History Main / ReligionIsWrong

* ''Literature/Area51'': Not entirely wrong necessarily, though it's revealed the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail are actually highly advanced technology made by aliens, not divine creations. It's speculated other events, such as those in ''[[Literature/BookOfExodus Exodus]]'' were also done by aliens, although not shown with certainty to be the case.

** The Chantry says that prayers aren't answered because of mankind's hubris. While a priest refused to bless a group of knights it was because what they were asking for wasn't a simple blessing, but a guarantee of divine protection, something she couldn't provide. The Templars are a lot more morally grey than their name implies, and overall, the game leaves the existence or nonexistence of [[{{God}} The Maker]] ambiguous. [[IncrediblyLamePun Word]] [[WordOfGod Of God]] is that they intend for it to stay that way.

* ''Film/TheInventionOfLying'' features religion as the first lie.

* BobShaw's ''Literature/TheRaggedAstronauts'' features twin planets and the cult claiming that all people reincarnate cycle between these two planets eternally. Then the characters make an expedition to the second planet. You can guess whether they find people there or not. Then the cult is reborn in ''Literature/TheWoodenSpaceships'', but with a distant planet of the same solar system. What happens then? You got the idea.
* This [[spoiler:literally]] happens in Clive Barker's play ''Theatre/TheHistoryOfTheDevil''.

* In Literature/TheSpaceOdysseySeries by Creator/ArthurCClarke, the idea of God apparently comes from the Monolith, specifically the version that uplifted hominids into humanity. In ''3001'', humanity has finally discovered this Monolith (dubbed TMA-0), and traditional religion comes to an end. Curiously, though, many people are still either [[UsefulNotes/{{Deism}} deists]] (believing in not less than one god) or theists (believing in not more than one).
** Also in Literature/ChildhoodsEnd the Overlords give humanity a device to see events in the past, which causes the collapse of all religions (except a very intellectual form of Buddhism).
* Creator/PhilipKDick loved to explore this topic, too. Religion is either mocked, played with or downright condemned in many of his novels. However, 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. Dick also wrote some stories in which a religion is explicitly true (and obviously so). His personal views seem to have been sort of religious, though not traditionally so.
* 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.

* ''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.]]

*** Cat is so self-centered that if he even considers the idea of God worth bothering with, he's convinced that ''he'' is God. Lister both dislikes the idea that he was deified, is perfectly aware of the fact he is not even remotely divine, and has personal habits that would make any faithful religious person disown the very thought he could actually be their god.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' has often gone here. One notable example is "The Face of Evil", where the Doctor knows first hand that the religion the people of the planet he's visiting is wrong because he's the one who's inadvertently responsible for it; a spaceship AI he thought he'd fixed has gone a bit mad and set itself up as a God and presented the Doctor as 'the Evil One' in response.
** Zigzagged other times in both the TV series and expanded universe. The Eternals are [[CompleteImmortality completely immortal,]] [[RealityWarper warp reality]], travel through space and time at will, and have masqueraded as gods on different worlds. A few are said to represent cosmic principles such as Time or Pain. The Olympian gods have been portrayed as real and godlike in the Expanded Universe. The episode "The Satan Pit" featured a creature who claimed to have existed before the universe and been the inspiration for many of the demonic figures in religions across the universe, including Satan. The Doctor at one point referred to it as "The Devil."
* ''Series/BabylonFive'' provides an interesting subversion, especially since its creator, J. Michael Straczynski, is an outspoken atheist himself. Religions and religious persons of various faiths, both human and alien, real life and fictitious, play important and positive roles. While no actual answer is provided as to whether religions are themselves right or wrong, religious faiths of various characters are certainly very real and sincere and provide important plot elements.
** A few episodes imply certain religious are correct or at least not all superstitions. The episode "Day of the Dead" had an alien religious festival where the dead could communicate with the living. Many of the characters received visitations from the departed and the station personnel were unable to cross into zones designated for the festival. Attempts were made to rationalize it at the end, but none made much sense or were dismissed. The Minbari's belief in souls is shown to be correct, including that they reincarnate. The souls could even be seen by some, and even collected. A direct DVD release episode featured a being claiming to be the demon Asmodeus which said God had trapped his kind on Earth. In the end, the only known way to remove him was a spiritual exorcism while on Earth to trap him again. The priest sent to study the case commented on how the lack of finding God among the stars and scientific advancements had made religion almost irrelevant.
* It's mentioned in the PilotEpisode of ''Series/TheGoodPlace'' that all major religions are only about five percent accurate in their conception of the afterlife. The closest person to the truth was a stoner named Doug Forcett who got really high on mushrooms and made a guess that was ninety-three percent accurate.
* In the first episode of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Giles says "The Earth is older than any of you know, and contrary to popular mythology, it did not begin as a paradise". That said, while God's existence is left unknown, they show that Heaven exists, along with Hell and myriad demons, which fits into many religion's beliefs.
* ''Series/TheOrville'': Every time a religion makes verifiable claims thus far in the series, it's proven they're wrong.

