That must have been during his heavy alcoholism period.
Kinda sorta, but (and I read Alan Dean Foster’s novelisation, but didn’t see the ep) IIRC the Megans told Kirk that Lucien was more properly called Lucifer, but that wouldn’t account for all Earth references to the Devil, since they were about the place in time to run into trouble in 1692 or whenever, but not all through Earth’s history. So the intention was to prejudice Kirk against Lucien, not to claim that Earth never had any other devil.
As to other religions, there was also a Voyager episode featuring Klingon Hell, with Torres visiting there in a near-death experience to redeem her mother or something like that.
Heck, I bet even now there’s quite a few people who have a secular (or rather capitalist) Christmas.
Interesting but then again that’s Braga doing the speaking – up to the reader if he’s recognized as Guardian of the True Word of the Great Bird. It does fit with what is known about the man Roddenberry, but one wonders about whether this was actually so directly advised to writers.
AFAIK the actual TOS “writer’s bibles” of the 60s merely told writers that no references were to be made to the state of religion or politics on Earth. Everything was kept ecumenical and nondenominational. The Enterprise has a chapel (Balance of Terror); “we need no more gods, the One is enough”, etc.
It would not surprise me if Roddenberry had overtly adopted the more direct “we have outgrown this” line by the time he started TNG. However let’s remember at this later time he also preached hard the “we have outgrown” line for money, capitalism, political power, etc., and eventually that had to be set aside. The “we have outgrown” line, at least in the economic/political realms, has become seen by a large fraction of fandom as vain utopianism at best , and at worst as GR flailing against what he saw as the direction society was moving in the Reagan 80s.
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And yes, how convenient that still many of the alien religions, and Chakotay’s mix of various forms of tribal animism, end up being shown as respectable and even valid (even if it gets technobabbled with an explanation of some sort of alien energy beings or internal mental process). Oh, no, it seems only the “establishment” human religions – or maybe just religions with actual commandments and moral dogmas, as opposed to mere “cosmic spirituality” – are supposed to have died off or been relegated to the category of quaint superstitions. :rolleyes: