I wasn’t sure whether to put this in the humanism section or here. I guess either one works, but I agree with Sir Patrick Stewart. Star Trek is a humanistic ministry and Gene Roddenberry was the humanist minister who started it, even though he wasn’t one. My husband, also a Trek fan, says it’s “like a religion”. I say it’s a way of life, which has been part of my life all my life and has helped me the best of times and the worst of times in my life. Gene and Majel were like parents I never met, given I grew up with since four or five months after my birth.
To me, this part says it all:
Martin: I talk to a lot of people about spirituality and about the value of spiritual communities, which I think are when people who have similar values gather together and have or seek transcendent experiences. And I think Star Trek, in all of its incarnations, represents that to a lot of fans. It is a spiritual world. They treat it with religious reverence. Have you encountered that? Do you get it?
Stewart: Yes. I see it very, very clearly and very strongly. It was about truth and fairness and honesty and respect for others, no matter who they were or what strange alien creature they looked like. That was immaterial. They were alive. And if they needed help, Jean Luc Picard and his crew, his team, were there to give it.
In a sense, we were ministers. And I have heard now so many times from individuals who have been honest enough and brave enough to tell me aspects of their life, of their health, of their mental health. And how it was all saved and improved by watching every week.