom Umbhau, a member of Design Review Board, said his three children would much rather have their picture taken with Felix the Cat than a historical mural of a train that has been proposed for the wall of the new Welcome Center at Eighth Street and Main Avenue.
The artists said they were happy with the two-month compromise because they never thought it would stay up as long as it has.
City officials said the gas station can have another mural, but it must go through the review process first.


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What do you do on a daily basis that is your biggest time waster?
For me, that would be traffic.
25 Answers answer
Besides this?
@jsimsace: No doubt deals.woot is mine.
@jsimsace: Ditto. As awesome as economics class is, the drama in the Catalog question thread is much better.
Plants vs Zombies. I'm easily entertained...
@jsimsace: agreed, deals.woot is my biggest time waster
Driving? I need to teleport.
Got to agree with woot, and the internet in general.
deals.woot and shopping on the web.
Sleep. I don't do it a lot, maybe 5-6 hours a night, but I hate giving up all that time (which is probably why I don't do very well at it).
If you live to be 90 and you sleep 8 hours a night, you have spent 30 years asleep. I am too grredy for time to give a third of it up to the sandman.
Work. Work is my time waster :)
Youtube. When I'm good, I'll watch the stuff that I'm subscribed to and then hit the music section for stuff to play while I'm working on my writing. When I'm bad, almost an hour can disappear before I smack myself to get back to work.
Reddit and Woot and the same time with dual monitors. :D
@moondrake: Could be worse. I figured up at my last job that in the previous 10 years I'd spent 2 weeks sitting in traffic. Never again.
At least with sleep I have some control and don't have to deal with the idiots if front of or beside me, plus I don't curse nearly as much.
Well from the months of August to January fantasy football, from January to July, prepping for fantasy football.
Calling people that will never pick up the phone. Too bad that is about half of my day.
@moondrake: Maybe that 8 hours a night is what gets people to 90 in the first place?
Anyway, my biggest timesuck is thinking of clever things to say on sites like this. As you can tell, I spent less time than usu-
Great question. Although my answer will put me on the bad boy probation list so I will sit here quietly.......wasting time.....
This. Right now.
Work. To me it's a big waste of my time.
Fortunately, at some of the sites I work, I'm able to do non-work things like crafting, so it's not a total waste...except maybe the 45 minute drive, to sit in an office that I'd be lucky to see one person walk into!
Going to the bathroom. Think about how much time in a year we all spend just sitting/standing in an empty room, [usually] alone, doing nothing (other than ahem.. that).
I would've said sleep but I guarantee that's already been said.
@drchops: Which is exactly why you should do it at work! You're getting paid to use the john!
Woot + Twitter = Timesuck


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What topics in user experience can have areas to do PhD in?
Yes. (My Ph.D., for example, relates strongly to UX, although it is in cognitive science / computer science.)
There are a lot of ways to come at UX. Pick one that interests you, and start looking at professors who are doing work in that area. Look at papers they are writing and research they are leading.
Read conference proceedings and figure out who is leading the research behind papers that look interesting. Read CHI and CSCW and HCI and IUI and UPA and UXE. See a name on more than one paper that fascinates you? Send them an email and see whether they're looking for new students.
You're not going to figure out your Ph.D. topic in the first year. So pick professors that seem like they are interested in general areas you can work within, and expect to rattle around a bit.
Good luck!
There are many UX topics you can do a PhD in. For a start, look at universities having a graduate program in human computer interaction (or human-machine interaction / human media interaction) and take a look at the types of research they do. Read a couple of scientific papers, and investigate the topics which people are talking about at the scientific conferences.
Some of current UX research is close to psychology (or linguistics, or anthropology, it's quite a broad subject), other topics are more focused on methodology (including statistics) or technology. If you want to to a PhD yourself, choose a topic that you're genuinely interested in and want to spend a few years of your life on.
I hired a woman who received a PhD in Human Computer Interaction from Cal Berkeley. Im not sure how much of that degree helps her, but she has it nonetheless.
I am doing a PhD in HCI - in the area of software use for work environments. I would suggest that you find a university that has a good HCI-type department, and talk to them about the right subject within their and your experience. It is, IMO, more important to find the right place to study and work out a topic within this to look at.
There are different research areas where UX community has strong presence. The most common is Human Computer Interaction. Furthermore, I have experienced that Pervasive Computing and Mobile Computing area are also prone to consider UX-related research.
For example, if you take a look at journals such as IEEE Pervasive Computing, you will find technical articles regarding sensors, and application frameworks but also many articles related to UX design. So you can target one of those communities depending on the specifics of your thesis, and following a UX approach will be a plus.
A good start certanly to look at a conference proceedings (especially CHI, here are this year's proceedings: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1979742&picked=prox&CFID=30641377&CFTOKEN=93259723 and Table of Contents). With this you can get a picture about current goings on the field.
You can also search for HCI educational programs and look for resarch topics there. A great resource for this is the HCI Bibliography website's Education section: http://hcibib.org/education/.
Finally you can ask fellow PhD students about their programs and topic. I attend a Computer Science PhD school and my research topic is usability and processes.
People come to the ux from a lots of fields, engineering, programmings, designing etc, To understand people before designing. how people read, write, mental process. You should look at Psychology of User experiences and UX/HCI.


text:
Tracing Missing People
Tracking Services
Salvation Army Family Tracing Service (for tracing people at risk)
Tel 0207 367 4747, Fax 0207 367 4723
or look at their web site www.salvationarmy.org
Select Our work, then scroll down to Family Tracing or type 'Family Tracing' in the search box.
National Missing Persons Helpline
NMPH has the most comprehensive (and probably the largest) database of missing persons in the UK.
See the website www.missingpersons.org.uk for further details.
Websites with searchable databases
International site. Surveys phone directories and UK electoral registers. After an initial search, you will need to register and pay for credits to access detailed information. There are also links to free business and geographical information, plus a searchable database of property prices.
eroll contains official local authority compiled Electoral Roll for the years 2003-2008 and the 2008 Rolling Register, which contains 100,000 monthly amendments. This is a fee paying service.
Cyndi's List
Links to other helpful sites.
An amalgam of various directories, email, etc, which have to be searched separately. Some of the sites are fee-paying. Message posting services
Site dedicated to helping people track down lost friends. Various personal security measures are in place.
An amalgam of various directories, email, etc, which have to be searched separately.
Friends Reunited
This web site was designed to help you find old school friends. You may be required to register for access to some parts of the site.
Directories in the Library of Birmingham
- Phone books, current and past, for Birmingham in Archives, Heritage and Photography Service, level 4.
- Phone books for the UK and the world current; in Business and Learning, level 1.
- Electoral registers for Birmingham only 2001 backwards are available in Archives, Heritage and Photography Service (registers after 2001 are not available in the library). These are useful if you already know an address, and want to check if someone is still living there.
- Professional directories (e.g. doctors, actors etc) in subject reference areas, as appropriate.