* ''VideoGame/DeusExInvisibleWar'' makes this one of its major themes in a glaring change from its predecessor, ''VideoGame/DeusEx.'' In ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', religion and spirituality were themes that ran parallel to the setting and plot, but never outright stated to be either "right" or "wrong." In ''Invisible War'', however, all religion is subsumed into The Order, and The Order is [[spoiler: merely a system of control for the Illuminati]]. The player is given the chance to break the news to an Order member, with predictable results.\\

** As an example on how religion is treated in the first game, Morpheus (an A.I. [[spoiler: prototype of a global surveillance system]] developed by a surviving Knights Templar) claims that God is not only man-made but made out of a desire to be observed. Morpheus believes humans feel pleasure when they're watched, so he concludes religion was invented to give this pleasure. [[PlayerCharacter JC Denton]], however, disagrees and argues with Morpheus on the matter ("Electronic surveillance hardly inspires reverence. Perhaps fear and obedience, but not reverence").\\
\\
While Morpheus is never proven "right" or "wrong" about religion, he ''does'' foreshadow plot details with the conversation. Later on, JC Denton is given the option to reject [[spoiler: Helios']] desire to play God.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' is either an aversion or a subversion. The Chantry says that prayers aren't answered because of mankind's hubris. While a priest refused to bless a group of knights it was because what they were asking for wasn't a simple blessing, but a guarantee of divine protection, something she couldn't provide. The Templars are a lot more morally grey than their name implies, and overall, the game leaves the existence or nonexistence of [[{{God}} The Maker]] ambiguous. [[IncrediblyLamePun Word]] [[WordOfGod Of God]] is that they intend for it to stay that way.

** The cult formed around Harold, a ghoul who has turned into a large tree. The cult in the Oasis worship him as a god and blithely ignore and over-interpret his protests to the contrary. If the player character finishes the relevant quest by killing Harold (which is what he ''wants'') the cult more-or-less thank you for freeing them from their religion, and are suddenly able to see that Harold wasn't a god after all.
** However if you choose to spare Harold the cult tones down their religion and Harold finds reason to want to live again.

** However there is a benevolent Christian church in Rivet City, which the player can choose to attend, and the game's ArcWords are a Bible verse which the player's father states was a favorite of their mother.
*** Averted with the other VideoGame/{{Fallout}} games, namely the Followers of the Apocalypse and the Mormons, now called New Caananites.
* In ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'', activating the Halo Array will not [[AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascend the Covenant to godhood]] but wipe out [[ApocalypseHow all life in the Galaxy]].

* In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' the players find themselves at the temple of the Asari goddess, Athame. Although most Asari are pantheists anyway, most probably think it was [[OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions simple superstition.]] However if the player brings the teammember of the [[{{Precursors}} Prothean race]] along with them, he deconstructs all their myths: it was them every time. Goddess protected you when "the heavens grew angry?" Prothean-deflected meteor strike. Drove away "jealous gods?" Invasive species. Abundance from on-high? Averted famine, and so on. It is somewhat questionable how true the details are; the Protheans were definitely involved in some way, but Javik also has a habit of lying and {{troll}}ing for his own amusement.
* ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'': The 'gods' of this setting are just highly advanced AI that were tasked with helping humanity AfterTheEnd, but something went horribly wrong and they've been separated from contact with humans for centuries. Nora religion prays to the All-Mother, who is actually their fragmented memory of the caretakers [[spoiler:of the bunker their ancestors were born in, seeing as how androids don't exactly age for a few centuries the colonist children assumed they were immortal]]. Carja just prays to the sun, [[spoiler:but their religion is based on a scientific cosmology book, meaning they've developed a religion based on science and don't realize it]]. It gets disturbingly jarring when you find out that the local human sacrifice altar is [[spoiler:a NASA launch pad built for sending colonists to another planet in wake of the plague]], meaning that the Carja have sacrificed thousands of people in a ruin that was once dedicated to preserving human life, not butchering it with gladiatorial combat.

* Generally speaking, ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' tends to parody the concept of organized religion. For example, in one episode, Homer proves that God does not exist mathematically. Flanders destroys the evidence. However, it's much vaguer in most cases as Homer actually gets to meet the Big Man Upstairs on a few occasions, though it's usually in a DreamSequence.

* In ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'', TokenEvilTeammate Lae'zel is a member of the race of ScaryDogmaticAliens known as the githyanki, and a fanatic supporter of their GodEmpress. In Part II she learns that said empress [[TheUsurper is a fraud]], but she's so deep in denial that she sees [[spoiler:[[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness her attempt on her life]]]] as a test of faith and initially there's nothing the PlayerCharacter can say to talk sense into her. [[spoiler:When Empress Vlaakith reappears in Act III with more empty promises, the PlayerCharacter can convince Lae'zel to finally turn her back on her after two Persuasion/Intimidation checks.]]

* In ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'', TokenEvilTeammate Lae'zel is a member of the race of ScaryDogmaticAliens known as the githyanki, and a fanatic supporter of their GodEmpress. In Part II she learns that said empress [[TheUsurper is a fraud]], but she's so deep in denial that she sees [[spoiler:[[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness her attempt on her life]]]] as a test of faith and there's nothing the PlayerCharacter can say to talk sense into her.