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Basic Trope: An advanced civilization abandons religion as outdated.

  • Straight: A highly advanced civilization considers religion to be a quaint relic of the past.
  • Exaggerated:
    • In an advanced civilization, people have all but forgotten that religion ever existed.
    • Everyone in the civilization becomes a radical Hollywood Atheist. Religion is outlawed and worshipping any deity can get you imprisoned or even killed.
  • Downplayed:
    • Religion still exists in a highly advanced civilization, but since faith is seen as a more personal thing, open displays of belief are rare.
    • The gods demonstrably exist, but the civilization keeps them at arm's length, and is advanced enough to get away with it.
  • Justified:
    • The advent of space travel, along with several other social factors, eroded religion to nothingness in this advanced civilization.
    • The advance civilization is run by Dirty Commies.
    • Thanks to the new advanced alien life forms, the notions of gods, even creator deities, seems irrelevant.
    • All copies of religious text were destroyed, making religion impossible.
    • Being able to view the distant past with technology allowed for outright disproving of supposed origins of all known religions.
  • Inverted:
    • The advanced civilization is more deeply spiritual than we are now.
    • The advanced civilization considers disbelief in religion to be quaint and unreasonable.
    • Being able to view the distant past with technology surprisingly revealed religions were literally true.
  • Subverted:
    • An advanced civilization considers religion to be a quaint relic of the past. Something else begs to differ.
    • Alternately, we find out that our modern religions are regarded as superstitions by the civilization... but they have their own religion(s) to take its place.
    • "We've outgrown those silly superstitions. Now we all know that Xenu is the true god."
    • A previously atheistic society is destroyed in a violent cataclysm. In the aftermath, the survivors revive old religions and create new ones out of a popular belief that the disaster is a punishment from the gods for abandoning them.
    • Somebody discovers a long-forgotten religious text. He reads it, becomes engrossed with it, and begins preaching its tenets in public. This leads to a massive religious revival.
    • The advanced civilization starts out as advanced, but a religious time traveler talks to them about their lord and savior Cthulu.
    • The future society, at first, seems to be incredibly enlightened and modern. And then it turns out the denizens practice ritual sacrifice.
  • Double Subverted:
  • Parodied:
  • Zig Zagged:
  • Averted: Religion is about as common in the work as it is in reality.
  • Enforced:
  • Lampshaded: "Just as the sci-fi writers of old suspected, religion has no place in a truly modern society."
  • Invoked: A charismatic leader took over the world, and the changes made include indoctrination against religion.
  • Exploited: "Hello! I am Glugga, an alien from another planet. I came here after learning that your society has no religion. May I have a few moments of your time to tell you about our lord and savior Yog Sothoth?"
  • Defied: "Humans have been worshiping in some shape or form for millennia. Space travel, cloning technology, meeting aliens; these might change the practices, but not the basic fact of it."
  • Discussed: "I can't believe how much has changed since I was last alive! What has become of all the cars? Of all the churches? Of all the bacon cheeseburgers?"
  • Conversed: "A lot of sci-fi assumes religion can't stand against scientific progress forever, doesn't it?"
  • Deconstructed:
    • Old superpositions are replaced by new superstitions which the 'advanced society' claims are different somehow.
    • Science replaces superstition or religion; scientists are the new saints etc.
    • They may have 'outgrown such silly superstitions' as (theistic) religion, but that does absolutely nothing to eliminate fundamentalism, or stop them from doing things they would object to if done by cultures that still have religion such as going out and forcibly 'advancing' other cultures. Being athiest does not make society any better. The ruler of the society is still capable of fanaticism and violence, albeit in the name of ideology rather than religion.
    • The founders of the civilization were highly religious, preaching on themes like justice, mercy, peace, and self-control, and that religion acted as a moral guide to the people. Centuries later, as religion has become more and more rare, things go downhill very quickly without that moral guide as many people become violent, selfish, corrupt, and hedonistic seculars who mock the pious and faithful, causing the advanced civilization to be destroyed in hubris.
    • The character who insists they outgrew the silly superstitions of religion is a jackass with Irrational Hatred, plain and simple. You would think that someone who is allegedly beyond (and thus against) the teachings of texts that occasionally spouse being hostile to those who don't follow them would give credence to the concept of "live and let live".
    • The society is a totalitarian state that imposes atheism on the population through persecution, torture, and the destruction of religious sites and artifacts. The despot hectors about avoiding superstition in the name of progress while building a fanatical Cult of Personality centered around himself as the de facto religion.
  • Reconstructed:
    • People with a grasp on logic successfully call out society on how hypocritical and lacking in common sense favoring some superstitions over others is.
    • Realizing how even geniuses have their flaws, people continue respecting scientists while holding them to the same standards they do for the rest of humanity.
    • The "Advanced civilization" deduces that while "forced modernization" is usually unfair, it is sometimes necessary: one shouldn't mind a primitive religious tribe whose folk live comfortably without hurting innocents, but something needs to be done about superstitious folk who throw in the fire innocents whose "crime" is merely being different / available for a forced sacrifice.

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