It is often worth putting an advert in the personal column of a local newspaper (e.g. The Birmingham Post, or the Evening Mail ) Forward has a section called "Where are they now?"
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
If you are visiting the library and would like further information (fees charged, other contacts etc.) please ask to see the Missing Persons section in the Genealogy file at the counter, Archives, Heritage and Photography Service, Library of Birmingham.
Please note
We are not responsible for the content of other organisations' websites.


text:
We recommend our flexible Vinyl Tubing. When you choose the black coloration, this tubing blends with pond liners and "disappears" for easy concealment. Flexible vinyl tubing is inexpensive, easy to connect, disconnect, and replace, making it ideal for standard or custom plumbing projects.
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text:
This is rather odd - I noticed recently that various street names and places in London are being labelled in Japanese (Katakana) on Google Maps (on maps.google.co.uk).
For example, Vauxhall:
I found mention of the same issue on this local forum from a few weeks ago (for Southwark station in that case).
Is this an experimental feature that I've got enabled by mistake?
Is is possible to switch it off?


text:
Perfect Cleansing Scrub
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text:
Pink and White 2DS announced for EuropeWritten by: / / No Comments
We've seen plenty of different 3DS colours and designs over the past few years but the 2DS is still only available in the Black/Blue and White/Red colour combinations. This will soon change on May 16th with the introduction of the Pink and White 2DS in PAL territories to coincide with the launch of Nintendo's new 3DS exclusive Kirby: Triple Deluxe.
Here's a first glimpse at this new 2DS colour combination via Nintendo Europe's Twitter account:
Take a trip to Dream Land with Nintendo 2DS PINK + WHITE, launching 16/5 – the same day as #Kirby: Triple Deluxe! pic.twitter.com/PhBXuuMtpD
— Nintendo of Europe (@NintendoEurope) April 2, 2014
It's not yet known if this new flavour of 2DS will permanently join the other two colour combinations or only be sold while supplies last.
Does this new Pink and White 2DS tempt you to pick up the system or are you still not sold on this cheaper variant of the 3DS? Let us know in the comments.
Source: VG247
Tags: 2ds, europe, kirbytripledeluxe, nintendo


text:
Religion in Trek
I am an atheist. This simply means that I lack belief in god. Any god. I have not "lost my faith", I am not rejecting god because I am angry with him/her/it, nor am I an evil satan-worshipper, because (respectively) I never had any faith, don't believe that there is a god to be angry with, and don't believe that satan exists either.
I think the world would be better off if there were no organised religions and nobody believed in god, though I don't generally go around trying to turn believers into atheists.
So, now that we know where I am coming from, let's talk about Roddenberry. Like me, he was an atheist. As he said himself :
Roddenberry :
"I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will--and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain."
"We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes." (in Free Inquiry, autumn, 1992)
"I've always thought that, if we did not have supernatural explanations for all the things we might not understand right away, this is the way we would be, like the people on that planet. [ST:TNG Who Watches the Watchers] I was born into a supernatural world in which all my people -my family- usually said That is because God willed it, or gave other supernatural explanations for whatever happened. When you confront those statements on their own, they just don't make sense. They are clearly wrong. You need a certain amount of proof to accept anything, and that proof was not forthcoming to support those statements."
Purposely or otherwise, Roddenberry's atheism was reflected to some degree in The Original Series. Star Trek never once flat out stated that there was no god - this was sixties US television, after all! But TOS several times set up a "god" figure of one sort or another, only to then have our heroes destroy or discredit said god during the course of the show.
Let's take "The Apple" as an example. Kirk and a landing party beam down to the planet Gamma Trianguli VI. The planet turns out to be quite hostile with poisonous plants, exploding rocks, etc. The Enterprise up in orbit is also losing power and being dragged into the atmosphere, threatening its destruction. Kirk soon locates a group of locals; these are simple primitives, living out their lives without ever questioning anything around them. They mindlessly worship "Vaal", a lizard-like rock face containing a powerful computer. The natives give food to Vaal, and in exchange it protects them from any danger. Unfortunately for Kirk, Vaal has identified his landing party and his ship as a threat and is trying to kill them. Vaal is protected by a powerful energy field which prevents Kirk from doing his usual talking-it-to-death routine.
Spock points out that the locals and Vaal live in a near-perfect relationship, and that doing anything to destroy the machine would constitute considerable interference in their culture. Kirk disagrees, pointing out that Starfleet's famed Prime Directive forbids its officers from interfering in the normal development of a culture, but that the locals are not developing because they have no challenges to overcome.
Eventually Kirk subdues the locals and starves Vaal of food, weakening the energy field. The Enterprise then fires on the machine, rendering it inoperable. Freed of Vaal's influence, the locals begin to come out of their zombie-like mental state.
The message in all this is pretty obvious - the believers are all dependant on what they see as an all-powerful god, utterly unable to think for themselves. But the much more sophisticated Starfleet officers see the religion and the god for the fraud that it is and using their intellect are able to overcome it. Once the natives see that their god was not so powerful after all they too begin to think for themselves, and begin the long road to becoming a proper civilisation themselves.
Put simply, religion/god is false and bad, thinking is good.
Other episodes repeated this theme; "Return of the Archons", "Who Mourns for Adonais?", "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", "The Way to Eden", and "Star Trek V : The Final Frontier" all play out variations of the same story, differing in the details but with the same basic message.
One character did actually declare a solid position in relation to religion. In "Star Trek II : The Wrath of Khan", McCoy, Kirk and Spock are discussing the Genesis device, a machine which can create whole planets. McCoy says that "according to myth the Earth was created in six days - now watch out! Here comes Genesis, we'll do it for you in six minutes!" So McCoy regards the Christian bible's version of creation as a myth, which means that while it's possible that he is a Christian it's unlikely.
TOS was also quite atheistic in its general tone. Nobody ever directly states that he or she is a believer. All problems are approached from a strictly rational basis - we never once see anybody praying for a solution. To be fair, though, there are some counterexamples.
For instance the Enterprise has a chapel, which has been seen used for a wedding and a memorial ceremony. In the former Kirk declared that he was uniting these people "in accordance with our laws and our many beliefs". Those beliefs are not specifically stated as religious ones, however, and the place seems pretty nondenominational. The memorial service was also free of any religious elements.
In the abovementioned "Who Mourns for Adonais?" an alien who played the part of Apollo to the ancient Greeks asks if the Enterprise crew members no longer have room for gods in their lives. Kirk replies that "we find the one sufficient." This could be taken to indicate that at least polytheistic religion has no place in the future, but that monotheistic religions do.
In "Errand of Mercy", Spock comments on the relative primitiveness of Humans and Vulcans compared to Organians by declaring "Captain, it took millions of years for the Organians to develop into what they are. Even the gods did not spring up overnight. You and I have no reason to be embarrassed." It may be that Spock is religious, though I tend to think that he is just using a figure of speech.
