Despite my love for Star Trek (yes, even Voyager), to attempt addressing 'faith vs. science' in the Star Trek universe has always struck me as a futile venture. Given that virtually every conceivable paranormal/supernatural idea ever conceived -- psychic powers, souls, spirits, ghosts, even gods -- have already become a documented 'factual' part of this fictional reality, how can any ST character reasonably harbor doubt about the potential validity of any new spiritual faith? Why would anyone, as Janeway does in this episode, adopt a strongly skeptical world view, à la a 20th century scientist, in a universe where aliens with god powers abound (Metrons, Talosians, worm-hole aliens/Bayjor Prophets, the Caretakers/Nacenes to name but a few)?
Conversely, in a universe where every manifestation of a god or religion ends up with some sort of empirical explanation to justify the belief, why would any character ever need to "have faith" in the first place (i.e. who needs to "have faith" when you have evidence)? Overall, this real-world dilemma re: faith and science doesn't seem to translate very well into the world of Star Trek.
Secondly, there is also some misguided commentary woven into this story that attempts to equivocate science with blind-faith, science with closed-mindedness, and the 'inexplicable' as being somehow a barrier to scientific investigation that only faith can transcend. Such tired canards may have traction among a few anti-scientific or scientifically-illiterate audience members who happen to also like Star Trek. However, given the staunchly pro-science history of this television franchise and its audience, I would think the writers would have anticipated most of the audience calling them out for relying on such sophistry. At such moments in this story, things simply degrade into a tedious and preachy diatribe.
I understand a writer's desire to develop a story that perhaps has relevancy in the real world (where faith and science do often conflict), but, in my opinion, the paramount goal in fiction is good story-telling above all else. I don't mind stories that also have relevancy and/or philosophical messages embedded in them, but when such things are included at the expense of the story the whole venture so often simply becomes sanctimonious trash. This episode is better than that, but it does dip it's big toe into that trash pile on more than one occasion. I tend to skip over it when it comes up on re-runs for that reason.
