Gene Roddenberry: Human

“Star Trek speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow — it's not all going to be over with a big flash and a bomb; that the human race is improving; that we have things to be proud of as humans.”

Gene Roddenberry

Interview (20 September 1988), included in Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, DVD 7, "Mission Logs: Year Five", "A Tribute to Gene Roddenberry", 0:26:09)
Context: Star Trek speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow — it's not all going to be over with a big flash and a bomb; that the human race is improving; that we have things to be proud of as humans. No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids — human beings built them, because they're clever and they work hard. And Star Trek is about those things.

Star

“We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.”

Gene Roddenberry

As quoted in Can A Smart Person Believe in God? (2004) by Michael Guillen, Ch. 7 : Hope Springs Eternal, p. 90

God , Question

“It isn't all over; everything has not been invented; the human adventure is just beginning.”

Gene Roddenberry

“Ancient astronauts didn't build the pyramids. Human beings built the pyramids, because they're clever and they work hard.”

Gene Roddenberry

Variant: No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids - human beings built them because they're clever and they work hard. And 'Star Trek' is about those things.

“No one could know Serling, or view or read his work, without recognizing his deep affection for humanity, his sympathetically enthusiastic curiosity about us, and his determination to enlarge our horizons by giving us a better understanding of ourselves. He dreamed of much for us, and demanded much of himself, perhaps more than was possible for either in this time and place. But it is that quality of dreams and demands that makes the ones like Rod Serling rare …and always irreplaceable.”

Gene Roddenberry

Eulogy for Rod Serling (1975) Rodserling.com http://www.rodserling.com/full_roddenberry_quote.html

Dreams , Understanding , Time , Reading

“That's been a question, one of the big questions in my life. 'What is a human?' What are the elements that make a human?' It's a search for… how many elements do you get before you say, "Yes, it's human," where before you were saying it's not human.”

Gene Roddenberry

Life , Search , Question

“I think I’ve gone through quite an ordinary series of steps in life. I began as most children began, with God and Santa Claus and the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny all being about the same thing. Then I went through the things that I think sensitive people go through, wrestling with the thoughts of Jesus—did he shit? Did he screw? I began to dare to believe that God wasn’t some white beard. I began to look upon the miseries of the human race and to think God was not as simple as my mother said. As nearly as I can concentrate on the question today, I believe I am God; certainly you are, I think we intelligent beings on this planet are all a piece of God, are becoming God. In some sort of cyclical non-time thing we have to become God, so that we can end up creating ourselves, so that we can be in the first place. … My own feeling is that relation to God as a person is a petty, superstitious approach to the All, the infinite.”

Gene Roddenberry

As quoted in God & (1975) by Terrance A. Sweeney

God , Time , Question , Personality