Perhaps most notably, in the episode "Bread and Circuses" Kirk and company visit a planet which is very similar to Earth, with one exception - the Roman Empire never fell. All through the episode there is mention of a band of rebels who worship the sun - yet when Spock notes that sun worship is a primitive form of religion, Uhura chimes in that she has been monitoring the local radio broadcasts and that he has it all wrong. The locals do not worship the sun in the sky, but the son - the son of god. Kirk responds that it would be quite something to see the spread of a new religion down there.
Perhaps Gene encouraged these references out of a desire for balance, or people over his head forced them in, or writers got them in without him noticing. Perhaps it was something else entirely. Now that the man has passed away, we can't ever really know.
It does seem to me, though, that despite some positive references to god and religion The Original Series was, all in all, a pretty secular show.
When TNG arrived Gene cast Humans as having "evolved" to an even higher level of civilisation. Amongst Humans there was no money (except when there was; see my article on that particular hot potato), no hopelessness, no despair, no cruelty... basically for most people everything was fun and fluffy bunnies all day long.
And there was, it seems, even less religion than before. "Justice" gave us an early peek at TNG's attitude to god. Again we had the primitive locals who worshipped a god and didn't think a whole lot about it - though they did a little better than their TOS counterparts in this respect. Again the god turned out to be a machine-entity of some sort, although it's precise nature remained mysterious throughout the episode. The big difference was that this machine was so advanced that Picard couldn't blast it with phasers, rather he talked his way out of trouble and left the machine alive and well. This could be looked at as a more positive attitude to religion, but I don't really think so - surviving or not, the Edo god was still a false one and I think that the resolution says more about TNG's attitude to violence as a way of resolving problems than it says about its attitude to religion.
The later "Devil's Due" was a more classic Trek false-god story, but this time with a twist; Picard battled not a false god, but a false devil. An unscrupulous woman used technology to trick a bunch of locals into believing that Ardra, their version of the devil, had arrived to take possession of their planet in order to fulfil an ancient agreement. This time the locals were even more sophisticated, at least up to our own current level of technology. Nevertheless, they are suckers for that old time religion once a few tractor beam induced earthquakes and holographic visions make them think that the devil is coming for them. Ardra is defeated this time, though again it is through peaceful means rather than Kirkian phaser blasting. These differences are purely cosmetic, though - in all details the message of "Devil's Due" is exactly the same as that of "The Apple".
Perhaps the definitive TNG attitude to religion was established in the episode "Who Watches the Watchers". Here a Federation team is studying a group of primitive Vulcanoids called Mintakans from inside a research station hidden behind a hologram. An accident reveals the station to a Mintakan, who is injured attempting to enter it. He is beamed up to the ship for treatment, and although the crew tries to block his memory he remembers enough to think he has visited heaven and seen "The Overseer" - the Mintakan's term for god - in the form of "The Picard". Returning to the surface he convinces the others that the Picard is real. Meanwhile in orbit, the team leader and Picard discuss the situation :
Barron :
"The mintakans which to please the overseer, but they can only guess what he wants. They need a sign."
Picard :
"Are you suggesting..."
Barron :
"You must go down to Mintaka III."
Riker :
"Masquerading as a god?"
Picard :
"Out of the question. The Prime Directive-"
Barron :
"Has already been violated. The damage is done; all we can do now is minimize it."
Picard :
"By sanctioning their false beliefs?"
Barron :
"By giving them guidelines... letting them know what the overseer expects of them."
Picard :
"I cannot - I will not impose a set of commandments on these people. To do so violates the essence of the Prime Directive."
Barron :
"Like it or not, we've rekindled the Mintakans' belief in the overseer."
Riker :
"And you're saying that belief will eventually develop into a religion?"
Barron :
"It's inevitable. And without guidance, that religion could degenerate into inquisitions... holy wars... chaos."
Picard :
"Your own reports describe how rational these people are. Millennia ago, they abandoned all belief in the supernatural. And now you're asking me to sabotage that achievement... send them back into the dark ages of fear and superstition. (adamant) No. We must undo the damage we've caused."
(NOTE : This exchange has been taken from the shooting script. The actual episode dialogue follows these lines, but may differ in detail. All emphasis is as in the script.)
So, the message here is that abandoning all belief in the supernatural is a Good Thing. That accepting a religion would send the Mintakans into "the dark ages of fear and superstition." This is the most outspoken condemnation of religion in any incarnation of Trek - no subtle message in the plot here, the very central character of TNG is blatantly condeming religion as ignorant superstition.
Given my previously discussed bias, I naturally cheered all this on and gave the episode an extra point on my six point scale for having the courage to tackle the issue head on for once.
Picard's own religious belief is addressed definitively in the episode "Where Silence Has Lease". An alien entity is threatening to kill a significant portion of the crew, and Picard decides to destroy the ship to prevent this (not great logic perhaps, but that's beside the point). At one point an alien-created imitation of Data questions Picard about the nature of death. Picard has this to say :
Picard :
"Some see it as a changing into an indestructible form, forever unchanging. They believe that the purpose of the entire universe is to then maintain that form in an Earth-like garden which will give delight and pleasure through all eternity. On the other hand there are those who hold to the idea of our blinking into nothingness with all of our experiences and hopes and dreams merely a delusion."
Fake Data :
|"Which do you believe sir?"
Picard :
|"Considering the marvelous complexity of the universe, its clockwork perfection, its balances of this against that... matter, energy, gravitation, time, dimension, I believe that our existence must be more than either of these philosophies. That what we are goes beyond euclidian or other 'practical' measuring systems... and that our existence is part of a reality beyond what we understand now as reality."
The first position is a pretty good summation of some of the major religions today, though interestingly Picard doesn't ascribe anything to a god figure amongst this philosophy. The second one is a pretty good summation of what most atheists believe, including myself. The third is pretty interesting - it sounds like new age drivel, and not at all a Picard-like attitude to take. The idea that the complexity of the universe indicates that there must be some supernatural aspect to it is a variation on a common theistic position known as the "Argument from Design". It's a fundamentally flawed reason for believing in a creator or afterlife, which is odd because Picard is a pretty logical person most of the time.
One might suggest that in the future there is some solid scientific basis for believing in a soul of sorts, so justifying Picard's belief. We know that a person's personality can exist separately from their physical body in TNG - Dr. Ira Graves transferred his personality into Data, and the Vulcan katra can be moved from person to person. But the proven existence of a Human soul would seem to be ruled out by the episode "The Measure of a Man". In that Captain Louvoir declares regarding Data : "Does Data have a soul? I donÌt know that he has. I donÌt know that I have!" If Louvoir doesn't know if she has a soul, then it would appear that there can have been no great scientific revelation regarding the existence of souls, at least amongst Humans.
At best, the above quote means that whilst Picard definitely doesn't believe in a conventional version of heaven, he does seem to believe that there is an afterlife of some sort.
Interestingly, the above dialogue is one case where the script differs substantially from the aired episode. According to the script the exchange goes like this :
Picard :
"Some explain it away by inventing gods wearing their own form... and argue that the purpose of the entire universe is to maintain themselves in their present form in an Earth-like garden which will give them pleasure through all eternity. And at the other extreme, assuming that it is an "extreme", there are those who prefer the idea of our blinking out into nothingness with all our experiences, hopes and dreams only an illusion."
