History Main / ReligionIsWrong

** By the time of ''VideoGame/Halo3'', the [[BigBad Prophet of Truth]] seems to be fully aware of this, and [[DoubleThink yet still believes that the rings will grant apotheosis.]]

Compare ScamReligion, UnwantedFalseFaith, and ThePresentsWereNeverFromSanta. Contrast ReligionIsRight. For a musical version, this trope is also a goldmine of ReligionRantSong material. For an emotional, rather than scientific, denounce, see EvilStoleMyFaith.

Compare ScamReligion, UnwantedFalseFaith, and ThePresentsWereNeverFromSanta. Contrast ReligionIsRight. For a musical version, this trope is also a goldmine of ReligionRantSong material. For an emotional, rather than scientifical, denounce, see EvilStoleMyFaith.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': The Emperor of Mankind held this belief regarding the Chaos gods, and sought to completely destroy religion in an effort to deny them faith, pulling down every church on Earth. Unfortunately, this was flawed from the beginning as the Chaos gods are made of emotion and not belief, the only way to kill them off is to destroy all life in the galaxy (and was in fact the Necrons' remarkably simple plan when they first woke up). In the end, his blanket ban on religion ([[StopWorshippingMe including those centered around himself]]) led him to publicly rebuke the primarch Lorgar (who was wasting time building cathedrals to his father rather than conquering planets), sending Lorgar into the welcoming arms of the Chaos gods, the betrayal of half the SpaceMarines, and the Emperor being put on life-support for the next millenia and powerless to stop the new religion promoting him to GodEmperor of Mankind (although in this case, faith is a good weapon against Chaos).

** ''VideoGame/TalesOfEternia'' features the Seyfert religion suppressing information about the appearance of Dark Matter leading to TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, claiming it to be a sign of their god's second coming instead. While they're not given the most sympathetic representation in the game, this is somewhat true FromACertainPointOfView because [[spoiler:Seyfert himself is real and, because of the threat the Dark Matter heralds the arrival of, he has his messengers provide TheHero Reid with the divine Fibrill powers that he needs to save the word. Seyfert himself never actually physically manifests but the game ends on the message that he's watching over the two worlds of Inferia and Celestia.]]

[[folder:Anime And Manga]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* An ongoing theme throughout the various book published by Creator/MarvelComics, ever since the ban on criticizing religion instituted by the UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode (formally rejected by them in 2001, but flouted in several stories published during the '80s and '90s) ended. Most mythological gods ''are'' real, but they're JerkassGods no one sane would worship; most devout characters are lunatic ChurchMilitant and/or StrawmanPolitical villains (see the SinisterMinister trope for a good-sized list), and the few heroes who ''are'' religious have either seen their faith downplayed/ignored over the years (ComicBook/{{Daredevil}} and the ComicBook/XMen's Nightcrawler are good examples) or are treated as anachronistically quaint (ComicBook/CaptainAmerica, anyone?). An excellent example of this trope at its most anvilicious is the Chuck Austen run on ''ComicBook/UncannyXMen'', in which author mouthpiece Nurse Annie drops lines about how religion has killed more people than cancer. Most Marvel heroes as of 2020 have OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions. The following exchange from a ComicBook/DarkReign tie-in book is pretty typical:
--> '''Noh-Varr:''' We Kree have a mathematical equation that proves the nonexistence of any deities. We learn it when we're children, about the same time we learn not to soil ourselves with excrement.
--> '''Fantomex:''' Cool. I always knew atheists would someday save the world.
[[/folder]]

* This seems to be the case in the Manga/DeathNote universe. At the beginning of the series, the {{shinigami}} Ryuk tells [[VillainProtagonist Light Yagami]] that anyone who uses the titular notebook can "neither go to heaven or hell", but at the very end, [[spoiler: just as he's about to die from Ryuk writing his name in his own notebook after having been finally defeated]] we see a flashback were Light deduces that this simply means that there is [[CessationOfExistence no afterlife at all]]. Also, WordOfGod has apparently stated at least once that there are no gods in the manga's universe, aside from the shinigami. This is at least the case in the manga; the anime series is much more ambiguous on the question of God and the afterlife.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40K'': The Emperor of Mankind held this belief regarding the Chaos gods, and sought to completely destroy religion in an effort to deny them faith, pulling down every church on Earth. Unfortunately, this was flawed from the beginning as the Chaos gods are made of emotion and not belief, the only way to kill them off is to destroy all life in the galaxy (and was in fact the Necrons' remarkably simple plan when they first woke up). In the end, his blanket ban on religion ([[StopWorshippingMe including those centered around himself]]) led him to publicly rebuke the primarch Lorgar (who was wasting time building cathedrals to his father rather than conquering planets), sending Lorgar into the welcoming arms of the Chaos gods, the betrayal of half the SpaceMarines, and the Emperor being put on life-support for the next millenia and powerless to stop the new religion promoting him to GodEmperor of Mankind (although in this case, faith is a good weapon against Chaos).

* In ''VideoGame/TheLastResurrection'' Jesus is the final boss, and is portrayed as a genocidal lunatic personally responsible for Nazism.

** ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'' is probably the most science-fiction-y game in the series and zigzags on this one. The BigBad and his allies are {{Church Militant}}s working to subvert the order they're meant to protect because the church is being manipulated by an ObviouslyEvil douchebag who doesn't realise that blindly following the path laid out for him by the world's deity, Lorelei, will lead humanity extinction... Oh, and the higher-up members of the church partially knew this but kept it secret to avoid a mass panic. [[spoiler:However, this turns out to be only half-correct. Lorelei did indeed foresee the world's destruction, as part of its ComboPlatterPowers relating to the future and destiny, but it actually left the Fonstones (that record the future) behind so that humanity could ''overthrow'' this terrible future and create their own destinies. Sadly, the church didn't quite realise this as they were all blinded by the promise of a prosperous future at the end of ''one'' of the seven Fonstones. Thus, the game's ultimate stance on religion is something like, "Deities are good but religions are ultimately made up of people and, sometimes, people can get it ''horribly'' wrong.]]
** ''VideoGame/TalesOfXillia'' doesn't have much in the way of religion but the people who worship Milla Maxwell are eventually revealed to be [[spoiler:lying to her, telling her that she's the supreme spirit when she's actually a lower ranked 'great spirit'. As it happens, this was all done on the orders of the ''actual'' supreme spirit Maxwell, a WellIntentionedExtremist who wanted Milla to be his agent within the world of Liese Maxia to investigate the [[PoweredByAForsakenChild sinister technology]] that's corrupting the world. In the end, Milla is strong enough to kill Maxwell and take his place. Then the sequel introduces two more supreme spirits, one you controls time and the other the cycle of human soul rebirth.]]

* The ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' two-part episode "Go God Go" appears to invert this at the end. At first, we are shown a hyper-advanced society 500 years from now that has long ago abandoned religion in favor of atheism and science (they replace "God" with "science" in their swears; e.g. "Science, damn it!"). Then it's revealed that there are three atheist factions in the world (one of them are super-intelligent otters) who are engaged in a MeleeATrois over [[spoiler:what to name the atheist society]]. It turns out that this started when UsefulNotes/RichardDawkins began a sexual relationship with Mr(s). Garrison and convinced him/her of the fallacy of religion. Garrison immediately went into overdrive and convinced Dawkins to browbeat the rest of humanity into atheism. Apparently, it worked. Cartman ends up accidentally changing the past by letting Dawkins know that Garrison is a man. The future immediately turns into a religious utopia with only nationalism still a big issue (the otter mentions a war with the French-Chinese over Hawaii).

->''"You still think God exists because they want you to spend your hard-earned money on stupid churches? I'm gonna tell you something: there is no god, and there's never a god, and there will be no fucking god ever. You're gonna die, you go in the ground and that is it."''
-->-- '''Bill Williamson''', an anarchist and atheist terrorist from ''Film/Rampage2009''

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* An ongoing theme throughout the various book published by Creator/MarvelComics, ever since the ban on criticizing religion instituted by the UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode (formally rejected by them in 2001, but flouted in several stories published during the '80s and '90s) ended. Most mythological gods ''are'' real, but they're JerkassGods no one sane would worship; most devout characters are lunatic ChurchMilitant and/or StrawmanPolitical villains, and the few heroes who ''are'' religious have either seen their faith downplay/ignored over the years (ComicBook/{{Daredevil}} and the ComicBook/XMen's Nightcrawler are good examples) or are treated as anachronistically quaint (ComicBook/CaptainAmerica, anyone?). Most Marvel heroes as of 2019 have OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions. The following exchange from a ComicBook/DarkReign tie-in book is pretty typical:
--> '''Noh-Varr:''' We Kree have a mathematical equation that proves the nonexistence of any deities. We learn it when we're children, about the same time we learn not to soil ourselves with excrement.
--> '''Fantomex:''' Cool. I always knew atheists would someday save the world.
[[/folder]]

** However if you choose to spare Harold the cult keeps their religion and Harold finds reason to want to live again.

-->-- '''Bill Williamson''', an anarchic atheist from ''Film/Rampage2009''

* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' book ''[[HumansAreBastards Night of the Humans]]'' plays out this trope in a truly bizarre fashion. The Doctor responds to a crash-landed alien race on a massive pile of space-junk that is threatening a nearby planet. This interesting premise is quickly overshadowed by an incredibly unsubtle StrawManPolitical message that turns [[AuthorTract the entire book into one long and extremely dubious]] [[BrokenAesop aesop]] about how all religion is [[ReligionOfEvil completely eeeeeevil]]. The chosen 'god' of the crashed humans turns out to be [[NightmareFuel a creepy, creepy, clown]] [[{{Squick}} called Gobo]] used as a (very) heavy-handed metaphor for all religion.
** A specific example includes the fact that all followers of Gobo are forbidden from learning to read and write with the exception of one person who is only taught to write by his predecessor. Basically, knowledge is bad, Gobo is good.
* The main character of ''Literature/{{Julian}}'' feels that Christians are stupid quibblers, ignoring the fact that his Hellenistic religion is NotSoDifferent.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'': ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''
** Neelix starts questioning his faith after dying and being resuscitated, which showed him that [[TheNothingAfterDeath there is nothing after death]], instead of the Talaxian afterlife he expected. This, and the visions he saw of his sister telling him that what he believed was all a lie, [[DrivenToSuicide prompts him to decide he'll kill himself]] until Chakotay, the Native American believer in spirits in the afterlife, persuades Neelix that he still has things to live for despite what he saw when he was dead, and that he needs to have a stronger faith. This was written after lead writer Bryan Fuller had a [[CreatorBreakdown nervous break over his Catholic faith and the fact he finally realized that he was a gay man.]]
** Inverted in the episode where B'Elanna Torres encounters the Klingon afterlife. From an outsider's perspective it is only a {{near death experience}}, but B'Elanna's point of view and the nature of events imply [[ReligionIsRight she really went to Gre'thor, the Klingon hell]].

* Creator/JamesBranchCabell also played with this, asking whether it makes any difference whether the events in religious stories "really" happened. He also repeatedly opines that "a freethinker is bound to eventually question the central article of his own creed: that because something has satisfied generations of men, it must be untrue"; and raises the question of whether Christian theology is actually more implausible than other things we never question.[[note]]Most freethinkers would disagree that's the central tenet of their view, saying rather it's that beliefs should rest on evidence and be decided by reason. Some like Creator/BertrandRussell have said religious people can also be freethinkers if they use these to support their belief system (see [[https://infidels.org/library/modern/features/2000/lowder1.html here]]). A lot of early freethinkers were not atheists nor even agnostics, but deists, pantheists or liberal members of established religions.[[/note]]

* Creator/PhilipKDick loved to explore this topic, too. Religion is either mocked, played with or downright condemned in many of his novels.
** In Literature/DoAndroidsDreamOfElectricSheep this is partially subverted. When an expose says that the central miracle of "Mercerism" was staged, the "chickenhead" character suggests that this will not make any real difference. Not to mention the other "appearances" of Mercer to characters, leaving it uncertain just how much of a "fake" he is.
* Creator/JamesBranchCabell also played with this, asking whether it makes any difference whether the events in religious stories "really" happened. He also repeatedly opines that "a freethinker is bound to eventually question the central article of his own creed: that because something has satisfied generations of men, it must be untrue"; and raises the question of whether Christian theology is actually more implausible than other things we never question.

[[noreallife]] Creator/IsaacAsimov once said that most ScienceFiction is written by atheists. There are a number of notable exceptions,[[note]]including Creator/CSLewis, Creator/OrsonScottCard, Creator/CliffordSimak, Creator/GeneWolfe, and Creator/RayBradbury,[[/note]] and it might not be literally true, but SciFi probably has more atheist authors than other genres do. A lot of these writers insert this [[AuthorTract personal outlook]] into the story. Sometimes they just portray atheists as good and rationally thinking people. Sometimes they go further.

* Bill Williamson in ''Film/Rampage2009'' is an atheistic serial killer and [[WesternTerrorists left-wing radical domestic terrorist]] who believes that religion is a scam and a propaganda tool used by right-wingers to curb society, milk children and their parents for money from church attendance and a detriment to more pressing topics such as global warming and actual science.
* ''Film/KingdomOfHeaven'' equates religion with lunacy and fundamentalism; all sympathetic characters are secular-humanists while all the villainous characters are corrupt, EgocentricallyReligious. It's best shown at separate points with background characters such as [[NotSoDifferent a priest saying "To kill an infidel, is not murder; it is the path to Heaven" and a mullah preaching to "take no prisoners alive"]]. The heroes are devoted to defend the city's people regardless of their faith (which is really [[PoliticallyCorrectHistory out of place at the time of the Crusades]]) and the only character associated with the Church that is remotely heroic is the [[WarriorMonk Hospitaller]], who flat out admits "I don't put stock in religion". Even Saladin, who is presented as an AntiVillain despite being the final antagonist in the movie, doesn't appear to be very religious himself since Balian at one point threatens to destroy all holy places in Jerusalem to put an end to the religious madness, he snarks that it would probably be for the best (which is something the real one would never say). There is one minor exception with a bishop who laments that "Much is done in Christendom of which Christ would be incapable", but he was cut from the theatrical release.

