Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Difference between revisions

Will almost certainly be averted in a [[Feudal Future]], which typically feature some form of [[Fantastic Catholicism]]

 

 

Contrast [[Gravity Is Only a Theory]] and [[Science Is Wrong]].

** ''The Light of Other Days'', co-written with [[Stephen Baxter]], had a device that could see into the past; among others, Moses didn't exist, having been a merger of several different historical personages. Jesus did, but was just a good person who inspired people, rather than a miracle-maker.

** ''[[Childhood's End]]'', similar to the above example, the visitors give humans a device to see into the past. Apparently, every religion save Buddhism becomes discredited. Also, the visitors look like stereotypical devils; it turns out {{spoiler|they are heralds of [[The End of the World as We Know It|a change so monumental]] it echoes back through human history, causing the "devil" image in the first place.}}

** The closing stories in the ''[[Rendezvous With Rama|Rama]]'' books, on which Clarke either collaborated or wrote himself, subvert this. The setting has humanity already in religious decline by default, however the very end of the series presents not only possible evidence for the existence of a divine being such as God, but an explanation for his laissez faire attitude to dealing with his creation.

* The advanced cultures of [[Isaac Asimov]]'s ''[[Foundation]]'' trilogy seemed to be atheist, and talked about religion as a tool of control at several points.

** Not exactly the same as this trope on two points. Most of the main ''characters'' are supposedly atheists, and the leaders of Terminus certainly are -- but the way the Foundation's participants were chosen initially and the way their lives are structured would logically make them tend more towards rationalism, so it's not that much of a stretch. Outside Terminus, religion itself survives, even if it's used as a tool at times. But more importantly, over time Hari Seldon assumed an almost religious significance to the people of Foundation, to the point where many of them had a decidedly ''irrational'' belief in the infallibility of his predictions. Asimov himself was certainly not a religious man, and his treatment of religion is definitely from a sceptic's position, viewing it solely as a social construct with no mystical powers behind it -- but within that view, he doesn't show religion and religious thinking as actually dying out (just the opposite; he shows it as surviving and being used).

** His "Nightfall" is even more interesting. The scientists had worked out the cause of the periodic devastation and the things called "stars," and the religious fanatics were deeply offended -- and also had a much better idea than the scientists how serious the matter was.

** In any event, Christianity is certainly long-dead by the Empire-Foundation era -- Asimov's characters frequently utter "science-y" sounding oaths like "In the name of space!" and "Great Galaxy!" where "For the love of God!" or "Jesus H. Christ!" might be used in modern English.

* Played straight by the Edenists and averted by the Kulu Kingdom in Peter F. Hamilton's (sci-fi) ''[[Nights Dawn]]'' Trilogy. They are the two biggest players and the two biggest rivals in the Confederation -- the former are all atheists and the latter staunchly Christian. However, the Edenists' philosophy and way of life lead to the closest thing to paradise as you can get, and they're also the only human civilisation able to fully resist the possessed...

** Also, in Hamilton's ''[[Commonwealth Saga]]'', religion has for the most part been abandoned. However, in the distant sequels of the void trilogy, a massive religious pilgrimage is the source of the main conflict of the stories.

* Plenty of religion to go around in the 41st century AD, according to the ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' universe. For the most part, differences of religious opinion are met with a shrug, with the notable exception of [[The Fundamentalist|the Faithful of Masada]].

** To give it a fuller catalogue, the entire gamut exists. Everything from a [[Cult Colony]] that splintered in a religious war to a [[Cult Colony]] that is now staunchly Atheist, to planets run by a Calphiate or French Revolutionary style violent secularism.

** Ivanova is a religious Jew. At the beginning of the series she has lapsed in her practice of Judaism, but when her father dies in the first season she finds solace and closure in her once-lost faith.

** Commander Sinclair was educated by Jesuits when he was young.

** The Centauri are modeled on the late Roman Empire, with an official polytheism almost nobody still takes seriously.

*** [[J. Michael Straczynski]] has noted online that most of the representatives were [[Babylonian Productions]] staff and crew, and most were really of the religion named.

** In "By Any Means Necessary", Na'Toth states that she is an atheist - a huge contrast with her deeply religious (if less than law-abiding) boss, G'Kar. His response is that everyone believes in something greater than themselves, if only the blind forces chance - she sneers that chance favors the warrior. G'Kar points out that that is [[Not So Different|still a belief]], albeit a highly productive one.