Fake Data :
|"Which do you believe?"
Picard :
|"Considering the marvelous complexity of the universe, its clockwork perfection, its balances of this against that... matter, energy, gravitation, time, dimension, pattern, I believe our existence must mean more than a meaningless illusion. I prefer to believe that my and your existence goes beyond euclidian and other 'practical' measuring systems... and that, in ways we cannot yet fathom, or existence is part of a reality beyond what we now understand as reality."
The scripted version was somewhat harsher to religion. Note that Picard says that some explain death by inventing gods. He is essentially saying that belief in god is invalid, a mere invention created to explain away death. Atheism, on the other hand, is treated quite lightly - Picard questions whether it can be viewed as an extreme viewpoint, and although he still takes the hippie route for his own beliefs he isn't at all negative about those of us who are in the blinking into nothingness camp. I have to wonder where the episode writer's own views on this subject fall, and how and why the changes came about.
Against this, TNG contains very little which actually pushes the idea that religions still flourish in the future. This show has been described as the Trek that Roddenberry always wanted to make, with the freedom and the budget and the technology that he lacked back in the sixties. Perhaps the fact that TNG is the most atheistic of any Trek incarnation is a reflection of this?
Moving on, DS9 put me very much in two minds about this issue. Although it is seldom realised, the initial episode "The Emissary" is actually a classic false-god Trek episode reminiscent of TOS and TNG. The Bajorans are the primitive locals - although this time they are even more advanced than those seen in "Devil's Due" and Major Kira reacts quite negatively to Bashir's characterisation of her people as frontier folk, even she must eventually eat some crow and admit that her people need Federation help to make anything of themselves. In this case the Bajoran gods - who are confusingly named The Prophets - are a bunch of aliens living within a nearby wormhole. Once again the sophisticated Federation folk solve this mystery, which has created a religion on Bajor that has lasted at least ten thousand years, with a mere day or two of investigation. This time the aliens are not defeated or banished in any way, but rather they and we come to a mutual understanding which allows us to use the wormhole to travel across the galaxy. The Bajorans keep on believing in their gods, even elevating Sisko to a religious icon because he went and talked to them.
Although many elements of the false-god story are in place, DS9 does stop short of condemning the Bajorans outright for their false beliefs. In fact we get three distinct strands of belief in the prophets over future episodes and years. These are made clear early on in the season one finale, "In the Hands of the Prophets". In this episode Keiko is teaching the science behind the wormhole to her school kids, when a Bajoran Vedek (religious leader) named Winn shows up to challenge her right to teach blasphemy. Keiko sticks to her guns, saying that she is teaching the theories that are supported by evidence and as a teacher should do nothing else. Analogies with the current arguments about creationism in the classroom abound, obviously. Keiko is taking the strictly rationalist view - the wormhole aliens are just that, and the Bajorans are incorrect in their beliefs.
Winn represents the other extreme. She is the fanatical believer, one who not only has a set of beliefs herself but is determined to see those beliefs foisted on others, or at least determined to prevent others from being taught anything contradictory so that hers will be the only voice they hear.
This is nothing unusual. The locals are as dumb as ever, the Federation as enlightened as ever. What is surprising is the "middle ground" attitude that Sisko takes. When Jake claims that the Bajoran's belief in the prophets is "dumb", Sisko responds with :
Ben Sisko :
"No, it's not. You've got to understand something, Jake. For over fifty years, the one thing that allowed the Bajorans to survive the Cardassian occupation was their faith. The prophets were their only source of hope and courage."
Jake Sisko :
|"But they weren't prophets. They were just some aliens that you found in the wormhole."
Ben Sisko :
|"To those aliens, the future is no more difficult to see than the past. So why shouldn't they be considered prophets?"
Jake Sisko :
|"Are you serious?"
Ben Sisko :
|"My point is it's a matter of interpretation. It may not be what you believe, but that doesn't make it wrong. If you start to think that way, you'll be acting just like Vedek Winn. Only from the other side. We can't afford to be that way, jake. We'd lose everything we've worked for here."
(NOTE : This exchange has been taken from the shooting script. The actual episode dialogue follows these lines, but may differ in detail. All emphasis is as in the script.)
This is total claptrap. Sisko's little speech depends on the fact that he's taking the name Prophets literally as just being people who see the future. But the Prophets are gods to the Bajorans. The simple ability to see into the future doesn't class them as gods. At least not to most people; the precise nature of god is a very big topic in its own right! But future episodes show the Bajorans and Sisko putting all kinds of godlike attributes to the Prophets, promoting the idea that everything which happens in the series will turn out all according to their grand plan. This actually does appear to happen eventually, but Sisko certainly doesn't know that in this episode!
Sisko is arguing that all viewpoints are intrinsically of equal value, and that which one you should place your belief in should purely depend on your personal interpretation of the evidence. This is rubbish - a five year old child might believe in Santa or the tooth fairy while I do not. Are these beliefs of equal validity? Of course not! My belief is backed up by a colossal amount of evidence, while the child's is not. Clearly my belief is superior.
Similarly, Sisko has very little evidence that the Prophets are gods. They do apparently have the ability to see the future, but in a universe where time travel is possible this is hardly a godlike ability. On the other hand he has plenty of evidence that they are limited in many ways - in the pilot episode they had no idea that beings could even exist in linear time and were apparently unaware of how the Bajorans regarded them. Yet Keiko was able to give her students considerable scientific detail about how the wormhole functions. The Federation is even able to generate artificial wormholes themselves around this time. So there is plenty of evidence that the Prophets are indeed nothing more than wormhole aliens with a peculiar grip on time.
While DS9's initial take on the Prophets doesn't make a lot of sense, they certainly stuck with it. The Prophets get more and more godlike over time, and Sisko gets more and more sucked into buying their god line hook line and sinker. In this particular story line, DS9 has certainly swerved away from the much more atheistic TOS and TNG. A reflection of the fact that Roddenberry had little connection with the series, perhaps?
Strangely, then, it is DS9 which then gives us perhaps the single best and certainly the longest running example of the false god story in the form of the Founders and their relationship with the Jem'Hadar.
The Founders are the bad guys of the later DS9 seasons, shape-changing liquid lifeforms who basically want to enslave everybody who isn't also a liquid shape-changing lifeform. The Jem'Hadar are a species which the Founders genetically modified to be the perfect soldiers. The Founders keep control of the very violent Jem'Hadar by a combination of factors - firstly all Jem'Hadar are addicted to Ketracel White, a drug which only the Founders can supply. Secondly, the Jem'Hadar believe that the Founders are gods.
Or most of them do, anyway. There have been a few rebel Jem'Hadar, but for the most part they are exemplary Trek-style religious types - they don't eat, drink, have sex, or even sit down. They certainly don't put a lot of thought into anything but fighting or training to fight for their gods.
