Quote for the Day

“I handed them a script and they turned it down. It was too controversial. It talked about concepts like, 'Who is God?' The Enterprise meets God in space; God is a life form, and I wanted to suggest that there may have been, at one time in the human beginning, an alien entity that early man believed was God, and kept those legends. But I also wanted to suggest that it might have been as much the Devil as it was God. After all, what kind of god would throw humans out of Paradise for eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. One of the Vulcans on board, in a very logical way, says, 'If this is your God, he's not very impressive. He's got so many psychological problems; he's so insecure. He demands worship every seven days. He goes out and creates faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes. He's a pretty poor excuse for a supreme being.” 

“For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain. If people need religion, ignore them and maybe they will ignore you, and you can go on with your life. It wasn't until I was beginning to do Star Trek that the subject of religion arose. What brought it up was that people were saying that I would have a chaplain on board the Enterprise. I replied, "No, we don't.” 

- Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991)

American television screenwriter, producer, de facto populistic philosopher, satirist, and futurist, best remembered for having created the original Star Trek television series and thus the Star Trek science-fiction franchise. Roddenberry flew 89 combat missions in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, worked as a commercial pilot after the war and later followed in his father's footsteps by joining the Los Angeles Police Department. At the same time he wrote scripts for television, ultimately creating Star Trek which premiered in 1966.