57: Spiritual Double Dare

"Sacred Ground" and Religious Explanations.   What happens when a scientist has a religious experience not fully explainable by science? When Kes's life falls in jeopardy, Captain Janeway, with tricorder in hand and eagerly willing to face any challenge she might face, volunteers to participate in a religious ritual to petition the Ancestral Spirits of the Nechani (or rather, the Bajorans of the Delta Quadrant...) and plead for Kes's life.   In this episode of Meta Treks, hosts Zachary Fruhling and Mike Morrison discuss Captain Janeway's journey of self-discovery, as she learns to reconcile her faith in science with her openness to new experiences, including the question of whether the relationship between scientific explanations and religious explanations is one of contradiction, complementariness, or coherence.   Chapters  Welcome to Episode 57 (00:01:06)  Initial Thoughts on Sacred Ground (00:01:50)  The Nechani - Delta Quadrant Bajorans (00:06:00)  Sciencing the Religion - Bring Your Tricorder (00:08:27)  Is Science a Type of Faith? (00:10:56)  Modes of Explanation (00:14:16)  The Voyager Files - Kathryn Mulder and Dr. Scully (00:18:39)  Scientific Explanations for Miracles - Spirits of the Gaps (00:22:23)  Falsifiability and Private Religious Experience (00:35:58)  Kirekegaard and Religious Conviction - Comparison of Janeway/Kes to Abraham/Isaac (00:38:10)  Physical Challenge! The Mouth of Truth (00:41:57)  Analyzing Past Religious Experiences (00:47:21)  Janeway's Expectations and Waiting on the Spirits (00:50:10)  One Universe = Unified Explanations (01:00:55)  Final thoughts (01:02:27)   Hosts Zachary Fruhling and Mike Morrison   Production Mike Morrison (Editor) Zachary Fruhling (Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Patrick Devlin (Associate Producer) Kay Shaw (Associate Producer) Norman Lao (Associate Producer) Kit Loffstadt (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)   Send us your feedback! Twitter: @trekfm  Facebook: http://facebook.com/trekfm  Voicemail: http://www.speakpipe.com/trekfm  Contact Form: http://www.trek.fm/contact  Visit the Trek.fm website at http://www.trek.fm/  Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.com/trekfm   Support the Network! Become a Trek.fm Patron on Patreon and help us keep Star Trek talk coming every week. We have great perks for you at http://patreon.com/trekfm