Strangely, neither Sisko nor rebel Founder Odo ever makes any worthy speeches about how the Jem'Hadar have every right to their beliefs, how it's all just a matter of interpretation and maybe the Founders actually are gods. Instead the Founders are simply condemned and fought against. It seems that as far as the DS9 writers are concerned, it's only a matter of interpretation if the gods in question are good gods...
If DS9 was wishy-washy on the religious issue, Voyager veered firmly towards the religious side. Firstly they gave us our first confirmed Federation religious believer. Commander Chakotay practiced some kind of native American religious belief which involved a "great spirit" and going on "vision quests" to talk to imaginary animals. The great spirit seems in at least one episode to be a personification of nature itself, sort of like the more far out interpretations of the Gaia idea.
Captain Janeway tried an experiment with her own imaginary animal, but didn't really pursue it that we know of. She had a more solid religious experience in "Sacred Ground". In this episode Kes trespasses in a local religious shrine and is badly injured by some sort of energy field. Janeway must go through various rituals to talk to the local religious types. The episode is deliberately muddled in exactly what is happening, but the gist of it is that Janeway has to finally abandon her scientific beliefs and act on instinct to save Kes. And although a rational reason is then presented for why her action turned out to be correct, Janeway clearly feels that her leap of faith was probably the real answer. It's the very antithesis of the Trek ethos that all problems are ultimately solved through a rational, reasoned approach. Do I need to say that I hated this episode?
In "Mortal Coil", Neelix has the exact opposite of a religious experience. Killed by an energy discharge, he is revived many hours later by Seven of Nine's nanoprobes. Neelix is very upset that he didn't get to experience the afterlife that he was expecting, and doubts his faith. These doubts are so strong and disturbing that Neelix actually attempts suicide. Chakotay tries to talk him down not by assuring him that you can live without faith in the afterlife, but only by assuring him that he can retain his faith despite his experiences. The message is clear - without faith, life isn't worth living.
If TOS and TNG repeated the false god story, Voyager certainly airs out this kind of "faith is vital" story a few times. B'Elanna goes through it in "Barge of the Dead", where she has some kind of near-death hallucination about her mother, and goes to great lengths to re-create it so that she can sort out her issues and get mommy into heaven. "Natural Law" also treads some of the same ground with Chakotay.
Although to be fair, Voyager also does a few false-god style stories - "Blink of an Eye" has aliens mistaking Voyager itself for a god, "Muse" has B'Elanna mistaken for a god-like being by some primitives, "Coda" plays with near death hallucinations and offers a somewhat rational explanation for them, "Prophecy" had B'Elanna playing the role of Prophet for some Klingons. But it always seems to me that Voyager writers don't really have their heart in it in these kind of episodes, that they are saying that this particular faith may be silly, but faith in something supernatural is pretty damned important.
One strange entry in Voyager's religious attitude file is "Emanations". In this Voyager is investigating a planetary ring system when bodies start appearing out of some sort of anomaly. Harry Kim is sucked into one and finds himself somewhere else - we don't know if it's another planet, another galaxy, another universe. He finds that the locals place the dying into coffin-like boxes where the anomalies appear so that they will be killed and taken off into the afterlife. They expect all their friends to be there waiting for them when they arrive. Harry knows better of course, and his appearance sparks something of a religious crisis.
Janeway, meanwhile, has one of the recently appeared bodies resuscitated. The woman is terribly upset to find that she wasn't in the afterlife she expected. Voyager tries to return her to where she came from, but the woman dies (again) in the attempt.
Finally Harry uses the anomalies to return, and Voyager heads out. Harry confesses that his own faith has been shaken by events, and how the aliens were so wrong about their afterlife. Janeway tells him not to be so sure - neural energy is released from the bodies as they arrive, and it interacts with the planets rings in strange ways. Perhaps the alien souls really are living on after all. Harry and Janeway seem to find that a comfort, and we end on that note.
This episode plays many of the false-god points; locals who have never really questioned their beliefs, Federation types who know better. Like TNG they don't want to wade in there blasting away to get rid of the false religion. Had it left off before those final few minutes it would have been a near-perfect TNG style false-god episode.
But those final minutes... they simultaneously ruin the false-god ethos and miss the point that the locals have been making. On the one hand Janeway seems to think that all is well so long as the locals get some kind of afterlife. But it's very clearly stated that the aliens did not expect to spend eternity as an energy pattern, they were going to be corporeal beings talking to their dead relatives on that basis in a typically paradisiacal setting. So whatever satisfaction Janeway and Kim might get from the ending, the truth would still shatter the alien's religious system utterly.
At the same time, the ending is giving us the usual Voyager line - this particular faith in the supernatural might be silly, but that doesn't really matter so long as you have some kind of faith in the supernatural.
Where Enterprise will end up on this issue is yet to be seen. We haven't really touched on religion in that series at the time of writing, with one exception - Doctor Phlox commented in "Cold Front" that he had learned about Human religions, establishing that these still exist as of 2151. This isn't at all problematic from a continuity point of view, but for us godless heathens it's a worrying foretaste of what might be on the horizon for Enterprise.
Well, there it stands. I always looked to Trek as one of the few programs in which I could be sure of seeing a rationalist viewpoint saving the day. After TNG Trek has veered away from that, much to my dismay, though it has never abandoned this aspect of its roots altogether. I can only hope that Voyager marked a low point and Enterprise will return us to the heights of TNG but if I may be pardoned the pun, it's something I don't have a lot of faith in...
Now that Enterprise has run for a few seasons, we have a good idea of how religion is being treated there. I must confess, I originally thought that Enterprise would make religion far more prominent than previous Trek series, and that this would be done with a fairly consistent "religious belief is good" message. In fact, though, Enterprise has been much more TNG-like with religion that I had feared.
On the one hand, it has been confirmed that Humans of this period do still subscribe to religions. For instance, in "Cold Front" Phlox talks of his experiences on Earth :
|Alien :
|"It represents the continuing cycle of creation."
|Phlox :
|"It's not unlike the Hindu faith, Commander. They also believe that the universe goes through repeated cycles of rebirth."
|T'Pol :
|"I didn't realize you were familiar with Earth religions, Doctor."
|Phlox :
|"Oh, yes. In fact, while I was there I made it a point to study a number of them. I spent two weeks at a Tibetan monastery where I learned to sing chords with the high lamas. I attended mass at Saint Peter's Square. And I was even allowed to observe the Tal-Shanar at the Vulcan Consulate."
|Alien :
|"I understand Vulcans are a deeply spiritual people."
|T'Pol :
|"Our beliefs are based on logic and the pursuit of clarity."
|Phlox :
|"Do you follow a particular faith, Captain?"
|Archer :
|"I guess you could say I... try to keep an open mind."