** Of course, the whole point with the Ori gets a lot of flip-flopping; after a few episodes of dealing with ridiculously headstrong groups, the team basically settles on "Just because they're powerful enough to claim godhood, doesn't mean you should ''actually'' worship them!"

* ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' TOS episode "The Obsolete Man" was set in a future society where religion had been outlawed. Only one man still believed in God, and was sentenced to death for being obsolete. He was given the choice of ways to die. He chose to die by bomb on live television. The high official who sentenced him to death came to speak with him, and was informed that the door was locked. {{spoiler|He began to panic, and shouted, "In the name of God, let me out!" The condemned man did let him out -- in the name of God. The final scene was of the official being sentenced to death... for being obsolete.}}

** Averted by [[Steven Moffat]], specifically the two-parter "The Time of Angels" and "Flesh and Stone". While the "Angels" are [[Starfish Aliens]] / [[Eldritch Abomination]] / [[Humanoid Abomination]] creatures that happen to look like the traditional idea of an angel (winged, lean, robe-wearing), they eat energy and turn to stone while being observed, with [[Super Speed]] when not. The Aversion is [[Church Militant|The Church]], actually an organization of warrior-priests tasked with guarding human colonists across the galaxy. Their leader, [[Awesome McCoolname|Father Octavian]], is so noble that ''the Doctor'' said it was an honor to meet him, and they never lose courage, even when surrounded by the aforementioned angels.

** The Doctor, one of the oldest, most intelligent and best-traveled beings in the universe more or less says in "The Satan Pit" that he doesn't believe in God or any sort of higher power (or at least he's never run across anything to convince him of the existence of such a power). Based on that statement, he'd probably be better described as an agnostic rather than an atheist.

** Later on, Horus himself (pre-heresy, obviously) sits down with someone who just had a face-to-face encounter with a daemon {{spoiler|and the Astartes it had possessed and horribly mutated in the aforementioned countryside/mountain.}} He explains that there are "creatures" that are native to the Warp, of varying size, strength and intelligence, just as there are creatures native to the physical universe. The Warp just doesn't obey any laws of physics, as we know them, being a realm of pure psychic energy. He even concedes that terms like "sorcery", "demon" and, yes, even "gods" work to describe them, if only because the advanced, secular Imperium simply doesn't have any more accurate descriptions. The Emperor just choose to hide this truth from his people; after all, [[Tempting Fate|who would WANT to know and understand all that?]] However, Horus makes it clear that there are no gods or great daemons in the warp, and there is no real concept of "evil" that the daemons could represent or rally behind. Yeah...

** Even the highly, highly advanced Eldar have their gods to worship. Well ''had'' for most of them, since they have almost all been killed by Chaos. But then when you regularly summon the avatar of one of your gods to help you in battle, it must help belief. The fact is, in the 40K universe the most rational and evidence based choice is religion - there are actual demons, evil gods, not-so-evil gods and magic all walking around, the alternative really is [[Flat Earth Atheist|Flat Earth Atheism]].

** Another major example would be the relationship between the Necrons and the C'Tan. [[Deal with the Devil|The Necrons willingly gave themselves over to the C'Tan in order to increase their own power]], [[Cybernetics Eat Your Soul|but were soon turned into their mindlessly loyal slaves]]. The upshot of this is that the C'Tan feed on souls and not belief, so they will be happy to show up and help their "followers" as long as they get some nice tasty souls in return on the battlefield.

* Averted in the ''[[BattleTech]]'' universe. All the major religions continue to survive and thrive in the 31st century, and some of the major governments adopt official state faiths, either on principle or as a means of social control - the Federated Suns' Church of Avalon is a splinter of Roman Catholicism formed from a miscommunication (shortly before Vatican City was burned to the ground and its occupants put before a firing squad), while the Draconis Combine revived Shinto for the commoners, and encourages Buddhism for its aristocracy. Most amusing is when the sourcebooks describe the fates of several smaller sects - the Amish establish a whole world free of unnecessary technology, Mormons (always okay with the idea that God made more than one world) expanded and thrived, Islam remains popular on Earth and is dominant on several worlds of the Combine (who joined only on the condition that they could keep their religion), Wicca's popular in the matriarchal and famously hedonistic Magistracy of Canopus, and Scientologists just up and withered away. Or was replaced by ComStar and The Word of Blake.

** To be fair, these future "Scientologists" hold the entire universal communications network in their hands, so they didn't exactly get the short end of the stick.

