Enough said, Qapla’

QatanI’ DevnoH
Proctor, House DevnoH

First some points on my “view” of life and faith. Now, I consider myself a Christian and as such believe in the Holy trinity. That said I also believe that what may be true for me will not be true for everyone. So I would caution that some of my words may offend.

So first to the question of: Was the Holy Scripture divinely inspired and so the “Word of God”. This leads to questions as with each translation the ‘language’ changes. By this mean that if one reads an English translation from the 1950s and one from today they would be very different. As proof of this I would recommend looking up the 23rd psalm from several sources and the differences will be seen.
So if this is ‘God’s’ word how could it alter over such a short time? Well for me this shows this is a living work, not simply inspiration for the past but one we can carry forward. Because that is one of the main things the bible is for, inspiring the children we are to apply good values to life. Thus whatever language the work is in and what ever medium it is in matters less than the intent to spread the word.
The other question that I had struggled with was;’ What about the ‘other’ versions of the bible (the ones used by other sects) they claim mine is wrong, how can this be?
Well here is where my thoughts get folks angry with me. I have come to realize that just as ‘the Spirit’ inspired people that preaching to people in language they didn’t understand was as useful as preaching to a Cat and so translations occurred. So other ‘way of words’ were made and so reached others and brought them to the fold. For many years I believed that the stories of Buddha and Christ were both based on the life of the same person. I saw parallels between the lives of them. I was mistaken, but the feeling remains, both lived lives of discovery and changed the World’s thinking for centuries after.

So my position is that the intent of the word is more important than the words used. Oh and before I continue let me add that I KNOW that all works, be they fact or fiction, are inspired by some great spirit. So there is no question of divine inspiration in my mind. So the translation of the word to a ‘fake’ language doesn’t matter to me, because the intent is for others to share and examine the work. Consider how many will read this carefully to check of errors to crow over. Surely in so doing they will be inspired to think about things Godly.

Now to speak to the question of: “Is it worth God’s time” I would answer YES. I will explain. Yes the other things are useful, but so are many other things. However God is not limited in what ‘he’ can do. A man can only do one thing at a time, he may seem to do many things at once, but really at each instant he does only one action. Now for the Divine this is not so at any instant there are infinite things happening, and God sees and controls all this. Now some would speak of an ongoing process like some great computer program running to some unknown end. This could be so, but if so then the program would need constant monitoring to an infinite level. I don’t know and even were I to see the truth I doubt my mortal brain could deal with the complexity of the answer.

So here is the strength of the bible, it places the truth in a form that people can understand. Further the changes that seem to happen, Might be like changes to a story written for a Gr-1 child and a university student. But to the “is it worth the time” question I guess the only proof I could offer is that Like the poem ‘For want of a Nail’ A seemingly nothing can lead to a great result.

In closing I would dispute the words of the Learned Reverend Wolfpatty. He puts forth “Star Trek presents a future devoid of religion and God.” I disagree with this in the strongest possible terms. Yes we never see the characters attending church services as such, but saying this means all are atheists is like saying that because we never see them taking a shower they never bathe. I would also point out that we DID see a chapel in the Original series. While it was not stated in the filming it was in the script that the chapel didn’t have ‘icons’ so that all the faiths the crew followed could use it with out disrespect to others. I have been to hospital chapels and they too are ‘missing’ objects of a specific faith but I have felt the ‘Peace of the Divine’ there. Yes B5 may have placed the religion of the crew ‘in the viewers face’ but that doesn’t mean it was not there in the other show. The message of Trek is one of ‘inclusion’ that “if we can’t take a positive delight in the little differences here, we don’t deserve to go out there and face the differences we will find” (JER 1978)

Ka-ris
Ka_Ris@hotmail.com