This exchange is full of fascinating details. First, it confirms that several Human religions still exist; Hinduism, Buddhism and Catholicism at the very least. Then it goes on to indicate some form of Vulcan religion, though it is highly circumspect about this. Note that the Vulcans are not described as "religious" people, but by the much more vague word "spiritual". T'Pol then states that Vulcan beliefs are based on logic. That doesn't tell us a great deal, because logic doesn't make value judgements as such; any belief can be justified by logic if you assume the right premises. For instance - assume that your favoured holy book tells you to kill the unbeliever. Assume that this book is the inerrant word of god. Assume that performing god's will is the major purpose of your existence. Logical conclusion : you should kill the unbeliever. Which is of course very probably nonsense because the premises are very probably false... but certain segments of Humanity are more than willing to go around crusading across the Holy Land or flying aeroplanes into buildings on the basis of this kind of logic.
In Star Trek Vulcan logic is frequently depicted as being able to make these kinds of value judgements, but even given that it's impossible to seriously assess Vulcan beliefs because we simply don't have enough information about them. We don't know what is meant by "spiritual", or on what basis these spiritual beliefs are considered logical. Nevertheless, given the context here the episode certainly seems to be saying that Vulcans have something at least in the same ballpark as Human religion.
Finally, the exchange gives us a bit of a hint about Archer. It's hard to judge exactly what he means by "I try to keep an open mind." It could mean anything from "I'm an atheist but I don't want to say it in case it upsets you", all the way through to "I'm a fundamentalist Christian and you're going to hell because you aren't, but I don't want to say it in case it upsets you." However, there's really nothing to support either conclusion.
Taken at face value, a statement of open mindedness doesn't mean a great deal - for instance despite my opening statements, in my own way I am also open-minded on the subject of religion. I'm more than willing to believe that god might exist; I simply need to see proof, or at least some good evidence. I've even spent some twenty odd years looking for that evidence, and come up blank so far, but I freely conceed that it could come tomorrow.
If you simply have to ascribe a present day label to Archer, the one that would be most justifiable would be "empirical agnosticism" - which would mean that he would believe that it was possible to prove whether god existed or not, but that the evidence so far did not support either conclusion. Be careful, though, because even this is a good sized leap.
Continuity wise, there's nothing at all wrong with having Human religion at this point in history. Even assuming that religion has gone the way of the Dodo by the time of TNG, or even of TOS, Enterprise is set more than a century before Kirk's time. There's still plenty of room for the theists here. And actually, though I expected to dislike this aspect of Enterprise, I find myself remarkably unconcerned by it. Perhaps my not-so-rabid atheism is mellowing in my not-so-old age...
Enterprise didn't really tackle religion in a major A-story way for another two seasons but when it did, boy did we get a doozy. I refer, of course, to "Chosen Realm".
Here Enterprise is investigating the Delphic Expanse, a region of space which is filled with dangerous anomalies which are created by giant artificial spheres. They come across a badly damaged ship filled with Triannons, an alien species who believe that the Spheres are holy artefacts created by god. The Triannon sieze control of Enterprise in a most novel fashion - each one has a chemical explosive in their bodies which they can detonate by stabbing themselves with a needle-like device. Their leader demands that Archer hand over control of the ship or his people will literally blow themselves apart and take Enterprise with them.
It transpires that the Triannon have been locked in a civil war for generations. The war rages because one faction believes that their gods made the spheres in ten days, whilst the other believe that it took nine. Ultimately Archer manages to overcome the Triannon and regain control of his ship. The sting in the tail comes when he takes their leader back to his planet to show him that virtually the entire civilisation has been devastated by the war.
"Oh boy", as Archer might say in a former life, where to start with this one! First off, the Triannon are very clearly designed to be a parallel to the modern wave of suicide bombers. This is a crime that many in the west find particularly difficult to understand these days, though if you are a fan of World War II movies you won't have to go far to find the western pilot who directs his damaged plane onto the enemy base to win one last victory for his own side - something that is generally depicted as being very heroic and manly. Indeed, you can see this even today on occasion - have a look at Babylon 5's "Severed Dreams" for an example. Of course, it's a different matter when it's being done to you and yours, and it's certainly a different matter when it's done by somebody who sneaks up on you in civilian garb rather than coming in guns blazing in a clearly marked uniform.
Anyhoo, the use of the suicide bomber is an interesting feature of the episode which clearly signposts the Triannon as a parallel to the present Muslim fundamentalist mentality. Condemning this kind of thing is pretty easy nowdays, of course.
The second interesting point is just how trivial the Triannon's war is. A massive war, fought over a century to the virtual mutual destruction of both sides... over the burning issue of whether it took nine or ten days for god to make his Christmas tree ornaments. The message seems to be that religions should find a workable compromise which lets them live and let live. It's a nice message, but it kinda misses one of the defining points of religion. The very bedrock of much religion is that your beliefs are the Truth; beyond evidence, beyond logic. Choosing a religion is a matter of faith, not the grimy day to day rationality that you use to decide which type of new car to buy.
If your religious beliefs compel you to believe that accepting Jesus as your personal saviour is the One True Way into heaven, then there can be no possible compromise with other religions. It is simply unconscionable to live and let live, because by allowing others their false beliefs, you are allowing them to choose a future of eternal hellfire. Converting the unbeliever is vitally important, not because it does anything for you, but because it helps them.
There's an old story/joke about a group of religious leaders who are discussing their beliefs. The Bhuddist gets up and talks about enlightenment and reincarnation, and they all nod and say "yeah, okay, if that's what you believe then that's great." Then the orthodox Jew gets up and talks about the sabbath and the diet restrictions and such, and they all nod and say "yeah, okay, if that's what you believe then that's great." Then the born again fundamentalist Christian stands up and says that the only way to heaven is by accpeting Jesus Christ as your personal saviour, and they all nod and say "yeah, okay, if that's what you believe then that's great." And he thunders "NO!!! It is NOT 'my thing', it is the INERRANT WORD OF GOD, and anybody who doubts it in the slightest will BURN in HELL!" - to which eveybody nods and says "yeah, okay, if that's what you believe then that's great."
I'm not by any stretch of the imagination saying that all religious people are like this - though from my admittedly biased standpoint it often seems like most of them should be, if they really do believe what they say they do. But "Chosen Realm" brought this story to mind for me, because this is the kind of belief that many of the Triannon do have. You can see the episode is saying "hey, we should all learn to co-exist," which is a fine and noble thing to say. But that's a message that simply cannot work on the fundamentalist mindset.
Incidentally, if I may be allowed a small non-Trek aside, the best example I've ever seen of this point is the Babylon 5 episode "Soul Hunter". The Soul Hunter and Minbari religions are utterly incompatible; there literally cannot be any compromise between them, nor can they simply agree to leave one another alone. They have to either abandon their own beliefs, or fight.
Chosen Realm also gives a somewhat murkier ending than many classic false-god stories. Rather than having Archer destroy the Triannon religion - which could have been done by demonstrating that the spheres were not holy in some fashion - the episode lets the false religion run its course and shows us the awful consequences. We're left with D'Jamat grimly looking at the world he helped destroy... but even then, the episode does not show him changing his opinion. We simply fade out and are left to wonder what happened next.