** There's also the new religions that cropped up after humanity took to the stars (such as the aforementioned ComStar which started off as a ''governmental department''), though most are little more than vague mysticism or cults of personality. And there's the generally-atheistic Clans who border on religious worship of their founders, even while some individual clanners manage to wedge more conventional religion into their daily life. And let's not forget Clan Goliath Scorpion, which developed a tradition of drug-induced mystic visions.

* ''[[Cthulhu Tech]]'' contains a rather bad example. Christianity and Islam are gone. It's not really expounded upon, they're just gone.

* ''[[Fading Suns]]'' thoroughly averts this with the Urth Orthodox church holding roughly as much influence over the Known Worlds as Catholicism held over Medieval Europe.

 

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' has Ashley Williams suggest that she's somewhat eccentric for having religious beliefs, at least as a soldier. The player can choose whether Shepard is religious or not. All of the aliens have a religious or spiritual side to their cultures. The player can choose how Shepard views them.

** The "Lair of the Shadow Broker" DLC reveals that {{spoiler|the human supremacist terrorist organization Cerberus assassinated the Pope in order to make way for his more militant successor, suggesting that the Catholic Church still has a significant number of adherents.}}

* In ''[[Metroid Prime]] 3: Corruption'', Samus visits the planet Bryyo, which is covered in the ruins of a golden age. The Reptilicus people there originally had magical powers. Then, some of them learned how to use technology, and they decided that this was cooler than "primitive" magic. The Lords of Science honked off the magic-using mystics, and there was a big magic-vs-technology war that tore the planet apart. Literally. There are bits of the planet that had to be ''chained to the surface''. It could be said that the Lords of Science technically won, because a few of them were able to recognize the planetary damage and stabilize the planet, though it lead to them revealing their secret location, and thus being wiped out by the mystics. Without the Lords of Science, the remaining Reptilicus devolved into (magical) barbarism.

** Averted with [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens|the Chozo]] who made balance between the technological and mystical aspects of their society a priority. So much so that it's almost impossible to tell where the science ends and mysticism begins in their technology.

* The conflict between the University and the Believers in ''[[Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri|Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri]]'' is an example and an aversion, respectively.

** The Human Hive seeks to invoke this trope, meanwhile: Yang's social experiment, amongst other things, seeks to eradicate belief in higher powers and replace it with an atheistic collectivism/taoism that holds human advancement and the goals of the collective as "God".

* Both played straight and averted in ''[[Starcraft]]'' universe. Background material mentions that upon taking control of Earth, the United Powers League(later becomes United Earth Directorate) promoted state Atheism, banning or co-opting all religions and exiling or killing those who didn't adhere (alongside political prisoners, cyber-deviants and other undesirables) in an effort to stamp out the things that have divided the human society. As a result, the territories of the UPL/UED are non-religious while the Koprulu Sector is teeming with religious groups ranging from mainstream Christianity to [[Crystal Dragon Jesus]] and to even stranger [[Cult|Cults]] and movements.

** The most advanced race in the setting, the Protoss, nearly killed themselves before the religion/social structure of the Khala was established, and while it's lessened in importance with the acceptance of the Dark Templar, it's still hugely important to most of the race.

* Averted in ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'', humans are said to be no more or less religious than they are now. All the other races have their own faiths (most notably the Zuul worshiping their [[Abusive Precursors|creators]]).

** The main problem for Cai Rui in the ''Deacon's Tale'' novel is that, while he's in charge of an intelligence branch of SolForce, he's also a Catholic deacon. It's not that he's religious. It's that he is part of the Church hierarchy and, thus, answers to more than one boss. Naturally, the director of SolForce is not too keen on that, particularly because of the latest conflict between him and the Pope. Additionally, Christianity is mentioned to be getting popular with the [[Lizard Folk|Tarka]].

** Many jokes have been made in regards to Transformers that have declared themselves atheists in canon. [[Shortpacked|"Our god is our planet! You fought beside him last week!"]]

** Said "prophecies" appear to have arisen due to [[Time Travel]] and are, thus, [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|self-fulfilling]].

** Though of course this is mostly [[Transsexualism|(at the time) Mrs.]] Garrison's fault, who after becoming the wife of Richard Dawkins made it a part of doctrine that one must not only believe that one's belief is right but be an asshole about it.

* In an episode of ''[[Family Guy]]'' a lack of religion allows the U.S. to progress technologically by a thousand years, though the arts had stagnated for a similar amount of time.

'''Terry''': Naturally, you don't believe in that sort of thing.

'''Bruce Wayne''': Of course I do. I've seen it all, demons, witch boys, immortals, zombies, but this thing ... I dunno, it just feels so ... so high school. }}