Religion Is Right

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

So, we have a Crystal Dragon Jesus cult which has something purely metaphysical as a Crystal Dragon. Let it be the Church of the Moon Goddess. Then we invent spaceships, fly to the moon and meet the Moon Goddess herself; she's very glad to see us and is actually as beautiful and benevolent as we thought.

That's the trope: a correct scientific proof that the religion is right.

Done by a very large number of devout authors in response to Religion Is Wrong being so popular. However, the use of this trope does not necessarily illustrate the author's own beliefs — the overall story is (usually) being sold as fiction, after all. The in-story religion may range anywhere from a symbolic version of the author's faith, to a nonbeliever's Deconstruction of a real-world religion, to a simple thought experiment for its own sake without any theological ax to grind.

Note that the proof must be correct in-story, it doesn't have to make any sense in Real Life. Note also that merely having a Physical God doesn't qualify: You must have a faith-based religion prior to the divine encounter.

Compare Easy Evangelism and Science Is Wrong, All Myths Are True. Contrast Religion Is Wrong. This trope may not be as positive as the case described above if the religion that's right is a Religion of Evil.

No real life examples, please; we don't care what you do or don't believe.

Examples of Religion Is Right include:


Meta

  • This trope works in every single Cosmic Horror Story: if there is an evil cult worshipping an entity, the entity exists.

Anime and Manga

  • In Franken Fran, the Wandering Jew is real, and he confirms everything we know from The Bible about Jesus. Two chapters later we find out that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is also real. Franken Fran is weird.
    • Technically, the Flying Spaghetti Monster became real during the course of a chapter.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh!, the religion that was right is the religion of the ancient Egyptians, which was actually fairly spot-on.

Film

  • Avatar: The Na'vi worship some nebulous Earth-mother-type goddess, and the humans scoff at this—until the scientists figure out that Pandoran life (especially trees) is actually connected into a Hive Mind, and the Na'vi goddess is quite real. They even explicitly say that they've basically found scientific proof that the goddess really exists.
  • Religion that deals with The Force in Star Wars is most certainly this: it does involve faith because, for example, Han Solo didn't believe in Force, but it is proven true.
    • The Force itself is real; there is more than one religion built around it however, and all are mutually exclusive.

Literature

  • Ray Bradbury's Human short story.
  • Constantly used in Chick Tracts. "Big Daddy" is one of the most well-known, as well as among the most frequently remixed.
  • Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy: The followers of Zarquon the prophet await his Second Coming, and they're gently chided/mocked for their belief. He finally arrives just before the End Of The Universe.
    • There was also a famous philosopher in universe who managed to prove the existence of God. However, proving God existed logically proved him wrong, and he promptly ceased to exist. He did leave one final message behind for his creation though: WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.
    • Another version (from the BBC series) is that God refused to prove he existed "because proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing". The existence of the Babelfish, which instantly translates any kind of language for it's user and who's evolution was frankly impossible, proved he existed; therefore, by his own argument, he doesn't.
  • In Carl Sagan's novel Contact, an image of God's signature is said to be contained in the digits of pi.
    • One of the rare examples of an adamant agnostic playing this trope straight.
  • CS Lewis's work, especially (in the scientific proof bit) the Space Trilogy.
    • Or, rather, we can prove scientifically that angels (fallen and not) exist, and are suspiciously like the usual mythic pantheon personality-wise. We still only have their word on the matter that God exists, though.
  • Philip K. Dick's A Maze of Death describes a world where God and a Jesus-like manifestation of him are obviously real, and prayers are a commonplace way of solving problems, though they have to be transmitted by radio onto "god planets". There's a Flat Earth Atheist who believes this "God" is just a Sufficiently Advanced Alien.
    • His Eye in the Sky contains, among others, a world where God is blatantly real (and quite ornery) and gives regular TV transmissions; meanwhile, bars are stocked with vending machines that materialize items from nothing for free, and medieval alchemy and superstitions work perfectly. (It's actually a Journey to the Center of the Mind of a fundamentalist old man).
  • In Robert Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of Justice there really is a Heaven, and God, and all that stuff. It's not the same as it is described in The Bible but it's there.
  • Arguably the Aesop of the Left Behind series. If you do not accept Christ as your Lord and Savior, you will be left behind to suffer the Tribulation on Earth, followed by an eternity of damnation if you die during the Tribulation without accepting Christ then.
  • As with the Left Behind series, Evangelical Christianity is the only way to avoid an eternity in Hell in another Tim La Haye series, Babylon Rising.
  • Hilariously Played With in the Dresden Files - first of all, magic has a large element of Clap Your Hands If You Believe, so this trope is tautologically true. But it gets good with how various characters run with it;
    • Harry Dresden himself - knows of many deities - he's fought some, worked for some, even killed a couple of their peers, but isn't himself religious. He can't even summon enough Faith to earn himself an angelically-fueled rescue, courtesy of his friend Michael Carpenter. He's fought Fallen Angels, and Uriel has become one of his patrons.
    • Michael himself is a Knight of the Cross, and his schtick is the literal power of Faith, so he plays this trope quite straight.
    • Sanya, the Black, Russian, Agnostic, Knight of the Cross. His boss is in literal truth an Angel, and he refuses to acknowledge this trope.


Live Action TV

  • On Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Bajoran religion is based on the godlike "Prophets" who reside in the "Celestial Temple." At the beginning of the series a wormhole is opened very close to the planet, and Sufficiently Advanced Aliens living within it admit that they are, in fact, the Prophets and have a continued interest in Bajor's future. The Federation prefers to call these beings "Wormhole Aliens," but as you can imagine, the Bajoran religious movement gets a nice boost after the Occupation had caused to many to doubt the Prophets' existence.

Webcomics

  • Jack: Anna, after seeing a literal angel:

- Well, I guess that's it for my athiest status.

Q: "Hey Ash, what are your religious beliefs?"
Ash: "I used to be an atheist but, well..."

Western Animation

  • Hilariously parodied in the Futurama episode "Godfellas." Bender meets God (or a satellite that crashed into God), who is indeed benevolent in mysterious ways, and who tells him, "If you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

Video Games

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