One last point concerning "Chosen Realm"; in a sense this episode can't be called a false-god story, because in a sense the Triannon religion is perfectly true.
Let's look at the main points of their belief; the spheres were built by god in the distant past. They create the "breath of the makers", aka the anomalies. One day the makers will return to rule over the chosen realm. This is, to the last detail, exactly what we eventually learn did happen. The spheres were indeed built in the distant past by "makers", they do indeed create the anomalies, and the Builders do indeed plan to return and take over one day. The Triannon are absolutely correct... except of course about the tricky question of whether the builders are gods or not.
DS9 might have Captain Sisko go the route he took with the Prophets and comment that it's all a matter of interpretation, that their beliefs give them comfort and that to the Triannon the Sphere Builders are gods. Then again probably not; since the Builders are anti-Federation like the Founders, he'd probably just condem them out of hand. Personally, I take it as self-evident that the Builders aren't gods in any way shape or form, so whilst the Triannon had all the pieces of the puzzle, they put them together in the wrong order.
Wow, this one really turned into a marathon! Sorry to run on like this (does anybody even read the more self-indulgent articles? Enquiring minds want to know!), but I found Chosen Realm to be one of the more intriguing false-god stories and I wanted to vent.
Overall, then, Enterprise has been quite TOS-like in their approach to religion. I was wrong to be so judgemental in advance - "mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa", as I might say were I religious!
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Women Diets: Healthy Lunchbox Makeovers
Think what's in your brown bag would pass muster with a professional nutritionist? You might be surprised to learn how poor your diet really is
Alex H., designer
The meal: "I'm having a breakfast burrito for lunch. It contains beans, potatoes, bacon, eggs, cheese and salsa. I'm washing it all down with a Sprite Zero."
Kimberly Snyder's Assessment:
"Where do I start? First of all, we don�t want to �wash down� our lunch with anything -- any kind of beverage. It�s better to hydrate between our meals, so we reduce liquids at meals. Having a lot of liquids with our meals dilutes our digestive enzymes with hydrochloric acid and makes digestion longer and more difficult, which can lead to bloating and make it harder to lose weight.
[Your specific beverage], Sprite Zero, contains aspartame, the artificial sweetener that is responsible for about 80 percent of consumer complaints to the FDA (headaches, various health problems, etc.). Our bodies do not know how to break down the chemical compounds (which really aren�t fit for human consumption) that artificial sweeteners are made of, and they are acid forming in the body. The more acidic we are, the faster we age and the harder it is to lose weight. NOT recommended!
In terms of the meal, the burrito contains several types of protein; eggs, and beans, plus dairy, which contains casein protein (which is especially difficult to digest), plus two different kinds of starch; potatoes and the wrap. Combining all of these different foods, which need different processes inside the stomach to be broken down, is like you are purposely trying to make lunch as difficult to digest as possible. It�s important to note that digestion may take 50-80% our total body�s energy and, if we�re wasting energy on digestion, it�s not being used to help re-build skin and hair cells, or to help you be stellar at work.
There�s not enough room to write about the cheese here (please read the chapter in my book on dairy) but [suffice to say that] it is pasteurized and clogging. And the bacon is pretty much synonymous with toxic; it's a heavy, fried animal protein that is way too energy sucking to have at lunch, and will make your afternoon sluggish and drag you down."
Next: See Snyder's changes/suggestions
SEE NEXT PAGE: Changes/Suggestions
Older comments
Helpful, and I love celery!
by EricaF123 Tuesday, April 16, 2013 at 11:44AM Report as inappropriate
I must say, I am glad not to be a guest at Kimberly's table. Most of these "victims" are making a concerted effort to be healthy while enjoying their lunches. Enjoying is the part that will be lacking in Kimberly's lunches. Nice to look good and live a long time, but not if it is without joy.
by Robin_C Tuesday, April 16, 2013 at 11:14AM Report as inappropriate
I really enjoy this article, but I find it discouraging that even the tofu eater was picked apart. First of all what is LEFT for us too eat these days??? Unless I go to the store and spend literally my entire food budget on organic fruits and veggies, then I'm out of options. Especially with a nut allergy things are increasingly harder to eat, and I mean coconut as well. Also some people are stuck working an all day job with no refrigerator so what are we suppose to do? It's getting so hard just to find something that wasn't made in a lab and it makes me sick but our FDA is setting us up to fail. They are allowing all these nasty fake things to be fed to us I feel like a Turkey being fattened up, which makes a lot of sense if you eat margarine btw because that stuff was invented to make our food fat... and now it's made us fat.
by Bon_Bon Wednesday, April 3, 2013 at 09:40PM Report as inappropriate
this is very helpful, but also a little impractical. It's difficult and a little expensive to get and pack some of these foods for lunch at work.
by tulipsarebetter Saturday, January 5, 2013 at 08:05PM Report as inappropriate
Eat more raw! I feel great am 85 to 95 percent raw. A slow process but well worth it.
by Ydabney Thursday, January 3, 2013 at 11:08AM Report as inappropriate
This article is very informative but this kind of dieting only works on some people. You need protein in your diet to help maintain muscle strength.
by kimihavens Wednesday, December 26, 2012 at 01:10PM Report as inappropriate
I would revamp each and every one of these meals to the hilt. The suggested substitutions might be better, but these meals need to be completely redone. Nice try for the short run. Not good for the long term.
by robyne00 Saturday, October 13, 2012 at 02:48PM Report as inappropriate
this article is confusing.
by lilas Wednesday, October 3, 2012 at 03:43PM Report as inappropriate
How do you eat fresh brown rice out of a lunch box??? The suggestions are healthy but not practical for someone truly eating from a lunch box. I do pack an iced cooler daily, but I can't grill or steam anything from my car. Also some of these are much more time consuming. Can you offer practical solutions?
by Rck Monday, September 3, 2012 at 08:36PM Report as inappropriate
I agree with her on the diet sodas but most of these lunches seem a LOT healthier than many people eat and I do not know anyone who would want to stay on her diet for any length of time. I know I wouldn't..
by tigerlily5 Wednesday, August 22, 2012 at 06:10PM Report as inappropriate
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Can these be replicated in FM?
I'm watching the Stoke vs Everton game on Sky Sports, and it struck me that Delap's throw-ins add a whole different aspect to the game.
Can these be replicated in FM?
I'm watching the Stoke vs Everton game on Sky Sports, and it struck me that Delap's throw-ins add a whole different aspect to the game.
i would like to know from someone at SI how far someone with 20 for long throws can throw the ball.
Why dont you guys try it yourself....
Greg Halford's throws>>>>>>>Rory Delap's throws.
challinor > * for long throws.
In Sweden several teams use similar long throws-tactics to good effect, should have a bigger impact in the game IMO
Haha, that match as awesome =P.
That is the only way Stoke are going to have a chance of staying up as they can't play football to save their life. So in FM09 that's all Stoke should play for, they should try and play it off players legs to get throw-ins. It might not be pretty but it would make it more realistic.
