. And when religion is featured it’s spiritism/mysticism.
The creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, was a self described “humanist” who held a sort of nonreligious, spiritual, deist/theist view of God.
From his wiki article:
"Roddenberry was raised a Southern Baptist; however, as an adult, he rejected religion, and considered himself a humanist. He began questioning religion around the age of 14, and came to the conclusion that it was “nonsense”. As a child, he served in the choir at his local church, but often substituted lyrics as he sang hymns. Early in his writing career, he received an award from the American Baptist Convention for “skillfully writing Christian truth and the application of Christian principles into commercial, dramatic TV scripts”.
For several years, he corresponded with John M. Gunn of the National Council of Churches regarding the application of Christian teachings in television series. However, Gunn stopped replying after Roddenberry wrote in a letter: “But you must understand that I am a complete pagan, and consume enormous amounts of bread, having found the Word more spice than nourishment, so I am interested in a statement couched in dollars and cents of what this means to the Roddenberry treasury.”
Roddenberry said of Christianity, “How can I take seriously a God-image that requires that I prostrate myself every seven days and praise it? That sounds to me like a very insecure personality.” At one point, he worked a similar opinion, which was to have been stated by a Vulcan, into the plot for
Star Trek: The God Thing . Before his death, Roddenberry became close friends with philosopher Charles Musès, who said that Roddenberry’s views were “a far cry from atheism”. Roddenberry explained his position thusly: “It’s not true that I don’t believe in God. I believe in a kind of God. It’s just not other people’s God. I reject religion. I accept the notion of God.”
He had an ongoing interest in other people’s experiences with religion, and called Catholicism "a very beautiful religion. An art form." However, he said that he dismissed all organized religions, saying that for the most part, they acted like a “substitute brain… and a very malfunctioning one”. Roddenberry was also critical of how the public looked at certain religions, noting that when the King David Hotel bombing took place in 1946, the American public accepted it as the action of freedom fighters, whereas a car bombing by a Muslim in Beirut is condemned as a terrorist act. While he agreed that both parties were wrong in their use of violence, he said that the actions of both were undertaken because of their strong religious beliefs."
