10 Times Star Trek Showed Us That There Is A Chance At A Progressive Future
7. Send Them Back Into The Dark Ages Of Superstition And Ignorance And Fear? No.
Star Trek had a complicated history with religion. Gene Roddenberry was firmly a secular humanist and did not want religion to exist in the future. At least, not in Starfleet's future. While Ronald D Moore stated that this view was not shared by all of the writing team, few dared to tread on Roddenberry's toes in this topic.
Who Watches The Watchers? from The Next Generation's third season truly doubles down on this. Picard is accicentally established as a God figure to the Mintakan people, while he vehemently abhors. In an impassioned speech, he denounces the 'dark ages' of religion, refusing to condemn these people to a fear of the clouds in the sky.
While Star Trek would not shy away from religion forever (Deep Space Nine and Discovery are notable examples here), it often depicted religion as a symptom of ignorance.
Michael Chabon, the show-runner for Star Trek: Picard's first season, commented on being asked about certain religions being missing from Star Trek. He felt that the absence of, for example, Jews from Star Trek was not notable in itself, but part of the greater effort to have a secular universe.
As humanity evolves, religions comes in waves, with some lasting millennia while others filter out. Roddenberry's view of a future without any may be prophetic, or simply the hope of a man burned by the failings of religion as he saw them.