I read a story many years ago. I think it’s fairly well-known, and it might have been written by Asimov.
It’s about a race of intelligent creatures on another planet. They live in peace and harmony, and they live by reason, completely devoid of any kind of religious beliefs. Suddenly they are visited by some missionaries from Earth, who give them the great gift of religion - which, of course, promptly destroys their society.
Obviously it’s a metaphor for so many similar occurrences on our own planet.
It sounds vaguely like “A Case of Conscience” by James Blish that I read a long time ago. There is a race of atheistic, rational fish-like people and the humans show up. They don’t exactly bring religion but there’s a mad scientist character who wants to mine the place for Uranium or something. He ends up blowing the whole planet up. There is a strong religious tone to the whole story though. The idea seemed to be that the place had to be destroyed because it represented a temptation to the humans to move away from religious myths. It was a kind of rationalist “eden”, if you will.
Hmmm, I don’t remember anything about a mad scientist, or mining, and I’m positive the planet wasn’t blown up. The race wasn’t destroyed literally - life went on, but it was totally changed, for the worse.
Possibly “The Streets of Ashkelon” by Harry Harrison. I can’f lay my hands on a book with that story in it right at the moment, but it involves a Christian priest who converts non-religious aliens to Christianity.
I thought of the Streets of Ashkelon too. In that, there is a trader already on the planet when the missionary arrives. The missionary tells the aliens there is a god and the trader tells them there isn’t, so the aliens demand proof.
When I read the OP, I thought I knew which story panache wanted. Only I couldn’t remember who wrote it, or what the title was or when I read it myself. So I had to bookmark this thread so I’d rememebr to come back to it and maybe someone would fill in the rather sizable gaps in my memory.
“The Streets of Askelon” was the story I was thinking about. Whether or not it helps the OP. Now I can sleep just a little bit easier without that lost bit of trivia hanging over my head.