Do players with high long-throw values in the game do throws like that?
Anyone see the Lee Dixon throw in on MOTD2 just now?
They do have good throws in the game but nothing extradionary.
Onyewu has 20.
The problem with Stoke is that they can't defend very well at all. Today for instance, Everton took their time around the box and even managed to make four passes just in the box without any movement from the three players involved. They also suck at defending set pieces, I expect them to lose a lot last minute goals because of this, the goal they conceded from a set piece was almost laughable. I reckon signing someone like Sami Hypia could really make big difference for them.
We've gone a little off topic here.
Anyone seen them in the game?
i remember they used to do em in fm05, they worked well with some1 like freddy guarin
Long throws, like most set pieces and various other things, have gone through phases in FM of being either over-powered or under-powered. There was one version (possibly FM05 given the comment above) where they were well overdone and a player with decent long throws could regularly throw the ball straight onto the head of a tall player in the box for a goal.
I have actually seen good long throws in FM, but more because my guy in the box is, for some reason, totally un-marked so the ball can be thrown to somewhere near his feet and he has plenty of time to collect it, turn and score, but I've not seen Dave Challinor-esque throws in FM08
Dave Challinor was the first in the British game that I saw take it to this level.
I haven't been able to replicate it in FM but in CM03/04 I had Freddy Guarin in my Barnet side in the Premiership and he had 20 for long throws and it was just mental how effective it was.
You didn't want to get a throw in level to the penalty area or closer to the goal-line, but bring it back about 10-15 yards and it had goal written all over it. God how I loved CM03/04.
Anyone remember the guy who used to do a run and then a somersault which finished with him launching the ball miles, (pretty sure it was South America). All the home team did was bring the advertising hoardings in to negate it I think.
Is there a PPM for this? There probably should be.
It should be covered simply by the Long Throws attribute really - there is a scale from 1-20 (or 1-100 in the background) and 20 should mean you can launch it miles whereas lower values mean you are no good at that. There's not much else to it really.
How are they in FM2008? The odd player should be able to do monstrous throw-ins.
Delap has 19 on my game...he should have 20 and pretty much everyone else should have 18 or under. Halford maybe deserves 19 though.
perfect example of it.
I haven't seen anything like that in FM'08, though.
Kain- that video is unique to say the least!! nice
No I not but I suppose s it shouldn't be too diffcult in the game to add a does really long throws trait to players. Also I think throwing the ball in takes in to consideration the strength of the player.
Of course, I am fairly biased because I support Vale.
Since this thread has turned into a bitchfest against my beloved Stoke City i'll show my face and defend my club.
Long ball - we mix it with the best of them. Yes we play direct balls into the channels for Fuller to chase every now and then, but we also have Liam Lawrence on the wing and, this season, Seyi Olofinjana in the middle of the park. We play football in the right areas ie. further up the pitch where misplaced passes can do no damage to our own team
Last season, Liam Lawrence got 15 goals from the wing and was statistically the best midfielder in the Championship. The statistics basically measure how many times you touch the ball and from that what you do with it - no of assists, key passes etc. A team that plays awful football as often as the fleet street gang would ram down your throat would surely bypass players like Lawrence, leaving them pretty much worthless and virtually statistically immeasurable, nevermind statistically the best in their class?
Long Throw - its a method of attack that we use in equal measure. We've scored 7 goals in 4 Premier League games this season (almost 2 a game which is pretty decent for a newly promoted side still finding their feet) and 3 of those 7 goals have come from the Long Throw, 1 a penalty, 1 an own goal and two bits of magic from Fuller.
Anyway, as you were...
I'm sorry, Stoke don't play good football and when they are losing to a team they expect to beat, they don't play football, they just rough you up. I don't blame them fot playing 'hoof it' football because it works for them (or did, at least).
Sorry, Stripey
Lawrence scored most of his goals from penalties no? And he's not exactly the most cultured of players. That's why he got dumped by Sunderland sharpish.
I never said we play good football - only Arsenal play what you call "good football". Everyone else plays their own brand of football, to varying degrees of directness.
What I said was, we don't play as bad a football as people say we do. We mix it up.
FM08 never really demonstrated that throw-ins could be as dangerous as Delaps (as a Villan, i know just how dangerous), but it would be great to have such a weapon accurately reflected in
FM09/10/at some point.
If you don't mind i'll pass.
I disagree, Lawrence is an excellent midfielder when he is on his game. I know there is a huge gulf in class between the Championship and the Prem but his performances last season were impressive. He has consistency, touch and creativity (that ball to Fuller against Villa was magic) and will give most full-backs a hard time. Of course, wheather Stoke choose to use him or not is down to Pulis.Lawrence scored most of his goals from penalties no? And he's not exactly the most cultured of players. That's why he got dumped by Sunderland sharpish.
I don't like watching Stoke play but I want them to do well for the county. I will take 17th this season.
Whether ugly or not, Stoke's style shouldn't be tied down in FM09 as the game will inevitably change the team out of all recognition within 2-3 seasons. They may never be the most cultured side (in fact, I remember them trying to kick Walsall off the park in a top of the table game about 10 years ago; still Walsall won 1-0), but IMO FM needs to allow for anything to happen.
If you can't already, there should be something in FM to allow you to use a player's throw-in specialism, though. It'd also need to take account of where the play is on the pitch and 'mix it up'.
I would like to add another name to the brilliant long throws as well as Delap and Halford, our (Coventry) brilliant Icelandic international Aron Gunnarson (who currently has a very low stat in long throws). Can get them into middle of the box from just past the halfway line.
Long throw video-- See 51 seconds.
He rules. Hardcore.
No, because he's scored Premiership goals, and most of Stoke's Championship side hadn't.
Can I drag this thread back to its original topic?
Is anyone a beta tester of the FML match engine who can shed some light on whether long throws can be effective like Delap?
Id like to see the long throws be used so i can have a guy with 20 for long throws and expect the ball to work similar to a corner as when either delap or halford throws the ball in it used to end up around the middle of the box
Problem with Challinor is that long throws are the ONLY strength to his game - He used to be our captain and was the second worst player on the pitch every week (after Carlton Palmer)
Leave Carlton Palmer alone!
Would like to see a competition between Delap, Halford and Gunnarson to see who can throw the ball furthest (in the throw in style). Plus may I add Gunnarson is a very good player and his long throws are just an added advantage and he is destined for premier league football (being only 19).
Last edited by G-Man11; 17-09-2008 at 18:34.
I see now you meant Gunnarsson.
Kitson's pretty good when it comes to directing the header, just not at winning them with his back to goal. Decent, but no Kevin Davies- I think Doyle was statistically better despite the 4 inch height difference.
Incidently, Greg Halford could have done the javelin for Britain- I believe he was the second best 16 year old in the country at it.
Why can't they put in a specialty move (eg. stepovers) for long throws that allows them to throw that extra bit further, so players such as Delap have an advantage.
A PPM perhaps .
Throws the ball a long, long way
This is a prime example of a new PPM which should be included.
Ppm please