[[noreallife]] Creator/IsaacAsimov once said that most ScienceFiction is written by atheists. There are a number of notable exceptions,[[note]]including Creator/CSLewis, Creator/OrsonScottCard, Creator/CliffordSimak, Creator/Gene Wolfe, and Creator/RayBradbury,[[/note]] and it might not be literally true, but SciFi probably has more atheist authors than other genres do. A lot of these writers insert this [[AuthorTract personal outlook]] into the story. Sometimes they just portray atheists as good and rationally thinking people. Sometimes they go further.

[[noreallife]] Creator/IsaacAsimov once said that most ScienceFiction is written by atheists. There are a number of notable exceptions,[[note]]including Creator/CSLewis, Creator/OrsonScottCard, Creator/CliffordSimak, and Creator/RayBradbury,[[/note]] and it might not be literally true, but SciFi probably has more atheist authors than other genres do. A lot of these writers insert this [[AuthorTract personal outlook]] into the story. Sometimes they just portray atheists as good and rationally thinking people. Sometimes they go further.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek''
** The ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Who Watches the Watchers" is [[AuthorTract easily most egregious example of this trope in the whole of the Star Trek franchise]]. In it, the ''Enterprise'' crew accidentally injures a member of a primitive society and take him back to the ship for treatment (by the by, both of these actions are in direct violation of the PrimeDirective). When he recovers consciousness and sees Picard, [[AssPull he decides the captain is God]] and manages to convince the rest of his people to worship him - at which point they promptly become [[TheFundamentalist destructive]]. Cue Picard and co. sitting in the observation lounge going "[[WesternAnimation/SouthPark Religion is bad. Don't follow a religion. 'Cos religion is bad.]]" Creator/GeneRoddenberry expected the episode to be controversial, but it had so little relevance to real world religion that no one cared. The attitudes in that episode have also [[CanonDiscontinuity never been repeated since]] in any other ''Star Trek'' work.
** ''Voyager'' also had an episode about Neelix questioning his faith after dying and being resuscitated, which showed him that [[TheNothingAfterDeath there is nothing after death]], instead of the Talaxian afterlife he expected. This, and the visions he saw of his sister telling him that what he believed was all a lie, [[DrivenToSuicide prompts him to decide he'll kill himself]] until Chakotay, the Native American believer in spirits in the afterlife, persuades Neelix that he still has things to live for despite what he saw when he was dead, and that he needs to have a stronger faith. This was written after lead writer Bryan Fuller had a [[CreatorBreakdown nervous break over his Catholic faith and the fact he finally realized that he was a gay man.]]

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'':
** An episode concerned a planet that was filled with corpses. The crew found one person who was not quite dead and revived him. It turned out that on his planet, people who are about to die are sent through a portal to the afterlife, and he was understandably distraught to find that it was actually sending them to another planet where they stayed dead. However, the episode had an ambiguous ending, where it's hinted that their afterlife ''does'' exist in the planet's rings, and the planet filled with corpses is probably just some kind of temporary holding space.

** Inverted in the episode where B'Elanna Torres encounters the Klingon afterlife. From an outsider's perspective it is only a {{near death experience}}, but B'Elanna's point of view and the nature of events imply she really went to Gre'thor, the Klingon hell.
* Many times in ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'':
** In "Return of the Archons," the people of Beta III are all zombies under the control of the omnipotent Landru. [[spoiler: Landru is a telepathic artificial intelligence that Kirk [[KirkSummation talks]] [[TalkingTheMonsterToDeath to death.]]]]
** In "For The World is Hollow and I have Touched The Sky," the people of the spaceship Yonada have forgotten they're in a spaceship and are ruled by an unforgiving Oracle that can deal out instant, painful death should anyone disobey. [[spoiler: The Oracle is also a computer, this time defeated when its head Priestess turns against it after [=McCoy=] convinces her she's wrong through ThePowerOfLove and common sense.]]
** In "The Apple," Kirk once again [[spoiler: destroys a civilization's computer god]].
** The most egregious example in the whole of ''Trek'' has to be the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Who Watches the Watchers". In it, the ''Enterprise'' crew accidentally injure a member of a primitive society and take him back to the ship for treatment. When he recovers consciousness and sees Picard, he decides the captain is God and manages to convince the rest of his people to worship him. Cue Picard and co. sitting in the observation lounge going "[[WesternAnimation/SouthPark Religion is bad. Don't follow a religion. 'Cos religion is bad.]]" Creator/GeneRoddenberry expected the episode to be controversial, but it had so little relevance to real world religion that no one cared. The attitudes in it have also [[CanonDiscontinuity never been repeated since]] in any other ''Star Trek'' work.