{"id":5537,"date":"2026-06-26T08:07:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T12:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5537"},"modified":"2026-06-26T08:07:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T12:07:45","slug":"the-dream-that-will-not-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/26\/the-dream-that-will-not-die\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dream that Will Not Die"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast<\/em>,\u00a0click here<\/a>

A Star Trek<\/em> character named Gary Mitchell made only one on-screen appearance in the TV series.\u00a0

Sixty years ago, he was featured in an episode titled \u201cWhere No Man Has Gone Before.\u201d

A one-show storyline may seem brief and humble, but it\u2019s recently blossomed into something momentous.

Mitchell, played by actor Gary Lockwood, is introduced in the episode as one of the Enterprise\u2019s<\/em> senior officers and a longtime friend of Captain Kirk. When the starship breaches the Galactic Barrier, Mitchell is bombarded by a mysterious form of energy that endows him with superior intellect and godlike powers.\u00a0

The transformation clearly doesn\u2019t make him a nicer human being. Mitchell becomes insufferably arrogant and cruel, even threatening the lives of his crewmates. \u201cYou fools!\u201d he shouts, \u201cI\u2019ll crush you like insects.\u201d\u00a0

Kirk cleverly manages to strand his old friend on an empty and barren planet, where he is summarily abandoned.

End of the story? In the Star Trek<\/em> universe of obsessive fandom, not a chance. Even though the series enjoyed just three seasons of its original five-year mission to explore the cosmos, a number of media sources continue to extend the show\u2019s official narrative.

That includes a richly illustrated series of comic books.

Four years ago, Star Trek #400<\/em> broke the news that Gary Mitchell not only survived on his barren planet but has become a creator. He has evolved into a divine being capable of fashioning his own solar system.

But that\u2019s just the tip of the iceberg. The storyline asserts that Mitchell\u2019s evolution is the destiny of every human being. According to Star Trek<\/em> mythology, all of us will one day becomes gods. At the end of history, humanity will have \u201cearned rest.\u201d

If all this sounds vaguely familiar, check out Genesis 3:4-5, where the serpent chats with Eve about the consequences of thumbing her nose at God\u2019s authority: \u2018You will not certainly die,\u2019 the serpent said to the woman, \u2018For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,\u00a0knowing good and evil.\u2019\u201d What could possibly go wrong?

You will be like God<\/em>. It\u2019s a very old dream \u2013 the original temptation.

If the musings of Star Trek<\/em> strike you as downright silly, consider the recent ponderings of Israeli author and historian Yuval Noah Harari, who has become a noted public intellectual.

Harari observes that throughout the course of human civilization, plague, famine, and war have always threatened to wipe us from the face of the earth.

In the 21st<\/sup> century, however, most people won\u2019t have to spend all their days worrying about that triad of loss and despair.\u00a0Yes, there are still wars.\u00a0But they are relatively localized.\u00a0Famine and plague are still around, too.\u00a0But they are essentially hit or miss, and we have learned how to beat them back.

So what should we work on now?

In his provocative 2015 book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, <\/em>Harari suggests that our next project will be endeavoring to become gods.

He\u2019s not kidding.

Men and women, who have always dreamed of experiencing greater happiness and much longer lives, suddenly find themselves within technological reach of those ancient goals.\u00a0\u201cIn seeking bliss and immortality,\u201d says Harari, \u201chumans are in fact trying to upgrade themselves into gods.\u201d\u00a0

This brave new world has a dark side, however.

Harari admits that only the privileged few will actually get to reach for godlike powers.\u00a0Most of humanity will be left behind.\u00a0He imagines a train in which there are first class cars up front, carrying those with enough money, education, and clout to take advantage of genetic and biological engineering. \u00a0

A few others occupy the second-class cars, followed by billions of people who are crowded into the rest of the train.\u00a0It may be, writes Harari, that the Haves will simply disconnect their cars from the Have Nots and choose to pull away.

New York Times <\/em>columnist Jennifer Senior suggests that Harari\u2019s vision is \u201ca future that looks like Westworld rather than Disney World.\u00a0A small, breakaway republic of superhumans and techno-elites\u201d \u2013 those who acquire the skills and services to re-engineer their brains and bodies \u2013 \u201cwill become gods; those who don\u2019t will be rendered economically useless and die off.\u201d

Before we start looking for house listings on Mt. Olympus, it might also be worth remembering what the Greeks of the classical era had to say about their deities.

It\u2019s hard to imagine an unhappier bunch.\u00a0The gods and goddesses of the ancient world were incurably petty, jealous, vindictive, insecure, and childish. Even though they had it all, they were utterly miserable.\u00a0A contemporary equivalent might be a room full of celebrities.\u00a0

More than 2,500 years ago, the Greeks recognized that super-powers do not produce super-character.\u00a0Let alone super-happiness.

\u201cBecoming divine\u201d is the dream that will not die. For centuries, people have fallen back on the notion that if God just surrenders the steering wheel and lets us take over, life will go so much better.

Things did not turn out well for Adam and Eve, of course.

And as history attests, the aspiration of divinity always proves disastrous for the rest of us, too.

It\u2019s time for us to boldly go where far too few of us have gone before:

That would be choosing a life of grateful obedience to the One who really is God.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here A Star Trek character named Gary Mitchell made only one on-screen appearance in the TV series.\u00a0 Sixty years ago, he was featured in an episode titled \u201cWhere No Man Has Gone Before.\u201d A one-show storyline may seem brief and humble, but it\u2019s recently blossomed into something momentous. Mitchell, played by actor… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5538,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[370,1135],"class_list":["post-5537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-obedience","tag-olympic-gods"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5539,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5537\/revisions\/5539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}